Abit IP35-E

Verdict: The quirky BIOS lets down this motherboard.

Abit currently produces four different motherboards based on the Intel P35 chipset, from the high-end IP35 Pro to the bargain-basement IP35V (not reviewed). The IP35-E sits midway between those two models and is aimed at people who want to overclock, but don't have the cash for a high-end, heatpipe-cooled model such as the Pro.

Cooling is the most obvious area in which Abit has cut costs, since the Northbridge, Southbridge and VRMs on the IP35-E are cooled by blue anodised aluminium heatsinks rather than an array of heatsinks and heatpipes, as found on the IP35 Pro.

Unlike the IP35 Pro, the IP35-E has only one high-speed PCI-E slot, which means that it doesn't support CrossFire. In addition to the single 16x PCI-E slot, there are three PCI slots and a pair of 1x PCI-E slots. Despite its budget-conscious market position, the IP35-E shares the same Realtek-based Intel HD Audio codec as that of the IP35 Pro, and even has an optical S/PDIF output. However, it uses the cheaper ICH9 Southbridge, which means that none of the four S-ATA II ports supports RAID. Rather irritatingly, the IP35-E has a tendency not to recognise S-ATA II hard disks every time when the system is POSTing (this is almost certainly a BIOS bug), although when it detects the drives, it works without a hitch.

Like its more expensive sibling, the IP35-E automatically overclocks your CPU. In the case of our E6750, the FSB was raised from 333MHz to 340MHz, boosting its internal frequency from 2.66GHz to 2.72GHz. However, there was no apparent increase in performance, and the IP35-E's multitasking score was one of the lowest we've seen.

Ironically, the IP35-E proved to be a slightly better overclocker than the IP35 Pro, and was able to run with a maximum stable FSB of 480MHz. This was achieved by boosting the Northbridge voltage to 1.8V and the VTT to 1.2375V. However, the BIOS has one major irritation: the CPU voltage can only be adjusted in large 0.02V steps. This means that it was impossible to precisely set the voltage of 1.525V our test CPU requires to overclock to its maximum of 3.66GHz. This means that, as the BIOS isn't precise enough, you may be forced to overvolt your CPU too much.

The IP35-E overclocks well for a sub-£100 motherboard, although for £28 less, you can buy the equally overclockable Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L, and use the money you save to buy a better graphics card.