Abit AB9-Pro: Mainstream P965 Performance and Pricing
by Gary Key on July 24, 2006 4:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Abit AB9-Pro: Basic Features
Abit has delivered a well optioned but performance oriented P965 board that should sell for around US $142 or under. While our BIOS is still beta and now includes full memory configuration capability, we were surprised at the stability of the BIOS during our benchmarking. We certainly believe that future BIOS releases will extract additional performance from this board, but it basically works as advertised now.
Abit designed a board that has one of the more interesting layouts we have seen in the labs in a long time. While the board was very easy to install in our mid-size ATX case we did have some issues with utilizing our optical drive in the top bay due to the location of the JMicron powered IDE port that is located in between the number two PCI Express X1 slot and the number one PCI slot.
The Abit board features an excellent voltage regulator power design with high quality capacitors located in each major component section of the board that yielded superb stability during our testing with the latest beta BIOS. The Intel P965 MCH chipset is passively cooled with a low rise heatsink unit that did not interfere with any installed peripherals. This heatsink is part of the Abit Silent OTES technology that includes a heatpipe system and additional passive cooling for the VRM components. This system kept the MCH cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests.
Overall, the layout is acceptable, but certainly not perfect. Abit has stated that the layout was created in part to provide better quality power signals to the various areas of the motherboard. They appear to have succeeded in this endeavor, as this is the most stable 965 motherboard we have tested so far, but routing cables to the appropriate ports can be a bit trickier than usual.
| Abit AB9-Pro | |
| Market Segment: | Mid-Range/Performance |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 + ICH8R |
| Bus Speeds: | 133 to 600 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Speeds: | Auto, 533, 667, 800 |
| PCIe Speeds: | Auto, 100MHz~200MHz |
| PCI: | Fixed at 33 |
| Core Voltage: | Auto, Base CPU V to 1.7250V in 0.0250V increments |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-11x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked |
| DRAM Voltage: | 1.75V ~ 2.30V in .05V or .10V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control: | SPD, 4 Options |
| NB Voltage: | 1.25V ~1.45 in .05V increments |
| SB Voltage: | 1.50V ~1.70 in .05V increments |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 1 - PCIe X16 2 - PCIe X1 2 - PCI Slots 2.3 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - Intel ICH8R (RAID 0,1,1+0,5,JBOD) 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - JMicron JM363 (RAID 0,1,JBOD) 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - Silicon Image 3132 |
| Onboard IDE: | 1 Standard ATA133/100/66/33 Port (2 drives) JMicron JMB363 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel 6 Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by TI TSB43AB23 |
| Onboard LAN: | Gigabit Ethernet Controller Realtek RTL 8168 |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC882D HD-Audio 8-channel CODEC |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 4-pin EATX 12V, 4-pin 12V Molex |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x Serial 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 2 x RJ45 1 x eSATA 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x S/PDIF (1 optical in, 1 optical out) 8-Channel Audio I/O |
| BIOS Revision: | AWARD M516A-11 |
Abit has delivered a well optioned but performance oriented P965 board that should sell for around US $142 or under. While our BIOS is still beta and now includes full memory configuration capability, we were surprised at the stability of the BIOS during our benchmarking. We certainly believe that future BIOS releases will extract additional performance from this board, but it basically works as advertised now.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Abit designed a board that has one of the more interesting layouts we have seen in the labs in a long time. While the board was very easy to install in our mid-size ATX case we did have some issues with utilizing our optical drive in the top bay due to the location of the JMicron powered IDE port that is located in between the number two PCI Express X1 slot and the number one PCI slot.
The Abit board features an excellent voltage regulator power design with high quality capacitors located in each major component section of the board that yielded superb stability during our testing with the latest beta BIOS. The Intel P965 MCH chipset is passively cooled with a low rise heatsink unit that did not interfere with any installed peripherals. This heatsink is part of the Abit Silent OTES technology that includes a heatpipe system and additional passive cooling for the VRM components. This system kept the MCH cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests.
Overall, the layout is acceptable, but certainly not perfect. Abit has stated that the layout was created in part to provide better quality power signals to the various areas of the motherboard. They appear to have succeeded in this endeavor, as this is the most stable 965 motherboard we have tested so far, but routing cables to the appropriate ports can be a bit trickier than usual.
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JarredWalton - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
Being able to look at Merom chips and laptops is one thing; being able to purchase them is another. We will do our best to bring you information as soon as possible, but I really don't expect Merom to be substantially faster/better than Conroe, and I really do expect socket 479 desktop motherboards to be more difficult to find.dugbug - Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - link
Looking forward to your first merom laptop review. I expect it to be slower than conroe, Im more interested in how it compares to core duo/yonah.thanks
-d
bob661 - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
I figured I would see more comments on this. Odd.exitous - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
Is there is really any difference between the ab9 pro and the regular ab9 board other than some extra sata ports? The ab9 pro is out of stock now at newegg, so I was thinking of just getting the non pro board instead and saving a few bucks in the process.dasmokedog - Sunday, July 30, 2006 - link
Raid support on the ProGary Key - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
I cannot comment on this since we do not have a board yet. The obvious differences are in the SATA ports, RAID capabilities, ALC-883 on the AB9, single Gb Ethernet, and couple of other minor differences in board design. How well the ABP overclocks or its stock performance is unknown at this time although I asked Abit to respond to your question. :)EvanAdams - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
What the hell is PCI-E x1 slots for? What a waste.jonmcguffin - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
Reminds me of those CNR or AMR (??) Slots we saw a few years ago. I agree, these PCI-E x1 slots are crazy..DigitalFreak - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
No, their not. Blame the likes of Creative and others for not producing PCI-E cards, not Abit for including the slots. Time marches on, boys.DigitalFreak - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
their = there. Damn the lack of an edit button!