VIA KT266A Motherboard Roundup - January 2002
by Mike Andrawes on January 18, 2002 4:48 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
FIC AN11 Stealth
FIC AN11 |
|
CPU
Interface
|
Socket-A
|
Chipset
|
VT8366A
North Bridge
VT8233 South Bridge |
Form
Factor
|
ATX
|
Bus
Speeds
|
100
/ 105 / 108 / 110 / 115 / 120 / 124 / 133 / 138 / 140 / 147 / 150 / 154
/ 166 MHz
|
Core
Voltages Supported
|
1.475
- 1.850V (in 0.025V increments)
|
I/O
Voltages Supported
|
Not
Configurable
|
DRAM
Voltages Supported
|
Not
Configurable
|
Memory
Slots
|
3
184-pin DDR DIMM Slots
|
Expansion
Slots
|
1
AGP Slot
5 PCI Slots 1 ACR Slot |
Onboard
RAID
|
Promise
PDC 20265
|
Onboard
USB 2.0/IEEE-1394
|
N/A
|
Onboard
Audio
|
Avance
Logic ALC20A AC'97 CODEC
|
Over the years, FIC has been mainly focusing on the OEM market. Their motherboards are usually very close to the reference design, without much tweaking options for people to fully unleash the power of their CPU. However, the AN11 probably marked the first milestone on their way to the hardware community.
The AN11, which is more often known as the Stealth board internally, is not only the first FIC board with a different color PCB, it's also the first board ever from FIC with an integrated IDE RAID controller. FIC went with the Promise PDC 20265 ATA100 RAID controller; something appears quite a bit among KT266A boards.
Although FSB speeds are not available in 1MHz increments, we did notice the wide range of values available. The production version of the board will also feature a larger HSF unit on the VT8366 North Bridge for better cooling as well.
One little complaint we have is the position of couple of capacitors around the CPU sockets. Since they are close to the locking mechanism of the socket, it makes it very hard to install and remove the CPU HSF unit.
The board is relatively stable under stress tests with all DIMMs populated. There were some lockups during the tests but overall the motherboard is still very stable.
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Anonymous User - Monday, September 29, 2003 - link
How do I get my Engine to Memory clock to run synchronous for my Epox 8kha+ boardxrror - Saturday, August 14, 2021 - link
This was such an exciting time in PC hardware. Intel was still trying to cram Rambus down the industry's throat - and obstinately trying to strong arm the mobo makers and force chipset makers to Rambus licensing. We still had VIA, SiS, ULi, and even nVidia in the chipset market, and with AMD's Athlon line still extraordinarily competitive and Intel in full attack they could no longer just consider AMD as a side-show - this was their leverage against Intel and they had to treat Socket A as premium platform.NegativeROG - Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - link
I still have this board. AND, I invested all of a $10,000 inheritance in Rambus RDRAM. I'm smarter now (I hope). But, you are right about exciting times in the PC space. I navigated away from AMD for a bit, but came back, and will stay forever. Team RED!