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

[brencat]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
I like 14. 12 is best for speed if you don't care about the double post.

Sorry, but would you mind elaborating a bit? What kind of speed difference are we talking about in your opinion? Also, any improvement in CPU load temps with 12 or 14 Beta and if so, how much?

 

[aiya24]

Originally posted by: brencat

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
I like 14. 12 is best for speed if you don't care about the double post.

Sorry, but would you mind elaborating a bit? What kind of speed difference are we talking about in your opinion? Also, any improvement in CPU load temps with 12 or 14 Beta and if so, how much?

he's talking about superpi times. pretty much if you a lot of benching and care about every point, bios 12 is faster. if you don't give a crap about that and want stable bios without the double boot issue, bios 14 is for you.

 

[brencat]

Thx Aiya. Also just found a thread about the different bioses on the abit forum too which I'm still reading.

 

[bal3wolf]

And 14 still is only like .50-.200ms slower nothing you would notice.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I'm seeing less than 0.02 sec increase with 1M SP time using 14 BIOS. Again, we're just splitting hair.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Maybe this can help so you guys don't have to go through that whole thread. Keep in mind that these differences make zero real-world difference...it's just benchmarking speeds we're talking about. Anyway, here's a copy of my post from the abit thread:

Hi folks! So I decided to spend a little of my Sunday playing with v.14beta05. I'm deleting the previous testing post again to edit it for the new results and post it here. Straight to the nitty-gritty:

The overclock used for all testing is as follows:

10x 300FSB (3.0GHz) @ 1.365Vcore
1:1.5 CPU : DRAM ratio (450MHz, or DDR2-900) with 5-5-4-15-2T timings @ 2.10Vdimm

I ran five SuperPi 1M tests and a single test each of SuperPi 32M and WinRar's benchmark (time to crunch 100M plus speed). Single tests were simply due to time constraints. Apologies for the formatting; the forum didn't like spaces.

SuperPi 1M test results:
BIOS------------1.--------2.--------3.---------4.--------5.--------Avg.
v.12----------19.125--19.093---19.078---19.078---19.078---19.088
v.13beta-----19.140--19.079---19.079---19.094---19.094---19.089
v.14beta04--19.172--19.141---19.140---19.157---19.140---19.146
v.14beta05--19.078--19.094---19.156---19.078---19.094---19.089
*Averages were obtained by throwing out the highest & lowest time, then averaging the remaining three times.

SuperPi 32M test results:
v.12-----------17min, 26.344sec
v.13beta -----17min, 26.594sec
V.14beta04 --17min, 21.391sec
v.14beta05 --17min, 29.859sec

WinRar benchmark:
--------Time to reach 100M------Speed
v.12-----------2:35--------------642KB/s
v.13beta------2:35--------------643KB/s
v.14beta04---2:36--------------641KB/s
v.14beta05---2.36--------------641KB/s

So, at least from my testing, v.13beta is VERY close in speed to v.12 and v.14beta04 is slightly slower than the other two. v.14beta05 seems to be on par with v.12 & v.13beta.

If I had time to run more 32M tests, the obvious anomaly may work itself out, but I don't.

In any case, they're too close to see any real world difference, but in case anyone was curious, this is how each of them perform.

The icing on the cake is that unlike any of the previous BIOS revisions, I was actually able to get 3.5GHz, boot it into Windows, stress it for a couple minutes (I'm only on air remember) and run SuperPi. It took 1.565Vcore set (1.52 after Vdroop), but I couldn't even get 3.5GHz to boot into windows before; the most I could get out of that Vcore (my personal limit) was 3.45GHz. Needless to say I'm a very happy camper, but oh to be able to afford water! (Here's a thread w/ SSs on that OC if anyone's interested.)

There you have it....hope it helps!

 

[milan03]

I just got IP35-E with E2160 M0 and some crucial balistix 6400 and serious air cooling Ultra-120 Extreme, so I'm hoping to do some heavy overclocking on this board.... Both the board and the chip scream to be overclocked!!! D

 

[brencat]

Right on Milan...welcome to the club!

