ASUS P8H67-M PRO/CSM Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The Intel H67 chipset is a single-chip solution which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip supports two SATA-600 ports and four SATA-300 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). These ports are located at one of the corners of the motherboard, and the installation of a long add-on video card
in the second PCI Express x16 slot (black) will block the two SATA-600 ports.

Figure 5: SATA-600 (gray) and SATA-300 (blue) ports

The product has one ATA-133 port, controlled by a VIA VT6415 chip.

This motherboard has 14 USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and 10 available through five headers located on the motherboard. It also supports two USB 3.0 ports, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1042 chip.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC892 codec. The specifications for this chip include 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, and 24-bit resolution. These specifications are good for the mainstream user, but if you are looking into working professionally with audio editing, you should look for a motherboard that provides an SNR of at least 97 dB for the analog input.

This motherboard has independent 7.1 analog audio outputs, meaning that you won’t need to use the “line in” or “mic in” jacks when installing a set of analog 7.1 speakers. The motherboard has an on-board optical SPDIF output, and you can add a coaxial SPDIF output by installing an adapter on the available “SPDIF_OUT” header.

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E chip.

In Figure 6, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with PS/2 keyboard and mouse shared connector, four USB 2.0 ports, optical SPDIF output, HDMI output, VGA output, DVI-D output, two USB 3.0 ports (blue connectors), Gigabit Ethernet port, and independent 7.1 analog audio jacks.

Figure 6: Motherboard rear panel