abit IP35-Pro: Houston, We Have a Winner
by Gary Key on November 1, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Media Performance
We will take a brief look at general media performance with our test suite that includes Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0.
We utilize the PC WorldBench 6.0 Test for measuring platform performance in Adobe's Photoshop CS2. The benchmark applies an extensive number of filters to the test image and heavily stresses the CPU and storage systems. The scores reported include the full conversion process and times are in seconds with lower numbers indicating better performance.
The results are interesting, as this test requires a balance between CPU speed and a fast storage subsystem. The abit board scores near the top of the DDR2 based P35 boards. However, the overall difference in scores is minimal between the P35 boards.
Our next test is one recommended by Intel, but the test itself appears to be fair and results are very repeatable. This test simply measures the amount of time required to fix and optimize 103 different photos weighing in at 63MB. Times are in seconds, with lower times resulting in better performance
The abit board scores well in this CPU intensive test and is only three-tenths of a second slower than the MSI board.
Media Encoding Performance
We are utilizing Nero Recode 2 and Sony Vegas 7.0e for our video encoding tests. The scores reported include the full encoding process in seconds, with lower numbers indicating better performance.
Our first series of tests is quite easy - we take our original Office Space DVD and use AnyDVD to rip the full DVD to the hard drive without compression, thus providing an almost exact duplicate of the DVD. We then fire up Nero Recode 2, select our Office Space copy on the hard drive, and perform a shrink operation to allow the entire movie along with extras to fit on a single 4.5GB DVD disc. We leave all options on their defaults except we uncheck the advanced analysis option.
We find in this CPU and disk intensive test that all of the boards are within 2% of each other with the abit board finishing at the top of the pack.
Our Sony Vegas 7.0e test converts several of our summer vacation files into a plasma-screen-pleasing 1080/24P format with a 5.1 audio stream. We ensure our quality settings are set to their highest levels and then let the horses loose.
In a test that really stresses the CPU and memory subsystem, we see the abit board finishing ahead of several other DDR2 equipped P35 boards. This result once again confirms the abit board excels at CPU intensive tasks.
We will take a brief look at general media performance with our test suite that includes Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0.
We utilize the PC WorldBench 6.0 Test for measuring platform performance in Adobe's Photoshop CS2. The benchmark applies an extensive number of filters to the test image and heavily stresses the CPU and storage systems. The scores reported include the full conversion process and times are in seconds with lower numbers indicating better performance.
The results are interesting, as this test requires a balance between CPU speed and a fast storage subsystem. The abit board scores near the top of the DDR2 based P35 boards. However, the overall difference in scores is minimal between the P35 boards.
Our next test is one recommended by Intel, but the test itself appears to be fair and results are very repeatable. This test simply measures the amount of time required to fix and optimize 103 different photos weighing in at 63MB. Times are in seconds, with lower times resulting in better performance
The abit board scores well in this CPU intensive test and is only three-tenths of a second slower than the MSI board.
Media Encoding Performance
We are utilizing Nero Recode 2 and Sony Vegas 7.0e for our video encoding tests. The scores reported include the full encoding process in seconds, with lower numbers indicating better performance.
Our first series of tests is quite easy - we take our original Office Space DVD and use AnyDVD to rip the full DVD to the hard drive without compression, thus providing an almost exact duplicate of the DVD. We then fire up Nero Recode 2, select our Office Space copy on the hard drive, and perform a shrink operation to allow the entire movie along with extras to fit on a single 4.5GB DVD disc. We leave all options on their defaults except we uncheck the advanced analysis option.
We find in this CPU and disk intensive test that all of the boards are within 2% of each other with the abit board finishing at the top of the pack.
Our Sony Vegas 7.0e test converts several of our summer vacation files into a plasma-screen-pleasing 1080/24P format with a 5.1 audio stream. We ensure our quality settings are set to their highest levels and then let the horses loose.
In a test that really stresses the CPU and memory subsystem, we see the abit board finishing ahead of several other DDR2 equipped P35 boards. This result once again confirms the abit board excels at CPU intensive tasks.
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crimson117 - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
And if http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">this is the fix, then it's even more complicated than I had expected!Personally, I would RMA a board with this sort of defect present.
takumsawsherman - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
I love how these pro boards rarely have Firewire800. It's really a shame that others did not jump on the Gigabyte bandwagon a few years back when they started putting it on their high-end boards. If I remember correctly, they were cheaper than the current crop as well.Of course, I will wager that someone will say that people should use eSATA instead. There are only a few enclosures that have both FW and eSATA, and eSATA is not available on most PC's, and no Macs that I have seen have a eSATA port. I'm not even sure if you can daisy chain eSATA, and I like the FW800 connector better (feels more sturdy). Recently, I looked around for an enclosure to replace one of my old trusty FW400/USB2 enclosures with built in power supply. I ended up not finding the one I wanted, and was very sad, as my requirements were not great.