(What the hell am I doing up this late?? See sig, lol)

 

[bal3wolf]

Its a great board i thk abit is stupid for killing off their ip35 line seems like all of them are going bye bye. I run my e6600@3700 daily folding 24 7 no problems i just have to bump vcore to 1.475 droop is 1.42-1.44 and everything else 1 notch for my 4x1gig of ram.

 

[milan03]

Yeah man... i cought the sale on newegg for $59 after rebate which to me was insane... made me go ahead and upgrade from socket 754 to Dual core 775, unplanned! I wanted to spend about $500 on a rig but i ended up spending about $300 on IP35-E $60, E2160 M0 for $80, Crucial ballistix ddr 6400 for $39, Radeo HD 2600XT for $69 and then Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme for $60... It's insane knowing that for that money i can buy just one processor ore one video card, and that this bought setup might outpeform some really expensive rigs out there.... I'm a happy camper so far we'll see today how well will it overclock.

 

[brencat]

Originally posted by: bal3wolf
Its a great board i thk abit is stupid for killing off their ip35 line seems like all of them are going bye bye. I run my e6600@3700 daily folding 24 7 no problems i just have to bump vcore to 1.475 droop is 1.42-1.44 and everything else 1 notch for my 4x1gig of ram.

If they are in fact going EOL, I agree that seems dumb. Though from a business standpoint, it's kind of hard to generate meaningful revenue (despite the high volume sales) when a $70 mobo comes within single digit %s performance-wise of their $160 IP35 pro board, to say nothing for how the IP35-E might compromise their $230+ IX38 quad GT plus upcoming X48 sales.

Remember the P965 based Quad GT not too long ago? This was a great board that I nearly bought some 6 mos back. But it had a few nasty bugs and they ultimately left it for dead by not releasing bioses more timely, IMO. Then P35 came out and the rest is history.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

IP35-E will surely elevate Abit back to the premier vendor status for value and performance. BIOS is very user-friendly with actual value instead of BS + something seen in Gigabyte boards. Some Gigabyte boards are still plagued with the BIOS reset problem.

I saw an Abit IP35V yesterday. NO 1394a!

 

[nyker96]

AMAZINGLY the IP35-E survived a bad BIOS flash... I got my second IP35-E last week and although happy it's a 5/14/2007 BIOS. So I decided to flash it to 14 BIOS. Little did I know I had it on an untested OC setting the night before the flash. I got it to win xp, ran the flasher. And oh lord, right after it says finishing wiping the ROM and installing new BIOS, just at the 25% point of the install, it stopped, the machine just went frozen. I was freaking out, cause I really hate to RMA the board and wait a week before putting that machine back again. So I try booting it ... no luck, then just before I gave up I thought of reseting the BIOS. Then I was waiting for the reboot to come ... It was just time ticking away, after a long 10 seconds the fan came on for like 2 second then it died again, at that point I thought it was gone, so was reaching for the PSU off button so I can take it apart for RMA, just at that nick of time it came back on and not only that booted all the way, I quickly pressed DEL to get into BIOS and turn on default settings. THen it actually let me get into WIndows. I was so afraid to turn it off again fearing it might just not come back. I crossed my fingers and tried another flash to 14. THis time it went all the way w/o problem. I then tried a reboot and put on the last known good OC setting, it was absolutely no problem, ran ortho/mem86 for couple hours, completely cool.

This is gotta be the closest I came to trashing a board. Haven't had a closer call.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Local Fry's B&M has confirmed that Abit IP35-E is discontinued. It was on sale for $80 out the door. All local stores were down to one display. Time to e-mail Abit for my royalty fee!

This little guy was cannibalizing sale from the IP35 and IP35 Pro. Now it is being replaced by the vastly inferior IP35V.

 

[brencat]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Time to e-mail Abit for my royalty fee!

Actually, you'd better watch your back! The reason their 4Q07 net income margin will probably be worse than expected is at least partly due to the IP35-E...and this thread!

:laugh:

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Local Fry's B&M has confirmed that Abit IP35-E is discontinued. It was on sale for $80 out the door. All local stores were down to one display. Time to e-mail Abit for my royalty fee!

