ECS P35T-A Intel P35 Express Motherboard Review

Board Layout

As you can see the ECS P35T-A has a clean layout. There were no real issues at all with the layout other than just personal preferences. Let’s look!

The top right of the board is the location of of dimm slots. This motherboard supports DDR2 at 800/667 speeds in dual channel configuration, up to a total of 8GB. We also have ot 24 pin power connector at the edge of the board, right next to the floppy connecotr. These are both in excellent positions on the board.

The bottom right of the board is a little more congested, but still roomy enough to work with. There are six SATA2 connectors here that are powered by the Intel ICH9DH southbridge. You have a great assortment of firewire and USB headers here as well as your IDE connection, which is powered by the JMicron JMB361 controller.

The southbridge is located here as well, and is covered by an attractive aluminum heatsink sporting the ECS logo.

The bottom left of the board is where we find our pci and pci-e slots. The ECS P35T-A has a total of three pci slots, one x1 pci-e and two x16 pci-e slots. With teo x16 slots this board has the ability to run in a Crossfire configuration. It should be noted though that if you do, you will be unable to use the top pci slot, which may or may not be a problem.

Audio is also located here. This board has audio provided by the Realtek ALC 883 chip, whichis able to provide 8-channel audio.

Lan is powered by the Intel 82566DC GigaLAN Controller.

The top left of the board show us that there is plenty of room around the CPU socket for your choice of cooling. Youshould be able to fit any aftermarket cooler on to this board without issue. the Northbridge is passively cooled with a small aluminum heatsink which was fine for default speeds on the board, but once we got into overclocking we had to blow a fan on it to keep it cool and to keep the board from lockng up.

The one, ok, two, minor annoyance that I have with the board is the placement of the 4-pin 12v connector. These are best placed at the top edge of the board, but as you can see, it is placed a little lower on the board. Also, you have a 4-pin molex power connector that is used when you run Crossfire on this board. It is plaed just above the top x16 pci-e slot, which could make for a tight fit, and give you a bit of a fuss when routing wires in your case. Not huge issues, but they should be mentioned.

Lastly, we have the back I/O port. The ECS P35t-A has your typical and antiquated ps/2 mouse and keyboard connectors as well as a serial port. You also have an e-SATA connector, which is powered byt the JMicron controller as well. Six USB ports are also available, as well as you lan and six audio jacks. It is a little disappointing to not have a firewire connector available.

Let’s move on!