The Motherboard

The motherboard is a six-layer design, based on the Intel 865G chipset. The features mirror that of the 865PE Springdale chipset, except the "G" designates the inclusion of the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 into its architecture. Full details about the technology can be found , but to cut through most of the marketing BS, this graphics controller won't cut it for the majority of todays graphically intense 3D games, and will no doubt cause users grief when trying to play Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 when they are released.

Luckily, the chipset design allows for an AGP 8x slot to be included, which FIC wisely does. The motherboard is designed where the AGP slot is the outer slot, and believe me, this paid off. As we covered in our AIW 9600 Pro review, it is difficult getting that card installed into the Ice Cube, but it does fit, and part of the reason is due to the AGP slot placement. I did not test with an extensive list of video cards, but in case you're wondering, the three capacitors (pictured to the top right, right below the AGP slot) shouldn't interfere with video card installation. I got an AIW 9600/9800 Pro to fit, as well as a FX5600/5900 as well. The lone PCI connection is the inner slot on the board, and it's fairly easy to access.

There are two ram slots, which makes sense as the 865G has dual channel support. DDR400 (and lower) is supported, and you can use up to 2GB. With the hard drive rack installed, there is still clearance for larger ram modules such as the Corsair ProSeries.

The IDE and floppy connections are located near the power connections, and getting to them is fairly easy if you only need one connection. Because the board is smaller than a typical ATX board, all three connections are right up against each other. If you have a couple cables going in, getting to the third connection is a little inconvenient.

The IDE and floppy proximity issues are alleviated by the inclusion of a SATA connection. A smart move on FIC's part, as SATA drives are becoming more popular. However, between the SATA and the PCI slot is the CMOS jumper. In no small words, this jumper is in a terrible position as it is extremely frustrating to get to. Out of the five times I needed to get to it, at least three times it fumbled out of my hands. A pull-tab style jumper would have made a much better choice.

The CPU socket supports any Socket 478 processor, and uses Intel's standard heatsink retention scheme. Heatsink support will vary, but this area is directly below the HDD rack, so don't expect to hook up a Swiftech MCX4000 with an 80mm fan below it. The included cooler fits, naturally, as well as the stock Intel cooler.

The 865G is cooled by a nice aluminum heatsink with a fan. It doesn't produce much noise at all, and active cooling is a good idea; more so if you choose to use the IGP (ugh).

Onboard sound and networking are handled by a couple of familiar Realtek products. The ALC650 sound controller features six channel sound support and compliant with AC'97 2.2 specifications. From past experience, the quality is decent, though CPU usage is higher than other onboard controllers we've experienced.

The RTL8100BL is a 10/100M Fast Ethernet controller. It is a PCI based solution, so if other PCI based products are hogging the system bus, performance of the controller will be affected.

Rounding things out are the rear IO connections. There are two PS/2 ports for legacy devices, a couple FireWire ports (three total), a serial connection, a VGA connection, a LAN connection, two USB (four total) and your sound connections.

I should point out that FIC follows Intel's i865 guidelines, meaning, you won't find any Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT) enhancements here. This is a bit of a downer, but you can all blame Intel when looking for a direction to point your wrath.

The BIOS

FIC uses a Pheonix AwardBIOS, which is my personal favorite. Though you have some ability to do some system tweaks, we'll soon see that a lot of items tweakers are accustomed to are not present.

In the Advanced Chipset Features, this is where most of the system tweaking will be found. By setting the DRAM timings to manual, you can make some adjustments if your ram can handle it. You can also set your memory frequency to as low as DDR266 should you be using older PC2100 ram. Invested in a truckload of DDR500? I'm afraid you'll be capped at DDR400, as there is no ratio adjustments available.

Integrated Peripherals is where you can enable and disable a number of onboard devices. I was quite satisfied with the performance of the onboard stuff, and chose to leave most items enabled, though if you have a sound card you're satisfied with for example, you can disable the Realtek sound controller.

Frequency/Voltage Control is typically where enthusiasts have the most fun when digging into the overclocking. Like I said, typically. Maybe it's the business people on the box or something, but you'll find ZERO options for overclocking, let alone any voltage adjustments. This is a shame really, but understandable in a way as the small confines of the Ice Cube doesn't allow for any extreme cooling.