This little guy was cannibalizing sale from the IP35 and IP35 Pro. Now it is being replaced by the vastly inferior IP35V.

Makes one wonder what sort of warranty service would be performed (if needed) on an IP35-E (i.e. replacement of the board with what model?). I assume abit will keep a few on hand.

Also, I wonder what kind of continuing support (BIOS updates, driver updates, etc.) will be provided by abit.

I just bought one from Newegg with the rebate. I'm waiting for the 45nm Intel Quads in Q1-2008. I will probably tear down my C2D 6300 just to try it out during the next few weeks just in case it's defective! :Q

 

[SerpentRoyal]

IP35 is the same board so BIOS development should continue. We will get a refurbished IP35-E or upgrade to IP35 if we need to return one for repair.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: brencat

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Time to e-mail Abit for my royalty fee!

Actually, you'd better watch your back! The reason their 4Q07 net income margin will probably be worse than expected is at least partly due to the IP35-E...and this thread!

:laugh:

Okay, I'll vaiver my fee for a top-of-the-line X38 board.

 

[bal3wolf]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Local Fry's B&M has confirmed that Abit IP35-E is discontinued. It was on sale for $80 out the door. All local stores were down to one display. Time to e-mail Abit for my royalty fee!

This little guy was cannibalizing sale from the IP35 and IP35 Pro. Now it is being replaced by the vastly inferior IP35V.

I don't remmber if it was in this thread of elsewere mwave i thk told a user the ip35-pro is being discontinued also once stock is gone they wont get any more.

 

[Heidfirst]

it's still all pure speculation esp. as local abit offices get to set their own policy i.e. abit Europe may decide to carry a line & abit USA may not & vice versa.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: bal3wolf

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Local Fry's B&M has confirmed that Abit IP35-E is discontinued. It was on sale for $80 out the door. All local stores were down to one display. Time to e-mail Abit for my royalty fee!

This little guy was cannibalizing sale from the IP35 and IP35 Pro. Now it is being replaced by the vastly inferior IP35V.

I don't remmber if it was in this thread of elsewere mwave i thk told a user the ip35-pro is being discontinued also once stock is gone they wont get any more.

They should fire the idiot running Abit USA for phasing out IP35-E and IP35 Pro. Replacing the -E model with the inferior IP35V. So this clown is betting on a big migration to X38? Ain't gonna happen unless they could sell X38 equivalent boards for the same price as these P35s.

 

[jonmcc33]

Originally posted by: MadScientist
After reading this whole thread, I've come away with some useful info. I did notice that some of you, as I once did, are still applying your TIM (most here are AS5 users) to your CPU by spreading it out in a very thin layer. I know old habits are hard to break and if this works for you then fine, but I have found that Artic Silver's instructions for applying AS5 to dual and quad cores are quick, easy, and almost foolproof (is anything).
AS5 application instructions for Intel Dual core CPU
AS5 application instructions for Intel Quad core CPU

Actually, since the heat spreader was standard you only need to put a drop in the center (or in this case a line). Only noobs keep putting a thin layer over the entire surface.

 

[jonmcc33]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
IP35-E will surely elevate Abit back to the premier vendor status for value and performance. BIOS is very user-friendly with actual value instead of BS + something seen in Gigabyte boards. Some Gigabyte boards are still plagued with the BIOS reset problem.

I saw an Abit IP35V yesterday. NO 1394a!

NewEgg isn't even carrying the IP35-E now. I don't know about elevating anything...

I agree about Gigabyte though. I didn't touch their crap back in the AMD Thunderbird days and I won't touch them even now.

 

[GundamF91]

I got my IP35E from NewEgg. it has a sticker on the board itself, by the rest of the labels, and it's a "B" I'm wondering if anyone else got that? I'm curious to see what that means, like Revision B or etc?

 

[jonmcc33]

Originally posted by: GundamF91
I got my IP35E from NewEgg. it has a sticker on the board itself, by the rest of the labels, and it's a "B" I'm wondering if anyone else got that? I'm curious to see what that means, like Revision B or etc?

I got mine from NewEgg too at the time. Do a search and you won't find it now.