PCB Design and Functionality

Reviewers get spoilt from dealing only with high-end mainboards all the time. So, when I first saw abit IP35P, I felt a little shocked. A lot of free empty spaces on the PCB, absence of numerous components and advanced chipset cooling system – all this makes us assume that we received not a ready mainboard, but a half-finished product, or that the board was stripped on the way to our lab.

The PCB looks especially empty around the processor socket, where triple-phase processor voltage regulator circuitry seems to be very lonely. You also immediately notice an 8-pin ATX12V power connector located unusually far away from the PCB edge:

The connector panel also makes a very sad impression. A huge gap between the PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse and an audio-jack block is decorated only with tall electrolytic capacitors. I barely noticed EZ CMOS switch that serve to reset the BIOS settings right next to them.

However, when the first shock goes away, you realize that everything is absolutely logical and makes perfect sense. The manufacturer simply sticks to their economy effort leaving only the necessary functionality and getting rid of everything else.

Chipset North Bridge needs cooling? Here you go: a heatsink. It is a simple aluminum heatsink, but it is there.

The Intel ICH9 chipset South Bridge also has a small heatsink. Besides, the lower part of the PCB looks much merrier as it contains more components. The mainboard features one PCI Express x16 slot, two PCI Express x1 slots and three PCI slots. The gap between the graphics card slot and the closest PCI Express x1 has been increased to ensure that the massive VGA cooler will not block the slot dead.

Four Serial ATA connectors will be enough for hard disk drives in most cases and a JMicron JMB368 controller provides two Parallel ATA ports. You can also connect eight USB 2.0 ports in addition to the existing four that are laid out on the rear panel. The sound is provided by an eight-channel Realtek ALC883 codec, and the Gigabit network – by Marvell 88E8056 controller.

The components layout also shows four fan connectors. We expected to find maximum two on a mainboard of this class, so it is a definite advantage.

As for the design drawbacks, there are a few, but we shouldn’t be too critical here. Some of you may not like the location of the FDD connector, but a lot of users do not really care any more. Some got to have an S/PDIF and at least six SATA connectors with RAID support, but most users do not need this functionality. These missing things on abit IP35P mainboard are not really drawbacks, but functionality purposefully limited by the manufacturer and you should keep it in mind when considering this product for your needs. If you are missing some functions, you can easily add them, but those who do not need anything extra will be very happy about the price of this mainboard. By the way, abit IP35P does have S/PDIF connector, so you can use an external bracket for the case rear panel, or connect it to a graphics card with an HDMI Out.