Abit IP35 Pro Intel P35-based motherboard

The only fly in the ointment is the extra four-pin Molex power connector that's placed between the x16 PCI Express slot and one of the old-style PCI slots. To use it, you have to drag a power cable across the board, spoiling all the good work done by having edge-mounted ports.

Unlike most motherboard manufacturers, Abit has given some thought to the matter of fan headers, and the IP35 Pro feeds the headers directly from the MOSFETs, which means you can use high-power fans directly from the board without worrying about blowing up the header.

There are four USB headers on the board, above which sits a LED panel that displays BIOS error codes should you do something to the IP35 Pro that upsets it. Also housed on this area of the board are Power On and Reset buttons, ideal if you're going to use the board outside of a case.

Just under the LED display is the header for the optional Abit's Guru panel, a unit that sits in a 5.25in drive bay and provides hardware monitoring readouts - temperatures, fans speeds etc - along with CMOS clearing and overclocking facilities, and also packs in a FireWire port, two audio ports and a couple of USB ports for good measure.

Plenty of ports

Be warned though, not all of the features will work with the IP35 Pro - the audio ports, for example - so it would be worth hanging on before buying as Abit is planning to bring out an updated Guru panel soon.

Although there are two PCIe graphics slots, only one is x16, the other running at x4. This is the standard configuration with the P35, and at least you know which one is which: the x16 slot stands out in its blue colour.

Currently, there's no driver support for AMD's multi-GPU CrossFire support on the P35, and to its credit Abit doesn't certify the board for CrossFire, anyway. So what can you use the x4 slot for? Well, a graphics physics card or a RAID card are a couple of things that spring to mind. Apart from these two slots there are three standard PCI slots and a single x1 PCIe slot.

As with most of Abit's high-end boards, the BIOS includes the μGuru utility for overclocking. There are enough options here to keep happy most people who like to tinker with settings. The CPU's FSB can be adjusted by up to 600MHz, while the voltage can be adjusted up to an impressive 1.82V. The memory voltage can be tweaked up to and over 3.0V, which is mad, while the voltage for both chipset bridges can be altered too: by 2.0V for the northbridge and 1.72V for the nouthbridge. Unlike previous μGuru sections, the memory timings now live in the Advanced Chipset features menu in the main BIOS.