Is the Abit IB9 the anti-christ?

S

ShoeLace

Gawd
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Apr 5, 2006
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I recently ordered one from new egg along with other parts, and it hasn't came yet but someone recommended it and it looked pretty good (+affordable).

I have a bit of spare time now and wanted to read reviews on it but it's like the motherboard doesn't exist on any popular review sites. This leads me to 2 conclusions:

1) It is indeed the anti-christ.
2) It's so ridiculously good that even the hardware review sites don't want to mention it because they are buying them as soon as they hit the shelves. In a similiar fashion to people buying a dozen Logitech Wingman mice because it was the best mouse ever created (until optical mice actually became good).

Seriously though, what gives with the lack of reviews on this board?
 
I think Abit's reputation lately has frankly gone down the crapper, meaning people are less inclined to comment as a result or even consider Abit products overall.

The aw9d-max is supposedly a decent board, I was impressed with what I saw.

Black PCB
"Cooling strips" on the back of the board (nice touch but seemed gimmicky though)
Tons of blue LED's (again gimmicky)
Huge Solid State Caps
Nice looking passive NB/SB coolers

I was seconds away from buying one but I read up more on how the 975x doesn't seem to be as high of an OCer compared with the p965.
 
I think the IN9 32X-Max is the real Abit antichrist, the IB9 is probably some minor dark diety. I have bald patches from pulling my hair out with the IN9. It also was very slow on getting reviews and even slower on getting bios updates.
 
I just installed an IB9 with an E4300. Easy enough build. Got the latest beta bios off the Abit forums and it's been a lot better. I was getting a "CPU Unworkable" error everytime the board booted until I got that bios. The latest official bios isn't on the US website. You have to get it off the global site (1.2 is latest official...1.3 is latest beta).
 
Not only has abit's reputation suffered, their product quality has as well. The abit AB9-Pro was one of the worst motherboards I've touched in recent memory. It's not even stable at stock speeds. Overclocking aside, the ECS PX1 Extreme was a better board.

What does that tell you?
 
well reading peoples reviews of it aren't too impressive. It only has 2 pci slots ehhh I dunno I dont see it breaking any real records, needs a ide to sata converter, You tell me why you think it's not popular?
 
Dan_D said:
Not only has abit's reputation suffered, their product quality has as well. The abit AB9-Pro was one of the worst motherboards I've touched in recent memory. It's not even stable at stock speeds. Overclocking aside, the ECS PX1 Extreme was a better board.

What does that tell you?
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it wasn't that bad after a few rounds of bios updates. The 1.3 and later bioses made it into a decent board. I had an E6600 running around 3Ghz while I had it.
 
Glow said:
well reading peoples reviews of it aren't too impressive. It only has 2 pci slots ehhh I dunno I dont see it breaking any real records, needs a ide to sata converter, You tell me why you think it's not popular?
Click to expand...

It's only $75 or so AR. Even the Rev. 1.3 DS3 is $99. For that price, it's worth seeing what it'll do (especially when it's not your computer :) ).
 
kirbyrj said:
It's only $75 or so AR. Even the Rev. 1.3 DS3 is $99. For that price, it's worth seeing what it'll do (especially when it's not your computer :) ).
Click to expand...

well lets see some results
 
Glow said:
well lets see some results
Click to expand...

Haha...I'm getting there. I just don't have time to sit around and monkey with it :eek: . So far at stock speeds it's very stable and I've had zero issues with it while installing Windows. I don't even think I had that kind of luck with my P5W in my sig.

Abit has traditionally disappointed me. Everytime there's a board out there that looks like a good deal and looks like it would perform well, something is a little flakey.
 
Dan_D said:
Not only has abit's reputation suffered, their product quality has as well. The abit AB9-Pro was one of the worst motherboards I've touched in recent memory. It's not even stable at stock speeds. Overclocking aside, the ECS PX1 Extreme was a better board.
Click to expand...
iyo, others have different views (as will always be the case).
on the other hand the AB9 QuadGT is 1 of the best 965s going.

As for the IB9 it's a basic, cheap 965 which does the job & even ocs to 415-430fsb.
 
It's too bad Abit went downhill. Is Gigabyte the new Abit? I remember back in the day your main choices were Asus or Abit. Choosing something else was asking for trouble.

Egg reviews are too shady to go by. Almost all of the bad reviews were due to people not installing IDE drivers before they tried to install windows with an (E)IDE HD.

