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