Abit IP35-E Review (500MHz FSB board)...$90 @ NewEgg + $6.61 ship

[Shimmishim]

yeah, i have the correct point.

one possibility is that my ground may not be good with the DMM i have.

i just measured it again and it's still about 0.06 lower on load.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Interesting. What about CPUz and Speedfan? I have a calibrated DMM, so I'll see if I can locate the probe point on the IP35-E. The maximum Vdroop under load per Speedfan and CPUz is -0.04 under Orthos Large file and S&M Heat mode. I suspect you should see similar or better result with the Pro.

 

[Shimmishim]

cpu-z will not report correct voltage above a certain point.

also, i think it might be dependent on the voltage you use. IIRC, the higher the vcore, the more droop you get.

i didn't test at or around 1.35 but I have a feeling it might be less at a lower vcore.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

True...CPUz is good up to 1.475Vcore. However, you should be able to extract something from Speedfan. Power = VA. Perhaps the board's power module is designed for tight regulation up to 1.5Vcore. Voltage above 1.5 will result in major heat output from my E4300, even with the Big Typhoon and one medium speed 120 x 38 mm Panaflo. Therefore, it is possible that Vcore>1.5 may place a substantial load on the PSU's 12V rail. Perhaps the use of an 8-pin power plug and GPU's Molex plug may alleviate Vdroop.

Not sure if Abit's 4 phase power section is at fault since I see worst voltage regulation from the 8 phase Asus P5B Deluxe board. To date, the Abit P35-E is definitely the most efficient high performance C2D board that I've evaluated. One should be able to run most C2Ds up to 400MHz with default Northbridge and Southbridge voltage settings.

 

[Shimmishim]

The Asus boards have droop built into their design from what I've read and understood from others.

Every single Asus board does this... it has something to do with intel spec.

The new P5K Deluxe has a bios option called something damper that removes this droop feature.

I can run the Pro board at 400 with stock voltage as well.

The Non-pro, pro, and -E appear to pretty much be the same board but with more or less features.

I went with the Pro for uguru or else the non-pro would have been fine for me.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
The new P5K Deluxe has a bios option called something damper that removes this droop feature.

probably similar to the 0.1V overvolt feature on the P5N-E SLI which seems to compensate nicely for droop under load.

Originally posted by: ShimmishimThe Non-pro, pro, and -E appear to pretty much be the same board but with more or less features.

I would say that the -E & standard are pretty much the same board but the Pro looks to me to be noticeably different.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Hmmm...the engineers at INTC must be on crack with that logic. Why lower Vcore when the CPU is at full load? This goes against the logic of CnQ and CIE/EIST. I think Asus is coming up with a lame excuse for a design flaw that cannot be fixed with a BIOS update. I don't see such large Vdroop with several other P965 boards.

IP35-E loses RAID, 1394, and two SATA ports. It's probably the coolest running high performance C2D board to date. Actual idle load with one HDD and 2GB RAM is just under 90 watts. Abit's FanEQ is a big hit for me because I don't want to hear any fan noise unless the CPU is working at full load. A lot of Intel boards claim support for 3-pin fan, but most don't work as advertised. With this Abit, I can set the CPU fan at 50% speed and the RAM/northbridge fan at 70% speed when the CPU temperature is under 45C. Above 50C, both fans will start to increase speed for better cooling.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Heidfirst
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Shimmishim
The new P5K Deluxe has a bios option called something damper that removes this droop feature.[/quote]
probably similar to the 0.1V overvolt feature on the P5N-E SLI which seems to compensate nicely for droop under load.

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: ShimmishimThe Non-pro, pro, and -E appear to pretty much be the same board but with more or less features.</end quote></div>
I would say that the -E & standard are pretty much the same board but the Pro looks to me to be noticeably different.



</end quote></div>


Basic IP35 and IP35-E share the same MB. IP35 uses an "R" southbridge for RAID. It also add two more SATA ports, 1394, and heat pipe cooling for NB and MOSFETs.

The Pro is based on the same design, plus 100% solid capacitors. The power section appears to be nearly identical, with some minor mods for two PCI-E x 16 cards.

 

[StopSign]

Id' say the IP35 is worth the extra money over the IP35-E. The ICH9R southbridge is a huge improvement over the basic ICH9. It has native AHCI support so you don't have to use the crappy JMicron thing.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

None of the INTEL P965/P35 chipset support PATA out of the box. That's why manufacturers went with the low cost JMicron solution. AHCI is worthless since the true bottleneck for read/write is still the HDD...50-60MB/sec read/write under IDEAL condition. AHCI is about bells and whistles like NCQ that don't do squat for everyday real world performance.

Again, even the IP35 Pro is equipped with the JMicron chipset.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1498561

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Basic IP35 and IP35-E share the same MB. IP35 uses an "R" southbridge for RAID. It also add two more SATA ports, 1394, and heat pipe cooling for NB and MOSFETs.

yes, they are pretty obviously the same board apart from those & share a PCB.

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
The Pro is based on the same design, plus 100% solid capacitors. The power section appears to be nearly identical, with some minor mods for two PCI-E x 16 cards.

Now this, I'm not so sure about.
Compare the IP35 (as it has ICH9R & firewire) to the Pro.
If you bring up the 2 enlarged images from the abit.com.tw site & flip back & forward between the 2 (possible in Opera at least) you'll see an awful lot of components move.
Obviously the PCI/PCI-E slot mix/config changes incl the position of the ATXP1 socket, the 2nd realtek nic chip, uGuru, the firewire headers move, there's a lot more components around the DIMM slots, SATA ports relocated etc. & it clearly isn't the same PCB as the -IP35/-E.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Per my previous post, only the 35 and 35-E share the same MB. The Pro version uses a slightly different layout. However, the core design of the main power module is still very similar (per my training and what I could compare at the local Fry's). Don't forget that the Pro has TWO PCI-E x 16 slots. There may be some additional circuits for tighter voltage regulation due to other add-ons.