1. FW800
2. eSATA
3. USB2
4. 5 1/4" drive capacity
5. Built in AC/DC converter (no bricks)
6. Fan if neceaary, I don't care as this is a service drive, not involved with audio
The closest I could get was a NewerTechnology MiniStack V3 from eshop.macsales.com.
1. FW800
2. eSATA
3. USB2, including hub
4. 3.5 inch drives only
5. fan
6. Stupid brick power supply
It cost me $120 empty. It's a great enclosure, meant for stacking under a Mac Mini (and would be awesome for that, though I personally have no mini). There were also the mercury series from OWC at that store, but none had the built in PS, so I figured at that point who cares about 5 1/4.
The end result is that I tried it for a week. It now stays at home. While I used it, I got insane speeds when backing up customer systems over FW800 (Macs doing CarbonCopyCloner clones in a flash, despite the clones being around 30GB. USB2 was as expected (kind of lame), and FW400 was acceptable (but a downer after FW800). For anyone who is interested, the drive I put in it was a Seagate 320 SATA with the crazy SCSI-sized jumper removed. I never got to use eSATA, as I have found no systems that have the port, except one production server that I am not going to test on. I'm sure it's nice and fast.
Of course, with all the back and forth, carrying a brick around is annoying, when previously all I needed to carry was a firewire or usb cable. Of course, this has nothing to do with Abit's board, except that if more boards were made that included FW800, more varieties of enclosures would be available, and someone would make my above list come true.
Gary Key - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link
I have always been disappointed with the lack of Firewire 800 on the upper end boards but it appears the users requesting it are in a very small minority (which includes me) according to the suppliers. We do have USB 3.0 and Firewire 1600 to look forward late next year. :)sheared - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
It should be noted that the Abit forums are, while not full, scattered with threads regarding incompatibilities between this MB and various PSU's. For now at least, you should be careful to select a PSU from a manufacturer that is known to work with the board. I selected a Seasonic thinking that a good, reputable manufacture such as that would have no issues. Wrong. POST code 8.2.Just be careful in the selection, and you'll do fine with this board.
Gary Key - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link
PSU-We tried everything from a Seasonic S12 II 430W to the OCZ 1000w without a problems including a couple of "inexpensive" 500w power supplies out of generic cases without a problem. We tried to recreate some of the problems that users have noticed and could not with three different boards.
feraltoad - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
My X-fi xtreme music works great fortunately, it didn't crackle in my old Asrock DualSATA2 which some people reported as being a problem.I have a ZerDBA psu that works fine and a WD5000AAKS & WD3200KS & 36gb Raptor that works great, no raid though.
I've been very happy with the ip35 pro. I think editors choice is very well warranted. I use the uGuru program to OC in windows! How often can you OC in windows and have it be stable?
My heatsinks were OK, but I have heard some problems but the fix is super easy. Just replace the plastic pushpins in the sinks with bolts. That's an easy fix, sure you shouldn't have to paying that much for a mobo and they need to fix it, but if I had to saddled with a problem and I'm a pessimist(read: realist) and expect things to go bad I would rather have a problem that I can easily fix myself. So really it's a pessimist dream come true even if it comes out as the worse case scenario!
yyrkoon - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
there are also scattered reports of the larger Raptor HDDs not working under certain circumstances with these boards, as well WD SE16 HDD issues(mainly with RAID I think), and possible X-FI incompatibilities.ABITs forums though is one good example as to why their products still sold well, despite for having a 'bad rep' compared to other companies. Its these Forums that helps ABIT customers solve, and potential avoid issues with any given product.
For what it is worth, I have read about certain Seasonic PSUs being an issue with these boards, but the PSU I am using; an Antec EA500(EarthWATTS 500) *is* supposed to be built by Seasonic as well . . . it also works very well. However, I am also using the IP35-E, not the Pro.
yyrkoon - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link
that it is about time you guys did a write up of this board, but I am mystified as to why you guy did not mention the IP35-E(the IP35 Pros 'little brother'). Sure it does not have all the bells and whistles, but on an extreme budget, the IP35-E is very hard to beat.My IP35-E is running an E6550 @ 3.33Ghz with stock cooling and stock voltages, and 100% stable for the last 1.5 weeks or so. Just being able to drop the FSB:DRAM ratio to 1:1, bumping up the MCH one notch, and setting the external clock to 475Mhz makes for very simple overclocking. I have a very hard time imagining any other board being easier than this when overclocking. All this, and superb functionality(everything worked straight out of the box) without updating the BIOS. I can imagine never updating the BIOS, the functionality for me is that good.
Now if I could only fit a thermalright cooler into my case, I would be in 'hog heaven'.
Gary Key - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link
abit did not supply the IP35-E for review, but we bought one anyway and will show it against the MSI NEO2 and DFI Bloodiron shortly.