Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard Review - PAGE 4

I'm starting to get the feeling that the Abit IP35 Pro is a budget motherboard. The bundle quite hinted to that after all. Looking at the board itself just seems to echo that feeling all over again. As you can see, the IP35 Pro leaves little to the imagination.

A simple design with a nice blue PCB.

A total of 6 SATA ports for lots of storage.

A lone IDE port.

Something to note about this IDE port; there's some silk screening right beneath it to indicate SATA ports. It is quite likely that Abit is using the PCB from another one of their motherboards as a base for the IP35 Pro. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but it does suggest further that the IP35 is a pretty basic piece of hardware.

Floppy port, Power & Reset buttons, Post Code display and a Clear CMOS Jumper.

Nice, but still nothing new. If you take notice though, there is that pin header with the bright red base right in behind the Power button. That's for the optional uGuru Panel that Abit offers. It's a box that lives in you 5 1/4" bay for the purpose of temperature/voltage monitoring, overclocking profiles and a Clear CMOS switch. It's an interesting option (for those willing to dole our the extra cash to Abit for it), but nothing that will make a huge difference in performance (it just looks cool). If you want to read a little more about it you check out my old Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X article. It had the uGuru panel option too.

Hmmm, a uGuru chip?

So this was the piece of hardware that required that Windows device driver. It's likely just something to communicate with the CMOS for the desktop overclocking option through the uGuru Utility (and through the optional panel too).

A whole bunch of pin headers.

We have here our customary assortment of front panel pin headers; the multicolored on the right for the front case panel buttons, 4 USB 2.0 headers in blue, the front panel audio header over in the left in green with a discrete S/PDIF behind it in black.

Count 'em, 2 IEEE 1394 headers in bright red behind the expansion slots..

Expand your possibilities.

Our expansion slot include 1 x PCI-E X16, 1 x PCI-E X16 (x4 bandwidth), 1 x PCI-E X1 and 3 old regular PCI slots. Take notice of the 4 pin Molex power connector nestled between the second graphics slot and one of the PCI slots. Just something to help power the graphics cards.

Even more space to plug things in.

Outback we have a PS2 mouse and keyboard port, S/PDIF In and S/PDIF out Optical ports, 2 RJ-45 LAN ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 eSATA ports (but no cable included) and the 7.1 channel audio connectors.

A couple of RealTek audio chips.

A rear Clear CMOS switch.

It's pretty handy having a rear Clear CMOS switch like this to recover a broken BIOS overclock. Just be careful not to accidentally bump it when plugging stuff in.

The Northbridge heatsink is pretty hefty.

The heatpipe cooling affair on the IP35 Pro is more than adequate. In fact, I might even dare to say that it's overkill. The Northbridge heatsink is pretty large and does do an exceptional job of cooling the P35 chipset, though prior P35 testing has shown that this new chipset doesn't get that hot to begin with.

An Abit branded Southbridge heatsink.

The VCM heatsink with its unique sun burst pattern.

I honestly must say that Abit didn't cut any corners here. The cooling on the IP35 Pro works quite well, although I was a little concerned that Abit used a type of copper alloy instead of pure copper. Nevertheless, I like the heatpipe cooling system for the IP35 Pro.

The 24 pin and 8 pin power connectors in standard placement.

The DDR2 memory slots are color coded for easy dual channel operation.

I could go on to detail a number of other physical features for the Abit IP35 Pro motherboard, trying not to sound like a broken record. The Solid State Capacitors are an industry standard now, are are the Ferrite Core casings. In fact, the IP35 Pro is perhaps one of  the most typical motherboards I have seen in quite some time.

Maybe the BIOS will have a few surprises waiting.