If you're in the market for a nForce2
motherboard the FIC AU13 is
definitely for you. With a retail price of $135
CDN ($90 US) the AU13 has more features and is less expensive the even the
FIC AU11! The FIC AU13 didn't prove to be much of an overclockers motherboard, so if that's
your game perhaps you'd be best to look elsewhere.
In terms
of performance the AU13 did very well for itself, it kept up with Epox's 8RDA+
easily in terms of stock performance. As you saw overclocking was quite
difficult however. Perhaps if FIC were to use a larger
passive/active heatsink with some thermal paste, the motherboard could have reached a higher FSB.
There were still a few things I disliked about the
motherboard. My biggest issue with the AU13 is the small Northbridge heatsink. I
wish FIC would have gone with a larger passive/active cooler and use some
thermal paste between instead of the thermal pad. While I understand AMD does
not require the four mounting holes around the CPU socket anymore, it would have
been nice for FIC to include them anyway since many of the other manufacturers
already do.
FIC has packed quite a bit into this motherboard,
there's 10/100 LAN, nVidia APU 5.1 audio, USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, and Serial ATA. If you find
yourself needing more, expanding the AU13 is a breeze with its six PCI slots.
The layout of the AU13 is great, there are no capacitors, headers or anything
else that will get in the way with longer/full length PCI devices. It was nice
to see that big black heatsink on the southbridge, that chip is not going to
overheat.
If you're priorities are a motherboard that's relatively quick, extremely stable and has
a good set of features for a good price, you'll like the what the FIC AU13 has
to offer.
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1. FIC AU11 nForce2 Motherboard
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