Lugging a 45lbs gaming PC to a LAN party isn't a whole lot of fun, especially since you have to bring it back home. Small Form factor PCs (SFF) is one solution, and given a lot of manufacturers produce SFFs with modern day parts, using one of these starts to look much more attractive. Of course, the portability comes at the cost of expansion opportunity, which is why todays SFFs usually come loaded with every integrated peripheral included.

FIC aren't new to the SFF market, as they've released no less than (though many are either redeigned versions of previous models). For the enthusiast, the Ice Cube series features a more eye-catching design than their other SFFs, and their first model, the VG61, sported the 845GE chipset. Of course, by todays standards, such a SFF wouldn't be that impressive right now.

Thus, the was born. The new Ice Cube has a modern Springdale based motherboard, with plenty of integration packed into it. The case design screams "look at me" (or "my god, that's tacky" if you're the more conservative type), and includes a handle that makes transport as easy as unplugging the rear cables and walking off.

Specifications

Model IC-VL67 CPU Support Intel Socket 478 Pentium 4 Processor Intel Socket 478 Celeron Processor 800MHz Intel NetBurst micro-architecture bus Hyper-Threading Technology supported Chipset Intel 82865G + ICH5 chipsets IDE Interface ATA100 Memory Dual Channel DDR consist of two DDR DIMM sockets Support DDR400/333 DIMMs up to 2 GB Graphic Integrated Graphics controller in 865G GMCH Support extent AGP 8X slot Audio AC'97 2.2 Compliant Expansion Slot PCI X 1, AGP X 1 LAN port Realtek RTL8100BL 10/100 Base-T Ethernet controller Full Duplex supported, WFM 2.0 Compliant Back Panel I/O Output SPDIF -OUT optical connector 2 USB 2.0 connectors, 1 RJ-45 LAN port 2 1394 vertical connector 1 fast serial ports, 1 D-type 15-pin VGA connector Line-in, MIC-in, Speaker-out Power Supply 220W Chassis Material Aluminum Form Factor: Self-Defined @ 262 mm (L) x 180 mm (W), 6 Layers

Packaging and Contents

The FIC Ice Cube IC-VL67 is packaged in a white box slightly larger than the SFF itself. The Cube is wrapped in plastic, surrounded by a good amount of packing foam to protect it during shipping. I found the box design to be fairly amusing, displaying generic business-type people with the Ice Cube, as given the features, this SFF would certainly appeal more to the enthusiast market.

There are also two small boxes, neatly secured by the foam that contains some of the extras, including a copper core heatsink and LED fan.

A motherboard manual, driver and software CD are included, as well as round IDE and floppy cables, a SATA cable and power splitter, zip ties and plenty of screws. All the round cables are point to point, and in the case of PATA, the cables included will allow up to two IDE devices to be installed, though you can easily swap that for a regular IDE cable.

FIC Ice Cube IC-VL67 - The Case

The Ice Cube IC-VL67 chassis is constructed fully out of aluminum and clear acrylic panels. It's about the same size as Shuttle's XPC, though quite a bit larger than the MSI MEGA PC. The Ice Cube measures 11.5"(L)x7.3"(W)x7.8"(H), which isn't very large, but the interior is quite easy to work in, especially since FIC's case choice has a few functional features for those who like to swap parts often, which we'll discuss shortly.

Though the case is an all aluminum design, there are a number of acrylic panels placed on top of it. It's a matter of personal preference if the acrylic panel on front is something you'll like, but personally, I find it a nice touch. It also serves to protect the aluminum front of the case from scratches, and although I haven't found replacement panels being sold, you can still remove it if it bothers you.

On the front of the Ice Cube, there are two external bays; a 5 1/4" for optical drives, and a 3 1/2" for floppy, ZIP drives, or even a card reader. You can forgo occupying the 3 1/2" bay to leave it available for a second hard drive should you choose to go that route.

The power and reset buttons are placed opposite of one another just below the 3 1/2" bay. Both of the buttons are also metal, matching the case, and are exposed through the acrylic cutouts. Between the buttons are the HDD and power LEDS, which are quite bright.

At the bottom portion of the front panel is the fron IO ports and cutouts for case ventilation. These holes are all the vents present on the Ice Cube, and although more holes would allow more air circulation, there would also be more noise. For your front IO options, there is a SPDIF In-connection, 5.1 analogue speaker connections, a Mic-In, two USB 2.0 ports, and a FireWire connection.

On the back of the Ice Cube, you have your rear IO connections, PCI and AGP backpanels, the power connection, a PSU on/off switch, and two fan exits. The PCI and AGP slots have an additional door to ease the installation and removal of cards that can be raised or lowered by tightening or untightening a screw.

