Intel P35 motherboard

By: Steven Walton

Anyone looking at building a new desktop system should not look any further than Intel Core 2 processors, and when time comes to pick a platform
you should have Intel's own P35 chipset in mind as it officially offers 1333MHz FSB support and will be compatible with upcoming 45nm processors. This translates in a fairly 'future-proof' platform, with some models currently available supporting DDR3 memory already.

But as new as this chipset is, deciding that you want a P35-based motherboard is not enough. Most major manufacturers have already launched several different models powered by the chipset, to give an example, ASUS currently offers a dozen motherboards models all based on the Intel P35.

We have rounded up some of the better examples available for one big article where we shall compare them side by side. Although we have nine motherboards to compare, they come from just four different manufacturers: Abit, ASUS, ECS and Gigabyte. These boards range from $90, all the way up to $230.

As mentioned before, there are a number of Intel P35 motherboards that offer support for DDR3 memory, and while we have a few of these boards on hand, such as the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe/Premium and the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6, we are deliberately excluding them from the comparison. At the moment just 2GBs of DDR3 memory will set you back around $400 which is quite ridiculous, making it pointless (for the time being) to buy a DDR3-capable motherboard given the price premium. That leaves us with the nine motherboards we are testing today that support DDR2 memory exclusively.

For this P35 round-up we have tried to include a high-end version and a budget version motherboard from each manufacturer. The boards will be put through the usual batch of tests, while we will also compare their overclocking abilities side by side. Before jumping into the benchmarks we will briefly list the features and go over the layout and design of each motherboard.

Initially we had planned to include a few MSI motherboards that were going to be supplied by the manufacturer itself. Unfortunately once we explained our plan for a comparison against competing boards, they got cold feet and pulled out. Not sure exactly what we should make of this, so make of it what you will. Because the news came somewhat last minute we did not have time to purchase these motherboards without delaying the article further, we apologize for the omission.


Abit IP35 Pro – Features
The Abit IP35 Pro is a well-equipped Intel P35 motherboard featuring just about everything you will find lurking on high-end ASUS and Gigabyte versions but at a slightly cheaper price. In fact this is where the IP35 Pro surprised us with a price tag of $185 making it significantly cheaper than the competition and it doesn't appear there were any sacrifices made in the process. However there were a few corners cut, for example while the board does offer dual Gigabit LAN controllers both use the PCI bus.

This means getting the most out of these Gigabit LAN controllers might be difficult as they both share the very limited PCI bus. The controllers in question are the Realtek RTL8110SC of which the IP35 Pro features two. The board does redeem itself a little by including a Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A Firewire controller supporting two ports (neither of which can be found on the I/O panel). Then the audio is taken care of by another Realtek chip, this time the ALC888 chip has been used which is one of the better Realtek high-definition audio codecs


Storage-wise the Abit IP35 Pro features nothing out of the ordinary, while offering everything you will find on competing high-end P35 motherboards. This means there are six SATA ports which are connected to the ICH9R south bridge chip supporting the Intel Matrix storage technology. Each port is capable of AHCI & RAID modes supporting RAID 0/1/5/10.

Abit has also included the JMicron JMB363 controller for an additional two SATA ports which are used to support external hard drives. These eSATA ports can be found on the I/O panel, but please note Abit has not included any eSATA cables in the package. The JMicron JMB363 controller uses a single PCI Express x1 lane and also offers support for two PATA devices via a single IDE port. That makes up the bulk of the integrated features that can be found on
the IP35 Pro.

Other more typical features include a 24-pin power connector along with an 8-pin 12v power connector and four DDR2 memory DIMM slots supporting up to 8GB of either DDR2-667 or DDR2-800 memory in dual-channel mode. For expansion, the IP35 Pro features two PCI Express x16 ports but like most P35 motherboards the blue slot works at x16 while the black is limited to x4 bandwidth. There are also two traditional PCI slots along with a single PCI Express x1 port

Features that are more unique to this motherboard include the Abit µGuru technology which allows users to fully monitor and control their system including voltages, fans and temperatures in Windows. There is also a feature called “EZ for CMOS” which allows the user to clear the CMOS directly from the I/O panel, using a little switch. This can come in quite handy when overclocking the motherboard! The Abit IP35 Pro is also built using 100% Japanese-made Low ESR and high ripple conductive polymer aluminum solid state capacitors