Abit IP35 Pro

Manufacturer: Abit
UK Price (as reviewed): £120.43
US Price (as reviewed): $183.40

The Abit AB9 QuadGT was a very popular board if word through the tubes is to be believed. Stemming on from this P965 success, Abit has made the IP35 Pro with many elements of the QuadGT in mind. Gone are the digital PWMs though, and in place are the traditional analogue ones.

This may seem like a step backwards, but Abit is actually listening to users who complained they ran too hot and caused CPU voltage drops (Vdroop). Already there are reports of some insane overclocking on these boards, even with very early BIOSes, so we just had to take a look to see what all the fuss was about.

Abit IP35 Pro Features

• Support for LGA775 Intel Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo, including 1333/1066/800FSB and 45nm processors;
  
• Intel P35 Northbridge;
  
• Intel ICH9R Southbridge;
  
• Supports up to 8GB of dual channel DDR2 667/800, using four 240-pin, 1.8V DDR2 DIMMs;
  
• Two PCI Express x16 slots (x16 and x4 electrical);
  
• One PCI Express x1 slot;
  
• Three 32-bit v2.3 Master PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface);
  
• One IDE port;
  
• Six SATA 3Gbps ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 or JBOD;
  
• Realtek ALC888 High-Definition audio codec supporting 7.1 channel surround sound up to 32-bit/192KHz with optical S/PDIF in and out;
  
• Two PCI Gigabit Ethernet controllers provided by the Realtek RTL8105SC chipset;
  
• JMB363 controller supplying one PATA port and two 3Gbps eSATA devices with RAID 0, 1 and JBOD;
  
• Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A IEEE1394a Firewire controller;
  
• Abit uGuru technology.

Box Contents

• Four red SATA cables;
  
• A black IDE cable;
  
• A black floppy cable;
  
• One PCI bracket with two USB, one 6-pin and one 4-pin Firewire sockets;
  
• Motherboard jumper settings sticker;
  
• Motherboard User Manual;
  
• uGuru User Manual;
  
• Metal I/O Shield;

The IP35 Pro is missing a few PCI brackets considering the board supports an extra eight ports through pin-outs on board. An extra four port bracket would go a long way to adding more necessary USB connectivity. Firewire on the other hand is well covered with both 4-pin and 6-pin varieties being catered for from both sets of motherboard pin-outs.

There is a red SATA cable for every SATA socket, and you also get separate uGuru and motherboard user manuals for the specific hardware/software applications of the package. The extra pin out sticker is more useful for PC builders who will stick it to the inside of the case door panel so it’s there when end users open the case. It’s not really for most of us, but it’s good to keep handy as a quick reference guide.

No floppy disks are provided, mostly due to the fact that since Vista they are no longer required, but if you still need them for installing RAID on XP you can make them from the CD.

In all, there could be a few more bits thrown in especially since this is the more expensive “Pro” board, but it’s not all bad and Abit has most of its bases covered.