abit IP-35 PRO initial impressions

[gilgamesh]

My Initial Impression of the IP-35 PRO mainboard by abit

NOTE: This is NOT a review, rather it is my initial impression from a single day playing about with the board. A full review will be available ONCE I have understood the board fully.


Ok first is a set of photos that I took using my dodgy camera from my mobile phone.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/71909665@N00/

The above is a link to a complete set of pics taken of the board.

Note the HSF and the heat-pipes are NOT Copper but rather of the faux copper type that plagued the IN932MAX. The good old north/pwm heatsink 'scratch test' prooved that indeed this is the case.

I find no serious fault with the board layout. It looks to be much the same as the QUADGT design however this board has right-angled SATA connectors.

Apon installing the board itsself the board turned out to be quite nippy, beating the more expensive IN932MAX by a whole two seconds on the 1M-Super Pi results test.

I like the fact that the GTL regsiters can be tweaked to increase the overclocking results with this board (of this I am trying to get to grips with now)

I am aware that I should not really compare the IN932MAX with the ip35-pro as they are two totally different chipsets. However consider this

1 price point IN932MAX =£176 at scan and £218 still in some places, the IP35-PRO is £125 and the IP35 is a faster board AND runs cooler to boot!

") The sound card is of much much higher quality on the in932max. Also that the in932max has SLI! This could be a deciding factor for some.

However if you dont use onbaord sound and SLI is not needed, then I fail to see why the IP-35 pro shouldnt be your first point of call.

Note you may note by the images posted that the ip35-pro no longer has the DIGITAL controller chip underneath the pwms. THIS is why the board does not run as hot as other boards.

I can not help but notice the BIOS seems a little basic on this board, however that can be a good thing also.

Overclocking seems to be a very easy thin g to do 3.7 at 1.42 vcore ( on a QUADCORE 6600) is EASILY dooable, however I am havin g trouble in getting past this stage with a stab le result and will be liasing with abit on this matter. I beleive the fault lies with myself and not knowing enough about the GTL reg settings.

However I cant help the feeling that this board is a stop-gap until the REAL might of the X38 when it is due out in September. However we will see in due course.

Note: I still have alot of testing to do with this board and along way to go in getting to grips with it. However if anyone has already purchased this board, please PM or a general post to myself if you have any issues and I will try to help.

So far in what I have had time to test, this board looks set to win a few awards.


THose still in doubt please await my review.

Gilgamesh

[gilgamesh]

also the windows uguru software reports the cpu on a quad core (watercooled ofcourse) at 27c while 'coretemp' reports the core 1 temp as 35c

A big difference there.

gilgamesh

[Nelly.]

Looking good should recieve mine tommorow, just out of interest which ram you running with this board?

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

") The sound card is of much much higher quality on the in932max.

afaik they both use the same Realtek 888 codec?

[gilgamesh]

Originally Posted by BUFF

afaik they both use the same Realtek 888 codec?

yep but on hte in932max it outputs to DTS on the ip35 pro it does not.

gilgamesh

[gilgamesh]

Originally Posted by Nelly.

Looking good should recieve mine tommorow, just out of interest which ram you running with this board?

At the moment I am using corsair XMS2 DDR2800 SLI mem @ 4-4-4-12


GILGAMESH

[Dreaming]

Question:

I am expecting mine soon but have an IDE CD Drive. Is the IDE controller very rubbish? I know it's too soon to tell, but apparently with the 965 chipset they were really bad (JMicron add on). All it needs to do is be able to run a single CD drive .

[gilgamesh]

Originally Posted by Dreaming

Question:

I am expecting mine soon but have an IDE CD Drive. Is the IDE controller very rubbish? I know it's too soon to tell, but apparently with the 965 chipset they were really bad (JMicron add on). All it needs to do is be able to run a single CD drive .

Still uses a jmicron contoller im afraid.

gilgamesh

[cartman]

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

yep but on hte in932max it outputs to DTS on the ip35 pro it does not.

gilgamesh

what the hell is wrong with DTS !???

[gilgamesh]

Originally Posted by cartman

what the hell is wrong with DTS !???

I never said ANYTHING was wrong with DTS.

If you re-read the post, I said there was a slight difference IN932MAX outputs to DTS whilst the IP35-PRO does not.

gilgamesh

[d3fiant]

I was under the impression the issues with the JMicron controller have been fixed with recent bios versions, certainly was the case with the AB9 Pro

[BUFF]

it's still a crappy solution though even when it's working

[d3fiant]

have to admit its turned off on my mobo, I bought a £20 SATA optical drive, problem solved

[Agent]

The JMicron largely works ok now, but its still not the best solution.

<hugs his old serialO2>