IB9 Looking good !

I've searched high and low for a review on this motherboard , and I finally found one , and it's rather impressive given that it keeps up with the P5B Deluxe
in most benchmarks that he tested. I picked one up today at newegg for
$109. I'll post some tests here when I receive it next week . Here's the link
http://www.unlimitpc.com/modules.php?name=UPC_Content&pa=showpage&pid=496 be patient as it loads a little slow

What CPU are you putting on it ?

Deanzo said:

What CPU are you putting on it ?

Click to expand...

E6400

Mmmmmm, Im looking at updating my daughters PC (XP2600) with a E6400 I was going to go with a plain AB9 or PB5 as she wont be running two GPU's or Raid. but I still want a board that will OC.

Soo Im dead keen to see how you get on, with a board at that price point.

I'd like to know how this board performs for you as well. I'm trying to build a whole new system so the wife can use this one for college and I'm trying to keep it under $2000. I dont need sli or raid or any of the plethora of features that come with the $200 boards.

If this thing can OC that saves me $100, and by "save" I mean z-5500 speakers or a 22" widescreen monitor.

You know, so I can give my old ones to the wife.

Where do I begin?. I do not like this motherboard at all , in fact it's one of the most erratic boards I've ever tried to set up. First of all , it did not like any of my memory , Corsair 5400C4 or Teamgroup extreme 5300 3-3-3-8. The first bios released with this board is nonexistent , in other words, its Poo!!
Set the front side bus to 400 MHZ, reboot into windows and I get a reading of 266 MHZ . Set the front side bus up to 500MHz and I get a reading of 266 MHZ. Loaded the new bios and it fixed the front side bus issue Only! I also had a problem with the ITE controllers anything above 375MHz. My CD/DVD drives produced many errors loading programs and acted very strange in the way they were spinning. I know it's nothing in my system that could cause these problems as I have top end components in my system. There again this is just my experience with this board , it might have some issue with it, I'm not sure. One thing I am sure of Is that I didn't like the feel of it at all , it just felt flaky. just like many other boards out their, this to wi'll need plenty of bios updates to work out the bugs. One more thing , the MCH voltage adjustment in the bios does nearly nothing . It maxes out at 1.45 volts, but only reads 1.28 volts on the board. Is it worth it ? Absolutely not , not even for $109.00 . If you're looking for the (best bang for your buck) motherboard, I would go with the Gigabyte S3. It goes for less and it's stable . Finally, I think I got it stable between 350 and 370MHz but even then , it felt funky . One thing I did notice after doing some tests is that the new rev 2 stepping on the 965 chipset has more horsepower than its older brother. Here's my system specs: ,

E6400 Processor
team group 5300 3-3-3-8 memory
western digital 2x250gb sata2 in raid 0
sparkle 550w power supply
radeon GTO2 video adapter
thermalright XP90c Cooler

Well Im sorry to hear that.

But many thanks for posting your initial results. lets hope they bring out a new bios that helps with some of your problens.

i would give them a bit of time to work out the bugs in the bios. i went thru the same thing with problems on the ab9 when it was first released. i was "GO GO GO" and that everything should have worked but sometimes things happen. i eyed that board for a bit though as i wanted to mess with it.