abit IP35-Pro: Houston, We Have a Winner
by Gary Key on November 1, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Thoughts
We are quite pleased with the performance of the abit IP35-Pro board. Our expectations were set high after seeing an early sample in action at Computex 2007. We listened intently to everyone from engineering to marketing harping about the change of direction in product quality, engineering support, and industrial design that abit was introducing with their P35 lineup. We bought into the hype before and were certainly disappointed with the P965 product launches. We even started to write off abit after the delays of their P35 product - it was not even near being market ready at a time when Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS were already shipping products in volume.
When the IP35 series finally started shipping, it was met with enthusiasm from users and an almost universal acceptance as a group of products that offered the right balance of features, performance, and support for the price. We initially had some growing pains with the BIOS and 4GB memory support, not to mention an overindulgence of Vdroop when overclocking Intel's latest and greatest quad core processors. Other minor problems such as the heat pipe system not fitting firmly on the MCH and PWM areas had us a little scared also.
We kept looking for problems - or rather, we kept expecting problems to show up as they had on previous products. However, the more we used the board, the more we became enamored of it. It was not any single feature (although the excellent µGuru technology does stand out in the crowd) that eventually won us over but the combination of several features and renewed commitment to support that had us eventually singing praises for this board.
With praises come accolades, and AnandTech is proud to present the Gold Editors Choice to the abit IP35-Pro. abit has come a long way in the last two years and the result is an exceptionally stable motherboard, full of useful features, along with being one of the most consistent performing products we have tested recently. abit's µGuru technology clearly stands out as the best platform tuning and monitoring tool currently offered by any motherboard manufacturer; it sets the standard that other brands would do well to emulate. Except for µGuru, there is not a single feature on the board that really stands out from the crowd. However, every feature that abit has included on the IP35-Pro along with the board layout, color selection, BIOS design, accessories, support, and consistent performance certainly leads us to believe the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in this case.
Not all is perfect, however; we still need to nag about the Vdroop exceeding that of other board manufacturers when overclocking quad cores, but how much that really matters is clearly debatable depending upon your overclocking objectives. We are still not pleased with overclocking when utilizing 4GB of memory and exceeding DDR2-1100 speeds. Overall, the positives of the board greatly outweigh the negatives, and while we have expressed these concerns to abit, the IP35-Pro remains one of our favorite P35 boards.
With that said, abit is launching their IX38 QuadGT board shortly and potentially its greatest competition will at first will be the IP35-Pro. We just hope that abit does not overlook the continued need for first tier support on this board, especially with Yorkfield and Wolfdale launching shortly. The P35 chipset still has a lot of life left in it and is certainly our choice at this time for most Intel users. We congratulate abit on getting back up to speed with its product designs and look forward to reviewing the IX38 QuadGT. However, we need to warn abit as we now have higher expectations after seeing the results of the IP35-Pro. In the meantime, we have a winner.
We are quite pleased with the performance of the abit IP35-Pro board. Our expectations were set high after seeing an early sample in action at Computex 2007. We listened intently to everyone from engineering to marketing harping about the change of direction in product quality, engineering support, and industrial design that abit was introducing with their P35 lineup. We bought into the hype before and were certainly disappointed with the P965 product launches. We even started to write off abit after the delays of their P35 product - it was not even near being market ready at a time when Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS were already shipping products in volume.
When the IP35 series finally started shipping, it was met with enthusiasm from users and an almost universal acceptance as a group of products that offered the right balance of features, performance, and support for the price. We initially had some growing pains with the BIOS and 4GB memory support, not to mention an overindulgence of Vdroop when overclocking Intel's latest and greatest quad core processors. Other minor problems such as the heat pipe system not fitting firmly on the MCH and PWM areas had us a little scared also.
We kept looking for problems - or rather, we kept expecting problems to show up as they had on previous products. However, the more we used the board, the more we became enamored of it. It was not any single feature (although the excellent µGuru technology does stand out in the crowd) that eventually won us over but the combination of several features and renewed commitment to support that had us eventually singing praises for this board.
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Not all is perfect, however; we still need to nag about the Vdroop exceeding that of other board manufacturers when overclocking quad cores, but how much that really matters is clearly debatable depending upon your overclocking objectives. We are still not pleased with overclocking when utilizing 4GB of memory and exceeding DDR2-1100 speeds. Overall, the positives of the board greatly outweigh the negatives, and while we have expressed these concerns to abit, the IP35-Pro remains one of our favorite P35 boards.
With that said, abit is launching their IX38 QuadGT board shortly and potentially its greatest competition will at first will be the IP35-Pro. We just hope that abit does not overlook the continued need for first tier support on this board, especially with Yorkfield and Wolfdale launching shortly. The P35 chipset still has a lot of life left in it and is certainly our choice at this time for most Intel users. We congratulate abit on getting back up to speed with its product designs and look forward to reviewing the IX38 QuadGT. However, we need to warn abit as we now have higher expectations after seeing the results of the IP35-Pro. In the meantime, we have a winner.
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Odeen - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
In this day and age, PCI LAN = fail.Dual PCI LAN = double fail.
Realtek ANYTHING does not belong on a board that advertises itself as a "Pro"
Whatever happened to the good old days where the south bridge had a MAC that just needed a PHY to have a network connection that was completely independent of other external buses? I know the ATI/AMD RD600 doesn't have a MAC and requires an external network adapter, the ICH9 has a gigabit MAC, and requires merely an Intel 82566 PHY chip to have a gigabit Ethernet connection.
For that matter, who here uses dual NICs? Please raise your hands and tell me what you use them for. Seems like a waste of power to use a computer for internet connection sharing, in the day and age of $25 wireless routers....