Unless you're pushing the FSB well beyond 520MHz, I doubt that you'll see any gain with the IP35 Pro (same core speed and FSB speed). The power draw of the 35-E should be lower by at least 5 watts due to a more minimalist approach. It's a shame I don't have access to a good 6xxx chip to explore the top speed of this 35-E board. My cheap RAM is stable up to 540MHz @ 5-5-5-18-2T.

 

[StopSign]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
None of the INTEL P965/P35 chipset support PATA out of the box. That's why manufacturers went with the low cost JMicron solution. AHCI is worthless since the true bottleneck for read/write is still the HDD...50-60MB/sec read/write under IDEAL condition. AHCI is about bells and whistles like NCQ that don't do squat for everyday real world performance.

Again, even the IP35 Pro is equipped with the JMicron chipset.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1498561

Hot plugging is pretty useful if you use eSATA drives.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
None of the INTEL P965/P35 chipset support PATA out of the box. That's why manufacturers went with the low cost JMicron solution. AHCI is worthless since the true bottleneck for read/write is still the HDD...50-60MB/sec read/write under IDEAL condition. AHCI is about bells and whistles like NCQ that don't do squat for everyday real world performance.

Again, even the IP35 Pro is equipped with the JMicron chipset.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1498561

Intel's DP35DP uses Marvell's chip.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
None of the INTEL P965/P35 chipset support PATA out of the box. That's why manufacturers went with the low cost JMicron solution. AHCI is worthless since the true bottleneck for read/write is still the HDD...50-60MB/sec read/write under IDEAL condition. AHCI is about bells and whistles like NCQ that don't do squat for everyday real world performance.

Again, even the IP35 Pro is equipped with the JMicron chipset.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1498561</end quote></div>

Intel's DP35DP uses Marvell's chip.

If you're that concerned about getting the most performance out of the rig, then you should focus on the slowest component inside the PC...HDD. There is virtually zero price difference between PATA and SATA HDDs at many retailers. Since Intel chipset does not natively run PATA, just spend about $25 AR for a small Seagate SATA boot drive. It is virtually impossible for anyone to notice the speed difference between a JMicron and Marvell chip, under normal use.

It is important to distinguish between real world performance and marketing hypes.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: postmortemIA
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
None of the INTEL P965/P35 chipset support PATA out of the box. That's why manufacturers went with the low cost JMicron solution. AHCI is worthless since the true bottleneck for read/write is still the HDD...50-60MB/sec read/write under IDEAL condition. AHCI is about bells and whistles like NCQ that don't do squat for everyday real world performance.

Again, even the IP35 Pro is equipped with the JMicron chipset.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1498561</end quote></div>

Intel's DP35DP uses Marvell's chip.</end quote></div>


If you're that concerned about getting the most performance out of the rig, then you should focus on the slowest component inside the PC...HDD. There is virtually zero price difference between PATA and SATA HDDs at many retailers. Since Intel chipset does not natively run PATA, just spend about $25 AR for a small Seagate SATA boot drive. It is virtually impossible for anyone to notice the speed difference between a JMicron and Marvell chip, under normal use.

It is important to distinguish between real world performance and marketing hypes.

I just stated that Intel's board uses other, probably better chip- as in more stable, better engineered, probably trouble free, and you are reading between lines.

I have two raptors, in RAID0 ( I know already your response - RAID0 doesn't work, well guess what - it does, and I notice the difference) so I am happy with my IO performance.

 

[StopSign]

It's not about performance. It's about feature set and quality - something the JMicron controller lacks when it comes to SATA/RAID. That's why the ICH9R is more expensive, and why manufacturers cheap out by getting the JMicron chip coupled with basic ICH8/9.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

But you haven't show me any real-world gain if I don't need RAID. Why pay more for feature when one doesn't need it? As for quality, can you provide data to support the low reliability of the JMicron chip? The most elegant solution is to dump that ancient PATA HDD and go with a modern $40 SATA Seagate/Maxtor 7200.10 HDD.

 

[postmortemIA]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
But you haven't show me any real-world gain if I don't need RAID. Why pay more for feature when one doesn't need it? As for quality, can you provide data to support the low reliability of the JMicron chip? The most elegant solution is to dump that ancient PATA HDD and go with a modern $40 SATA Seagate/Maxtor 7200.10 HDD.</end quote></div>

JMicron vs. Marvell, Marvell is better bet, not much of comparison between company entering the market and one of market leaders.

I have EIDE 250GB Maxtor drive and Pioneer DVD-RW that I would be nuts to get rid of.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

You still have not provided others with real world data to support your claim about the superiority of the Marvell chip. The maximum speed of the DVD drive doesn't even tax DMA mode 2! The old Maxtor can always be used as a slave to a cheap modern SATA boot HDD.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Bump...updated OP. Board is stable up to 488MHz FSB with possible higher overclock potential.

 

[dolenc]

What kind of soundcard does this board have exacly, on their paige it only says 7.1 hd and in the first post realtek is mentioned. Does it support Dolby digital live?

 

[uiojkl]

IP335 has RAID,but it's more expensive

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Get a sound card for Dolby.

 

[Aznguy1872]

Anybody know much about the IP35 non Pro? I been trying to find reviews for it everywhere but can't. Im in a debate whether to go with the IP35 Pro or non pro. Does the IP35 overclock just as well as the Pro does? Is the 30 dollar in price difference worth it?