FIC VC17 (845D) Pentium
4 Mainboard
Back in January
of 2002 we published an exclusive review of FIC’s VC15 mainboard; the first
FIC Pentium 4 board based on the 845D chipset. As from our expectations, the
VC15 performed quite well in all of our tests and has gotten our safe approval
for an 845D purchase.
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Features
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Info
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- Intel 845D Chipset
- 6 PCI slots
- Northwood Ready
- Optional LAN
- 5.1 AUDIO
- 3 DDR Slots
- ATA/133 IDE RAID
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Only a few days ago FIC
provided us with a sample of their newest VC17 board giving us again the chance
to be the first site to provide an exclusive look at their newest Pentium
4 845D board. The VC17 is quite similar to the previously reviewed VC15 mainboard;
both share almost an identical PCB and options; the VC17 however offers more
features for the price.
The Pentium 4 was introduced along with Intel’s 850 chipset, not long ago
it was the only solution available for the Pentium 4; obligating people to
use it without giving them choice to go with an alternative solution.
The 850 is Intel’s high
end solution for the Pentium 4, mainboards based on the 850 cost more and
use the more expensive RDRAM memory. In order to spread the Pentium 4 more
into the mainstream market, an alternate chipset had to be introduced.
Intel’s 845 is the solution
to the mainstream market; the chip costs lower to produce, the new core logic
allows mainboard makers to get back to the lower cost four-layer PCB’s and
at the same time takes use of the less expensive SDRAM or DDR SDRAM memory.
Intel 845 chipset
Intel introduced their 845 chipset earlier this
last year in order to accommodate their Pentium 4 with a value segment chip
which costs less to produce and eliminating the need of using the expensive
RDRAM memory. SDRAM PC133 memory was unfortunately the only choice due their
agreement with Rambus stating that Intel was not allowed to produce a non
RDRAM chipset supporting a memory subsystem with a bandwidth higher than 1.06/GB/sec
until 2002, limiting the 845 only to the less powerful SDRAM PC133 memory.
Intel’s 845/ SDRAM 1.06GB/s clearly wasn’t enough to accommodate the Pentium
4 3.2GB/sec bandwidth; the 845 SDRAM performances was suffering compared to
the 850 chip which takes full use of the 3.2GB/s bandwidth.