Mekreluk - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
Right, so let me get this right.You give the IP35-Pro a gold award, and the DFI P35-TR2 a silver award?
The IP35-Pro had bigger vDroop, reaches a lower FSB with a Quad and scores a mark above the DFI?
I'm not disputing that it's a good board, after all it's cheaper than the DFI and has uGuru but these motherboards are for enthusiasts. The users who chuck the most expensive, best performing hardware into their online carts without a second thought.
So, I'm thinking a Vauxhall Zafira should score more than a Lotus Elise because hey! It's slower, costs less and can fit 7 people in it.
Add to that the fact the DFI P35 review walks all over the IP35-Pro one as it's also a more in depth guide into it's overclocking with the GTLREF settings etc.
yyrkoon - Friday, November 2, 2007 - link
It has been said that the vdroop on these boards is associated with inexperienced users *not* using a different 12v rail for the 4 pin PCIe AUX power connection. The only vdroop I had with my IP35-E and E6550 @ 3.33Ghz was a very small MCH vdroop, which was easily corrected in the BIOS by bumping the MCH voltage up one notch. I am also using a Power supply that is known to work well with the IP35 series.The award for this board is well warranted in my opinion, and I cannot help but wonder exactly how stable that DFI PoS is, and how easy it is to setup. I could care less if it runs at a slightly higher external clock if it is not stable, or is extremely hard to set up. ANYONE with half a brain can setup the IP35 boards with a reasonable OC in about 1 minute, and these boards work 100% out of the box the way they are intended, and are dahmed stable(meaning I have not experienced a single BSoD, or crash since this board made it into my system).
As for the 'bad' ethernet performance, ANYONE who is serious about their ethernet performance is going to be using either an Intel Pro 1000 desktop adapter, or an Intel pro 1000 server adapter, and not some PoS onboard ethernet. As for why dual ports ? Maybe someone wants to run their desktop on multiple subnets ? Ive done it before . . . it can be great for remote booting. Now tying the GbE port(s) to the PCI bus is a serious no no, I will agree with that.
Let me guess . ..you own said DFI P35-TR2 board ? If you like it, fine use it , be happy and quite whining about some review that is 'dis'n' your motherboard . . . and go wonder how serious overclockers on the ABIT forums have hit 4Ghz + with their E6600's on this board.
Mekreluk - Sunday, November 4, 2007 - link
I didn't say the board doesn't warrant the review score, as I said, I know it's a good board but there are users on XS who have gotten a higher clock out of the P35-T2R after migrating from the IP35-Pro.How stable the DFI is? Very stable, it's been described as rock stable by C-N, BrotherEsau, Solarfall who are 3 regular posters in the thread over at XS. I didn't actually own the P35-TR2 when I posted my comment before, I don't actually currently have a PC due to having my PC343B custom modified for a dual water cooling loop. I made my observation on real end user experiences with the board. I've since received my DFI board though.
Bozo Galora - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
First of all, these AT mobo reviews are always way late, with endless forum posts by Mr. Key about hourly "bios updates" being emailed to him by manuf. Can't they test their own boards - why do they need a reviewer to spot a bug? Abit doesnt know about Vdroop??? Dont they test firewire thruput?I'm sick of motherboards that work 90%.
And I dont want to hear about buggered up bios for months - when you get a "bought in store" retail board, then review it, other than that, stifle yourself.
You practically sleep with these guys - where's your objectivity? Its not your job to help them bring out a working board. I mean, like they need Gary Key for input - what are THEIR engineers doing all this time?
And why is it after all these years that mobo makers still cannot create a lousy <1MB bios that works right out of the gate.
They are still shoving crap out the door and hoping it flies - eventually.
I say Gary Key must go - get someone who doesnt put out all those "teaser" blurbs. Maybe that's one reason why you only have 422 members online at this moment. Its so annoying.
And FWIW: Abit is skipping the X38
http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?%20th...">http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?%20th...
Heidfirst - Friday, November 2, 2007 - link
"And FWIW: Abit is skipping the X38http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?%20th...">http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?%20th...
No, they aren't - in fact IX38 QuadGT DDR2 stock arrived in the UK today.
As for the dual PCI LAN there is a reason & it's a deliberate design decision - it's upto you whether it's right or wrong for you but as Gary said it won't affect the vast majority of people as it's still waaay faster than domestic broadband & also faster than a single hard drive can cope with.
By using PCI LAN on the Pro(the IP35-E & plain IP35 use PCI-E LAN) it means that you can use the x16 PCI-E slot & the x4 PCI-E slot & still have another x1 PCI-E slot active (the last PCI-E lane on the chipset is used for the JMicron) for use with a wifi card, soundcard etc.
Other boards from competitors disable other PCI-E slots when the x16 & x4 are used to their capacity.
Maybe not so important now when there are still relatively few x1 PCI-E cards available (although 1 of course is abit's AirPace wifi) but in a year or 2?
crabnebula - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
One of the negatives I've seen about this board in other reviews is its Firewire throughput, which is considerably slower than competitors.See here for example: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/07/12/abit_i...">http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/07/12/abit_i...
This might be of importance to some people who use FireWire devices.
Heidfirst - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
there was a BIOS released after that which supposedly addressed the firewire transfer rate issue.crimson117 - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
At the start of the review you mentioned a problem with the heatsinks.Is abit planning to fix this? It sounds like kind of a serious thing that the heatsinks don't work properly out of the box in 2 of your 3 boards.
Gary Key - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link
We have abit to screen their production process and to improve this design. We had one board that the PWM heatsink refused to make decent contact with the components and the other two were close to perfect. It could be manufacturing variations in the heatsink design or just plain bad quality control.