wich is better Abit ip35 pro or ab9 Pro

[mayhem]

Well i dunno if i should be annoyed and ill explain why after.

But can any one answer a simple question , wich is better the abit AB9 pro or the Abit ip35 Pro.

Simply i won a Abit Ip35 Pro in a compo and instead they delivered a Ab9 Pro. The First problem is it only seems to be DDR 800 and what is more annoying is the AB9 Pro only has a single PCI-E card. which is a right pain in the ass as i pre brought 2 x gfxs card for it.

So which is better and should i complain cos i feel a little miffed that i did'nt get what i was supposed to get and what i pre bought stuff for..

[BUFF]

IP35 Pro is better but not by much.
Both the 965 & P35 chipsets only officially support DDR2 800 max according to Intel albeit both will run RAM faster if set up to do so.

[Webby]

P35 chipset is better I would complain! Not only that the south bridge is better as well!

Then again I would probably sell it and buy either a P45 or X38/X48 board. Crossfire (I assume you were going to crossfire not just use 2 cards for say 3 monitor support) performance really doesn't like the 4x lane the P35 provides for the second card. P45 is better as that is duel 8x PCIe2 then X38/48 are better still as they offer duel 16x PCIe2.

You could of course go for AMD instead and go for the 790FX or GX both offer duel 16x PCIe2 as well.

[Thorsson]

Depends what you're going to do. IMO if you want to stick in a Q6600, 4Gb of DDR-800 and one GFX card, then the IP35 Pro is a better board (for the money) than anything with a P45/X38/X48 chip, all of which are less mature chipsets and appear to have more issues.

[Blitzen]

2 graphics card in an IP35Pro would be a waste tbh anyway.
The second lane only runs at 8x (or 4x...cant remember now) compared with the first lane 16x.

If you want crossfire then X38/X48 are the ways forward.

Depends what you're going to do. IMO if you want to stick in a Q6600, 4Gb of DDR-800 and one GFX card, then the IP35 Pro is a better board (for the money) than anything with a P45/X38/X48 chip, all of which are less mature chipsets and appear to have more issues.

Sorry but i dont agree with that.
I have the iX38 QuadGT, and although some report issues with it, mine has been great for about 9 months now.
I definitely wouldnt swap it for a IP35 either. This board does everything the IP35 does and morel.

[Webby]

Blitzen, as I said previously P35 offers only 4x which makes it awful for crossfire. X38/X48 are certainly the preferred option but x38 are becoming rare (Scan have none) and x48 are quite expensive still (Scan start from ~£140) So a decent P45 board with its duel 8x PCIe 2 would be the more cost effective option although you would still sacrifice some performance it would be nowhere near that of the P35 loses.

[Blitzen]

Blitzen, as I said previously P35 offers only 4x which makes it awful for crossfire. X38/X48 are certainly the preferred option but x38 are becoming rare (Scan have none) and x48 are quite expensive still (Scan start from ~£140) So a decent P45 board with its duel 8x PCIe 2 would be the more cost effective option although you would still sacrifice some performance it would be nowhere near that of the P35 loses.

The site that 'Shall Not Be Named' still has the Maximus. All the QuadGt's are gone from everywhere now though.
The prices have held really well on them aswell. When i get around to selling mine, i expect i will get a really good price for it

[Thorsson]

Yes, for Xfire. I said specifically for one GFX card. And I stand by my view that for a Q6600, 4Gb DDR2-800 and a single GFX card, a P35 is the best bang per buck. It also has lower reported problems than the other chipsets.

[Webby]

Oh for sure you can still find X38 boards around but the selection if far from extensive now, and in most cases the X48 boards are not that much more expensive. A while back (maybe a month ago) you could get a decent X38 board for £110 and at that price if you fancied crossfire it was the way to go in my opinion. Today if crossfire was on the cards I would be tempted by a P45 board because of the up to £60 saving over X48 (£140 X48, £80 P45).

Actually I would be tempted to move to AMD, will have to wait and see what the Phenom II (Deneb core) are like and price as well. With the desirable Intel quads being expensive now (Q6600 £150 on Scan, and I can see no benefit in the 45nm line until you get to the Q9450 (£240) multis are to low and reduced cahce at which point i7 looks a more attractive prospect) if AMD can carry over the 35% increase in performance seen on the shanghai chips and price it right they may be onto a winner at least in price/performance terms, I guess only time will tell!

Edit: Thorsson, the OP states that they have 2x GFX cards (and an Intel chipset) so the crossfire aspect is very relevant in this debate.

[Clunk]

http://forums.hexus.net/1516150-post5.html

[Thorsson]

Oops, I missed the 2 Gfx card bit. Not a great decision IMO.