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Overclocking

There is no point in keeping you in suspense - you could tell from the charts that we reached 3.48GHz with our E6400 on this board; running at a blistering 435MHz FSB. This matches our current P965 record with the excellent Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi, so the Abit AB9 Pro definitely lives up to its billing as an enthusiasts board.

Reaching a stable overclock with a 435FSB is nothing to sneeze at; we've only managed to do better with the Asus P5W DH Deluxe which was able to reach a stable overclock with a 450MHz FSB - so 435 is quite impressive. We could actually go into windows at up to 445MHz and post even higher, but frankly, I am only interested in stable overclocks.

As always, there were four parts to the successful overclock:

1. Figuring out the fastest stable memory speed
2. Figuring out the fastest stable memory timing
3. Setting the FSB speed and multiplier
4. Getting the right Vcore

In order to run at 3.48GHz we:

• set the Vcore to 1.525
• set the DDR2 voltage to 2.3V
• set the 965P voltage to 1.45V
• set the ICH voltage to 1.45V
• set the DDR2 timing to 4-4-4-12 @ 870MHz
• set the processor multiplier to 8
• set the FSB speed to 435MHz
• used the outstanding Noctua heatsink with two 63CFM 12cm fans in a push-pull configuration

The Abit AB9 Pro is a really good overclocker, and the Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 is an amazing overclocker, with the combination giving us a great bang/buck ratio!

Conclusion

The Core 2 Duo's overclock AMAZINGLY well on a good motherboard, and the Abit AB9 Pro is definitely a good motherboard.

The SATA performance is outstanding, and it performs almost identically - sometimes a hair better, sometimes a hair worse - as our Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi, which was our reigning P965 champion. The AB9 Pro tied it, which is an excellent result.

There are many things to like about the board - the overabundance of SATA ports, POST LED, great overclocking features in the BIOS, plenty of USB2 ports, firewire, optical audio input and output, clean layout and more - but what really wins enthusiasts hearts and minds is excellent peformance, and the AB9 Pro delivers.

Sure there are a few things that could be improved on - like trading one of the PCIe 1x slots for a PCIe 4x slot - even if it meant losing two SATA ports to get the PCIe lanes back. It also would not hurt to have micro switches on the board for power and reset; but frankly, I feel like I'm picking nits. I really liked the board, and I would not hesitate to recommend it or build myself a system based on it.

Well done Abit.