The Ice Cube IC-VL67 doesn't give you one, but two side windows. One case window gives you a clear view of the AGP card, and the other window will give you a clear shot of the LED fan on the CPU heatsink. These side windows are secured by thumbscrews.

Since the entire side paneling has an acrylic cover, there isn't really anything to hold on to to pull the panel backwards to remove it. Now, the panel isn't secured so tight that you can't just put some force with your hand to pull it off, but the Ice Cube's window extends past the front of the case. Simply push the front towards the back, and off comes the side panel.

The Ice Cube's case includes a molded handle on it which makes it easy to just pickup and go when you need to bring your PC somewhere. The handle is fairly sturdy, and even with a fully loaded PC, it should hold without any problems. Depending on the components, the average weight of a fully assembled Ice Cube should be no more than 15lbs.

Undoing a couple screws at the base of the handle, near the front of the PC, will allow you to easily access the interior. One thing to point out is to remember to tighten the screws before picking up the Ice Cube once you're done working on it.

I mentioned that the Ice Cube is a little easier than some other past SFFs I've looked at when it comes to accessing the case's interior. The issue I had with other SFFs was the case cover made up the sides and back, so I always found it a little tricky removing the cover when I needed to work on these PCs. The removable side windows, and the swing open top is a lot easier to work with in my opinion. Being a slightly larger SFF, there is plenty of space inside to work as well.

The internal hard drive and optical drive rack is removed by loosening a few screws and pulling it out. You can fit two 3 1/2" devices and a 5 1/4" device, though I'd hesitate about putting two hard drives as the heat generated may be too much for the Ice Cube's cooling to handle.

Cooling

The Ice Cube uses an efficient aluminum heatsink with an embedded copper core. This is packaged in a small white box, with some instructions, thermal paste, and Pentium 4 heatsink clips.

The quality of the heatsink is quite good, and although it isn't based on the traditional fin design, the spiral pattern does allow for plenty of fins, hence surface area, for the heat to dissipate. The base of the heatsink is flat, though it isn't polished like many manufacturers like to make them now.

There are three fans that handles the cooling chores for the Ice Cube. For the case, the PSU fan performs double duty by cooling the PSU and venting some of the warm air out of the case through the rear. There is a turbine fan located just beneath the PSU that handles the majority of the case cooling. It does a fair job of moving air, as you can feel it blowing out the back, and it runs relatively quiet.

The fan on the CPU heatsink is of the LED variety, and casts a blue glow throughout the case. The fan seems slightly more powerful than the stock Intel fan, but it is very noisy. The noise levels are about the same as Y.S. Tech's TMD fans, and the noise levels will be compounded should you decided to place this SFF on your desktop. Replacing the included heatsink and fan with Intel's stock solution cuts the sound levels immensely, and although it isn't silent, it is not as disruptive either.

Cooling Performance

To load up the system, we run Prime95 run for 20 minutes, with Folding @ Home running in the background. Ambient room temperature is maintained at ~23C/74F.

Going up against the Ice Cube's HSF will be the non-copper core Intel stock cooler. Nanotherm PCM+ is the thermal compound used for both coolers. Tests will be run with the case closed, with a hard drive and AGP video card installed.

Ice Cube Cooler	50°C
Intel Stock	53°C

There's a three degree Celsius between the two coolers. Temps are a little high, but the enclosure is quite small, and considering you're going to be limited to stock speeds of whatever CPU you choose (more on that later), you should be fine. One other reason the temperatures are at these levels is probably because the air is being drawn from directly beneath the hard drive.

The Power Supply

The Ice Cube IC-VL67 uses a temperature controlled Chyang Fun power supply. Being temperature controlled, the PSU will spin down the fan so they won't be running at full speed when there is minimal load. At 220W, this PSU is the beefiest we've seen in SFF PCs. It's not all about Wattage though, as the rails are also very important. The 12V rail is powered with 12A, whereas past SFFs we've seen were running on 10A.

The extra power is nice, and with the stock PSU, you have four connections (two floppy, two standard four-pin). In a likely scenario, one four pin will go into an optical drive, and one will go into the hard drive. The floppy connection goes into a floppy, and if you have a Radeon 9500/9700, you have a connection for that. However, high end FX owners, and 9800 owners are going to want to keep those molex splitters that came with your card handy as you'll have no more standard molex connections if you happen to fall into the above scenario.

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.

Overclocking

As we've covered earlier, overclocking is not going to be happening with the Ice Cube. I suppose those of you who own older Pentium 4 "B" 533FSB CPUs can try dropping them in and attempt an overclock by setting to 200FSB, but there are certainly no guarantees this will work.

