FIC VC15 Intel i845 DDR motherboard review

Posted by Paul "Crazyace" Bouthiller on April 08, 2002
Manufacturer: FIC     Product: VC15 i845 DDR motherboard

Look for FIC VC15 prices OR the motherboard price list.

Test System Specifications

Like I said in the previous paragraph, I did have an Asus P4B266 running in this system previous to the FIC VC15. This gave me the opportunity to provide benchmarks from both motherboards, which basically pits one of the most expensive i845 boards vs. one of the cheapest. I ran both systems overclocked with a 133MHz bus, and memory was set at 150 MHz (quad pumped which is actually 600MHz). The reason I used overclocked settings was that almost every P4 1.6 Northwood chip is capable of hitting these speeds, which are still a bit conservative. Here are the system specs for both systems:

• Intel P4 1.6a @ 2.128GHz w/ stock Intel heatsink

• 256mb OCZ PC3000 DDR RAM @ 150Mhz

• Gainward Geforce 3 Ti450 (230/530)

• Enermax ATX Case & 300watt p/s

• Maxtor 20GIG UDMA66 Hard drive

• Samsung 24x CDRW

• Windows XP Professional

Benchmarks

The Quake3 benchmarks were compiled using the Quake3 demo. All options are enabled, including sound in all tests. Nvidia 28.32 reference Detonator drivers were used, with vsynch and FSAA OFF. The card was overclocked, with the specifications listed above. 3DMark 2001SE scores were compiled using default settings, with absolutely no changes. Last, but not least, Sandra scores were obtained using Sandra 2002 version 1.8.59.

As you can see, both motherboards are pretty consistent throughout the range of resolutions. After testing many i845 boards, they all seem to be pretty close to one another performance wise.

The VC15 picks up the pace in lower resolutions only to be caught and surpassed by the P4B266 up higher. Just note that the difference is VERY small, were talking a little more than a frame-per-second.

3DMark 2001se

Things are a little different when it comes to direct 3D, with the Asus gaining 300+ points.

PC Mark 2002

PCMark did not register the CPU benchmark on the FIC board, probably some kind of BIOS reason, but I’m not to sure. As you can see, the Asus does a little better in the memory department with this application.

SiSoft Sandra 2002

Memory bandwidth is quite impressive on both machines, and actually, the FIC scores a bit higher than the Asus board.

Select FIC VC15 at a glance and specs Installation and First Impressions & BIOS Features Test System, Benchmarks and Analysis Overclocking and Final Words

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