Hardware Reviews / Motherboards / Abit IP35 Pro Review (Introduction)

Introduction

In late May Intel introduced their latest mainstream chipset, the P35, a chipset of the 35 Series which comes with native 1333 ( 333MHz Quadpumped ) FSB, support for DDR2 and DDR3 memory, and last but not least, official support for the soon to be launched Penryn ( 45nm ) family processors, with the first of them, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 ( Yorkfield core ) in November 12th.
We've already reviewed a pretty good P35 motherboard from Asus, the P5K3 Deluxe which is a socket775 + DDR3 motherboard, and today we will show you the
Abit IP35 Pro, which is a DDR2 P35 motherboard and comes in a relatively good price and some nice features.
And yeah, we're going to grab the chance and do a P35 + DDR2 vs P35 + DDR3 comparison in this review for you to check, is the pricey DDR3 worth its money yet, or the "classic" force ( DDR2 ) is still adequate to feed those powerful Core 2 Series processors ? We'll find out soon.

But hey! Why would I want to check out and/or even buy a motherboard with Intel's P35 chipset when there's the latest "Extreme Performance" section chipset, the Intel X38 coming out soon ?
Well, you want some reasons ? Here we go:
1) The prices for the new boards will be high in the first few weeks
2) Availability will be somehow limited for a week or two
3) There's no real benefit ( something that would justify the price difference between a decent P35 board & a decent X38 board )
4) The P35 is already good enough, it overclocks greatly, and it's rather cheap ( compared to the competition )
Want another reason ? Oh come on! Just read the review, check out the differences between the DDR2 & DDR3 configurations and you'll see.
As for a comparison with a X38 motherboard...it will be done, soon... ;-)

Let's take the "Snake" for a ride!