I guess we'll see how it goes. Assuming nothing is DOA I'll post up a mini review of the board running an E6420 sometime tomorrow or Friday.
 
Glow said:
well lets see some results
Click to expand...

Right now I'm running Orthos at 2.7Ghz on stock volts. Jumped right to 300x9...no issues so far. Got the 1.3beta bios from Abit-usa forums and it's working fine for me.
 
Looks like the Abit KN9S. Same number of pci slots and stuff.
kirbyrj said:
I was getting a "CPU Unworkable" error everytime the board booted until I got that bios. The latest official bios isn't on the US website. You have to get it off the global site (1.2 is latest official...1.3 is latest beta).
Click to expand...
Yeah some people can't even post with the early abit bios'. Most have to upgrade to whatever's latest for some reason or another.
 
This IB9 is a great board for what I need it for (ultra-budget build ;) ). Much better than the AB9 Pro I used to have. I'm impressed and I've only been using it for a few days.
 
kirbyrj said:
This IB9 is a great board for what I need it for (ultra-budget build ;) ). Much better than the AB9 Pro I used to have. I'm impressed and I've only been using it for a few days.
Click to expand...
I have a KN9S and had similar impressions. It's running great except the cpu socket has cracked a little for some reason. It's a rackmount case so there's no strain from the hsf. Hopefully your socket will last. Plus their bios is easy to navigate and oc. Boots fast. I too notice bad Abit reviews.
 
kirbyrj,
Did you try going past 2.7ghz, also if you don't mind sharing -- are you using stock cooling, or something else?
 
BUFF said:
iyo, others have different views (as will always be the case).
on the other hand the AB9 QuadGT is 1 of the best 965s going.

As for the IB9 it's a basic, cheap 965 which does the job & even ocs to 415-430fsb.
Click to expand...

415 - 430 Fsb? Really? My PD950 can't post up with anything above 250 on this board, 230 stable..... and this is with 17x multi. This chip has hit 5.0 ghz before, so it shouldn't be that hard...

ShoeLace said:
It's too bad Abit went downhill. Is Gigabyte the new Abit? I remember back in the day your main choices were Asus or Abit. Choosing something else was asking for trouble.

Egg reviews are too shady to go by. Almost all of the bad reviews were due to people not installing IDE drivers before they tried to install windows with an (E)IDE HD.

I guess we'll see how it goes. Assuming nothing is DOA I'll post up a mini review of the board running an E6420 sometime tomorrow or Friday.
Click to expand...

What? Asus quality has gone down the shit-hole. Started goin down after their P5WD2-E Premiums...
 
lol. my bad. Back in the day for me is S463//S478 land
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No problem. I didn't even know wtf an S478 was. Had to google it. My last system upgrade was sometime in 2003. :D
 
ShoeLace said:
kirbyrj,
Did you try going past 2.7ghz, also if you don't mind sharing -- are you using stock cooling, or something else?
Click to expand...

Basically a Sunbeamtech version of the AC Freezer 7 Pro (Newegg for like $15-20). I'm rock solid at 2.7Ghz, but when I try to boot higher than that, it won't pass Orthos. Haven't tested to see if it's the memory or the CPU. It boots into Windows at 3.0Ghz without any problems. I haven't tried higher yet.
 
StealthyFish said:
415 - 430 Fsb? Really? My PD950 can't post up with anything above 250 on this board, 230 stable....
Click to expand...

certainly with a C2D it will.

I think that post the USI investment that abit is making good>great mobos at a hardware level but that their BIOS development could be faster.
Mind you you can level that BIOS development charge against many incl. Asus & Gigabyte (probably MSI, ECS, Foxconn et al too) as the race to be first to market has them shipping mobos & hoping that they can have a fixed BIOS by the time that they appear in retail a few weeks later.

I do worry about the survival of abit, Biostar, DFI etc. against the big 5 (Asus, ECS, Foxconn, Gigabyte & MSI) & what that ultimately means in terms of what we will get if there are fewer manufacturers ...
 
Update: E4300 runs 300x9 and is 12 hours prime stable with stock vcore. Going to see if it's the RAM keeping me from going higher or the CPU. I probably won't go over 1.4V Vcore.

Running with DDR2 667 memory. There is no DDR2 400 divider...only 533/667/800. Might be a little problem if trying to max out a 6300. I'll keep playing around and see what happens. I'm going to try lowering the multiplier to x6 and see how high I can go.
 
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