Test Setup

FIC Ice Cube IC-VL67: Pentium 4 2.4C, 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC4000, AIW Radeon 9600 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, ATI Catalyst 3.9

ABIT IC7-MAX3: Pentium 4 2.4C, 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC4000, AIW Radeon 9600 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, ATI Catalyst 3.9

ABIT IS7-G: Pentium 4 2.4C, 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC4000, AIW Radeon 9600 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, ATI Catalyst 3.9

Quake 3: Arena
Return to Castle Wolfenstein

The Ice Cube will be going toe-to-toe with the Springdale based ABIT IS7-G motherboard in an i865 showdown, as well as a Canterwood based ABIT IC7-MAX3. I'm aware both the IC7 and the IS7 are full sized boards, but I'm sure some of you will want to see FIC's i865's performance against the Game Accelerator (GAT) enabled ABITs. The ABITs were configured to run in Street Racer mode.

SiSoft Sandra 2004

Although a synthetic benchmark, it's a popular one, freely available if you wish to make comparison benchmarks. We will be testing the CPU, MMX, and memory speeds, using the 32-bit 2004 version.

CPU	MMX	Memory

CPU Arithmetic Benchmark

Though the Canterwood takes the crown, the Ice Cube outperforms the IS7-G quite convincingly. This came as a surprise for me, but the results were repeatable, and the Ice Cube kept its lead.

CPU Multimedia Benchmark

Same results for the MMX tests, with the Ice Cube landing in the middle of the pact. Despite not having any free PAT with their i865 chipset implementation, FIC's performance is quite impressive.

Memory Benchmark

The GAT and PAT (in the case of the IC7) is obviously the difference maker here. The tweaks by ABIT are specifically geared towards memory enhancements, and it shows here.

PiFast

A good indicator of CPU/Motherboard performance is version 4.2, by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000 digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory. Note that lower scores are better, and times are in seconds.

Lower is better

Very close results, and it seems like the GAT is not as much a factor as it was in the SiSoft Sandra tests. ABIT's i865 holds a one second lead over FIC's i865.

VirtualDub Audio Extraction

We ripped the audio of at 44 100Hz, no compression using VirtualDub 1.5.8 (Build 18068). Times are in seconds, and lower is better.

Lower times are better

Both i865s are dead even here, with the Canterwood outpacing both boards by a mere one second.

TMPGEnc 2.521

We used the same Animatrix file and the WAV created from VirtualDub, and converted it into a VCD compliant MPEG-1 file. Times are in minutes:seconds, and lower is better.

Lower times are better

Another close one here, and despite falling into third place, the performance of the Ice Cube is still very strong in MPG encoding.

Quake 3: Arena @ 640

Return to Castle Wolfenstein @ 640

ABIT doesn't call it the "Game Accelerator" for nothing, and as a result, both ABIT boards finish number one and two for both are gaming tests. The Ice Cube's performance is still plenty good enough for serious gamers though, and keep in mind that when you play at higher resolutions, the video card will be the determining factor.

Subsystem Testing

The first thing we'll check is the audio. We downloaded and installed to test its CPU utilization.

Like the other Realtek solutions we've used in the past, CPU utilization was fairly high thoughout the DirectSound3D tests. CPU utilization never got to 10%, but it did average in the 5% - 8% range, which is a lot higher than the <2% averages we've seen with the nForce 2.

This is a synthetic benchmark though, and since I know all of you enjoy a game or two, let's see how the sound will affect Quake 3 performance.

Quake 3: Arena Sound Tests

For our Quake 3 tests, we ran demo_four benchmarks at 640x480, minimum detail with sound on and off. This was repeated at 1024x768, but with maximum detail. The reasoning is at low detail and resolution, the work will fall on the CPU and motherboard subsystem. Higher resolution is more representive of actual gameplay for most users

640x480, Min Detail

With sound enabled, the Ice Cube loses almost three frames per second, which isn't really that bad at all. I doubt many of you play at such a low resolution, so let's see what happens at 1024x768.

1024x768, Max Detail

At a higher resolution and detail levels, the there is still a loss of 1fps. This is hardly any cause for concern, and I'd say that the onboard sound is perfectly fine for gaming and general sound.

In terms of sound quality, I found gaming to be very acceptable, as was the case with movie and MP3 playback. I didn't experience much distortion when we did our file transfer tests (next page), and the only problem I had was that I found music playback not as deep as the Audigy or nForce 2.

For recording tests, I used a small microphone that came with my Audigy Platinum, and recorded a few sentences. The recordings sounded as they should, with no crackling or distortion when I spoke at a normal tone, but there was some distortion at louder voice tests, making the Mic-In a bad choice for musicians.

USB 2.0 Performance

We did the same file transfer tests as in the Mushkin Flashkin review, copying several small files from the hard drive to the flash drive.

