Abit holds a special place in the minds of many hardware enthusiasts. Or perhaps another way to put it is that Abit is very conspicuous in the way it keeps popping in and out of the technology scene here in the Philippines. Even before the year 2000, with the “Y2K” mania going on in the background, Abit motherboards were already in the scene, even coming out with their own Y2K-ready boards for general consumption.

                                                The Abit logo as it appeared years ago
 

Since then, Abit has been handled by no less than 3 unique suppliers, both large and small. Now this problem with availability is by no means a fault on the hardware side – Abit enjoys a good rep abroad, and always had, and still has a respectable following of enthusiasts from around the world. Neither is it because of our local distributors – it is after all in their own interest to market a product properly so that the consumer will be able to have access to hardware such as the Abits of yore, and at the same time make a profit out of it. No, the blame lies squarely on you, the consumer.

                                                 No hardware enthusiasts here.

Of course, the word “consumer” covers a whole lot of people, only a small percentage of which are those who actually bought an Abit board at any time that they were available. This is “blame” that frankly is undeserved, because most buyers then, and even now, is not in the market segment that Abit usually targets – that is, the high-end and the enthusiast markets. Now all that is changing, as Abit is aggressively muscling into the market held by local mainstays like MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte, with pricing, packaging and a new outlook to match. Abit is now being carried locally by a dynamic new distributor, and has started appearing on local store shelves, usually in specialty / high-end stores such as Seamax.

The Abit IP35-E and the IP35-PRO are two of the more prominent releases by this vaunted motherboard manufacturer. Both of these models sport the Intel P35 Chipset / ICH9 combo, with the support for Intel’s latest and greatest that naturally goes along with it. Core2 Extreme, Quad, Duo and older Pentium D Dual Cores can be used on this motherboard, which supports an FSB of up to 1333MHz. As with most P35 motherboards, up to 8GB of DDR2 memory can be installed, provided of course that the user is running a 64-bit Operating System, as 32-bit systems will usually recognize up to 3GB of RAM only. A complement of SATA and USB connectors, PCI slots, a 7.1 channel on-board sound system, and a PCI-E X-16 slot round off the similarities between the two IP35 boards.

                                               The IP35-E. Nice black and blue combination

It is important to note however that the IP35-E, contrary to its name, is the “entry-level” board of the trio of P35-based boards that Abit is manufacturing. This particular model segues away from the high-end offerings by having only the specs already listed above, and one other notable feature: regular old capacitors around the non-critical sections of the board. Non-solid cap capacitors on a board of this caliber is surprising to say the least, although price-wise, it makes a whole lot of sense – since you are getting a whole lot of performance in exchange for only a minuscule chance of blown capacitors.

Other pointers to the IP35-E’s entry-level status are the lack of a firewire connector, a standard, albeit professional looking heatsink on the northbridge, and generally a barer feature list as opposed to its IP35-PRO big brother. Now on to the juicy stuff – The PRO version incorporates all of the features mentioned above (except the standard capacitors of course) and adds to that a second PCI-E X16 for crossfire rigs, another Gigabit LAN connector, 2 eternal SATA connectors (currently the external connector speed champ), additional SATA on-board for a total of six, the OTES heatpipe system for the north and south-bridge, and as mentioned above, solid capacitors all around. On-board switches for power and reset, as well as a numeric indicator, are placed prominently on the board for benchmarkers and for those rare troubleshooting sessions. An “EZ-switch” is also present on the back-panel for when you need to clear your CMOS. Whew.

                                               Haven't seen one of these for a long time

Although I have yet to see a blown capacitor after the big manufacturer scare back in 2004 (a result of a bad batch of capacitors from one supplier affecting most of the big names in motherboards), it still gladdens my geeky little heart to see all those shiny, silver nubs on the motherboard instead of the last-gen black-and-silver variety. Quality is in vogue with motherboard manufacturers these days, and the easiest way to show it to the consumers is to make a statement with its visible components – capacitors being the main target. This is just another way for Abit to start making a new name for itself – especially at the price point they’re selling at.

                                                Abit IP35-PRO. This one's filled to the brim.

According to Seamax’s pricelist (also downloadable from our website), Abit matches or undercuts most of its competitors when it comes to price; compared to the Abit brand of years back which had a “premium” feel to it both in the features and price department (for a “premium” market that didn’t exist then), the Abit of today maintains its high-level position in the market while tailoring its products to appeal more to a technology-savvy and enthusiast group. Abit’s efforts will likely not go to waste, the Philippine market as it is today recognizes quality for what it is, and it is a testament to the local market’s growth that more and more premium brands are taking their places along the low-end and the entry-level.

                                                 New logo for a new chapter

There are of course many options out there, and far from singling out the Abit brand, it is my prerogative as a hardware writer and enthusiast to point out that this brand is back and is more than capable – although its competitors have definitely not been idle in the intervening years. Abit is right up there with them – and if reliability stays at par with the performance we saw here in the HWM labs, then the other brands will have a fight on their hands. It falls on you, dear consumers, to make sure that the Abit nameplate doesn’t drop below the horizon again – or I’m placing the blame squarely on “you“ once more for letting go of such a high quality brand.

Look out for an Abit motherboard review coming up in the October issue of HardwareMag.