Mobo Manufac.

FIC

On display, FIC had a variety of boards, most of which we have already reviewed. But there was one new gem in the lot, the AN11. The AN11 uses the new version of the KT266 chipset, five PCI slots, one ACR slot, and the Promise RAID controller built in. The slimmed down AN11C rips out the onboard audio and RAID controller. These boards should be shipping in two to three weeks.

The AN11

On a random note, FIC has recently started to bundle newer software with their motherboards. Included with the newer boards are Norton Antivirus 2001, Personal Firewall, Ghost, WinDVD, Autosave, eWalla, Acrobat Reader, and Image More. Some of these titles seem more like freeware, but a copy of Norton Antivirus and Ghost are handy to have around, and a free firewall program isn't shabby either.

Back of the wee wonder

Front of the wee wonder

Also on display were baby computers, specifically the 815EB. FIC's renditon had a tiny case, an equally tiny power supply, built in video, audio, and firewire (!). All you would need to add is RAM, CPU, and drives. The little wonder supports the Pentium III and Celeron CPUs, and should be selling for about $350. The board does not have an AGP slot, but something like this isn't exactly going to be used for raw power, we're thinking it'd fit nicely between a receiver and a VCR.

Again, this time with drive bay closed

ASUS

The new toy we saw at the ASUS booth was the ASUS A7V266. The A7V266 will contain a new version of the KT266 chipset. With any luck the kinks that were in the earlier versions have been worked out now.

The very dope ASUS case

On a more aesthetic note, we couldn't help but notice the case that ASUS used to display one of their motherboards. The enclosure was entirely clear, brings a new meaning to running a naked computer.