Speeds were pretty much identical, as they should be considering the near identical architecture.

Hard Drive Performance

Testing was done using a freshly imaged disk, split into partitions of 40GB, 50GB, 30GB (roughly), and benched on a Seagate 120GB SATA drive using the Intel controller.

SATA Performance

CPU utilization was quite low, averaging 7.8%. The average read speed was about 48000kps, peaking as high as 64000kps. This is in line with previous tests on similar Intel-based platforms.

Network Performance

We used to test the networking speed, and Windows Task Manager for CPU usage. We copied our RtCW directory, which has a wide variety of files contained within it, and totals 700MB, from our Gigabit capable K8T Neo-FIS2R machine, to the Ice Cube IC-VL67 box. We also zipped the folder, reducing it to about 640MB for our large file tests.

Both systems were connected via a CAT-5E crossover cable, which should prevent any bottlenecks that would arise with our standard 10/100 router, even though the Ice Cube's controller itself is a 10/100.

Small Files Test - 700MB Total

Download	Upload

The Realtek RTL8100BL did a fair job with the file transfers, and was about sixteen seconds faster at uploading the files than it was downloading. CPU usage was quite good, averaging 18-19% throughout the transfer.

Large File Test - 640MB Total

Download	Upload

With a large, single file, times were improved in both the upload and download tests when compared to the smaller files. CPU usage mirrored the small file tests, but on average, about 2% less.

Final Words

For the image-minded enthusiast, as well as the LAN gamer, FIC has put together a great package combining both performance, as well as an eye-catching design. Like I said earlier, the design itself will either be a hit or miss with some people, but there is no doubt that the clear windows and blue LED lights will catch your attention. The case is easy to work with, and the handle makes transport easy.

Performance was very good, staying close to ABIT (beating them in some cases) through most of the application tests. The gaming performance trailed the GAT enabled ABIT IS7-G, though not by a huge margin, as well as the GAT/PAT enabled IC7. Although there's no free PAT boost, the Ice Cube performs quite well, and speed shouldn't be an issue in day-to-day use.

The onboard peripherals, as well as the external IO connections have you well covered. Despite having only one PCI slot, there probably won't be much reason to find something to occupy it. Perhaps the sound can be upgraded, but the more likely scenario I see is a PCI based RAID controller or a second NIC to setup a router perhaps. The inclusion of a SATA connection was a smart move, although two would have been better. The only criticism I have regarding the peripheral choices is that Gigabit Ethernet would have been a better decision to really set the Ice Cube apart from other SFFs.

Cooling performance is decent considering the size of the PC, though the Ice Cube is easily the loudest SFF I've worked with. The heatsink retention bracket will accommodate heatsinks that use it, but because of the hard drive rack, there may not be enough clearance. This also affects the cooling, as air is drawn from beneath the rack, and with a 7200rpm HDD, you'll be drawing some warm air into the cooler. In anycase, the stock Intel cooler fits, is much quieter, and our 2.4C remained stable. The rear turbine fan does a nice job of keeping system temperatures down, and is near silent.

Stability-wise, the Ice Cube was rock solid, with no system lockups during testing, as well as during my frequent gaming. Then again, not being able to overclock was no doubt one reason it was hard to force a system crash. No overclocking options will certainly discourage some people who are looking into squeezing more out of their box.

Falcon Northwest uses the Ice Cube for their Fragbox LAN party systems. The big selling point of their setups is the low, all-inclusive price. Alone, the pricing of the Ice Cube is quite good, retailing at . Those looking into building a small gaming box will only need to invest in a few more components to complete the package.

Now, this is a matter of opinion, but personally, I do not think the Ice Cube is a suitable base when building a HTPC for a couple of reasons. The default configuration is too noisy, although that can be corrected. The case design is something I like, but at the same time, I'm not sure I would want that to centerpiece my home theatre. I'm not saying that the Ice Cube is incapable of being a HTPC, but I think the system will be more at home on top of a desk, running your favorite shooter. That is something that the Ice Cube IC-VL-67 does very well.

For a SFF, it's nice to see some of the latest technologies implemented well. I like the fact that there is a SATA connection, and support for all the current Intel CPUs. The AGP 8x support and large (for a SFF) PSU makes the future bright when deciding on a video card to use. The onboard peripherals are of good quality, and you'll still have one PCI slot to turn to when you need a bit more expansion.

Pros: Eye catching design, as well as easy to work with. Intel 865G chipset, fast and stable.

Cons: Zero overclocking ability. Design may be too much for the more sedate HTPC crowd. No "PAT" tweaks.

Bottom Line: An excellent product in almost every way, though the inability to overclock may be a sore spot for some people. For those looking for a powerful SFF, the Ice Cube is definitely worth consideration.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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