Abit's New Motherboards: More than Intel's Newest Chipset

Abit has been missing lately in the high-end market, but it surely knows how to put things together to create a state-of-the-art motherboard. The company will soon release their IP45 Pro to take over the older IP35 Pro, while the IP45 GT3 will come with full support for the new DDR3 memory. The IP45 Pro and the IP45 GT3 are both built on the same blue printed circuit board, but they will come with some modifications in the heatpipe cooling array.

The two new offerings from Abit will come with standard 8-phase CPU power regulation, but, unlike MSI's X48-based boards, there will be no extra energy-saving technology. This does not mean that Abit is not concerned with power consumption, it means that the company is too busy to catch up with the other competitors in terms of performance.

The motherboard manufacturer will make a comeback with the previous IP35 motherboard with an "XE" version, that will come with full-1600 MHz FSB support, that will replace the previous 1,333MHz limitation.

The company will also introduce another product into the MAX family. The new offering will be the IX48 MAX, a motherboard that will come without a heatpipe, but it will divide the heatsinks into three parts that cover the north- and the southbridge, as well as the power regulation module.

The new cooling system will include a fan for the northbridge, in order to compensate for the heatpipe. If you are still wondering why a member of the MAX series will come with precarious cooling, the answer is simple: enthusiasts would often change the northbridge cooler, and the presence of heatpipes would be labeled as a shortcoming, rather than a welcome addition.

The processor features the same five-phase digital PWM power system that is also implemented in the IX38 Quad GT, but the MAX version will come with some extras, such as a classy black PCB and Dolby Digital onboard sound chips from Realtek (the ALC888).