BA Fry's: FIC Nforce2 AU13 & retail XP2200+ for $140 through June 24th

[Praxis]

Edit: This combo went on sale again, Friday, June 20th & will be at this price through Tuesday the 24th.

Through Tuesday, June 10th Fry's is hawking the Nforce2 FIC AU13 motherboard and a boxed retail AMD Athlon XP2200+ CPU for the lordly sum of of $140. The board seems to get decent reviews, and comes with an 8x AGP slot, 6 PCI slots, 3 DDR400 slots, UDMA133 support, USB 2.0, Firewire & built in 10/100 LAN. The board apparently supports the upcoming 200 MHz FSB Athlon CPUs & has 5.1 channel onboard Realtek ALC650 5.1 Channel Codec sound. A review claimed the board used "The AU13 uses nVIDIA's MCP-T which includes the SoundStorm APU (Audio Processing Unit) which supports 5.1 speakers and is 100% Dolby Digital compliant."

I've built many computers with FIC boards, including about a half dozen with the VA-503+, and they always gave me good service (well, one of them now craps out after about a half hour, but it could be the power supply or RAM, I haven't taken it apart yet).

I think this is a better deal than the XP2400+ and ECS K7S5A Pro for $99 Wednesday. The superior Nvidia chipset board should deliver somewhat better performance (from a slower CPU chip), much better overclocking potential, more slots, dual channel DDR, better sound (the last K7S5A I built had onboard sound that had such a low volume it was useless), a retail CPU with fan plus heat sink and firewire in the bargain.

Anybody know if the CPUs being sold with this combo are T-breds? If it comes with a T-bred, particularly a B model, I'm all over this like Oprah on a baked ham.

Edit: By the way, Fry's is also hawking a 8 MB buffer retail Maxtor 80 Gig for $69 after a $30 MIR. Not terrible if this model comes with the 3 year warranty. Anyone know?

 

[V00DOO]

According to the review, not very good at Overclocking if you are into that stuff. Anyway, here is the original post of the Fry's Friday ad.

 

[Parasitic]

Still trying to figure it out, but there may be the possibility of this board being a rebadged Epox 8RDA+ with Crush18D SPP; I know the old AU11 was Epox 8RDA+.

 

[Praxis]

Anyway, here is the original post of the Fry's Friday ad.

Huh, V00DOO, that post is for Southern California, this one is for the Bay Area, though I suppose I should have used the full expression in the body of the post to clarify, rather than only BA. Very often Fry's deals in one market do not apply in other areas, though lately I'll grant that most of the time Socal and BA sales have a fairly high degree of correspondance.

Apparently the CPU is at least a T-bred A, since the Palaminos seem to top out at XP2100+.

I don't know about the board being a rebadged Epox Epox 8RDA+, but if it were true, that would be a goodness, since Epox makes a quality product and the 8RDA+ is considered an excellent overclocker. Anyway, a buddy is bringing me the combo tomorrow, & I still don't have a box or PS for it, but if the temperatures are below 40C or so I may try to run the sucker at 166 FSB, which would be XP2933+ level. If the temperature at default voltage is much higher than that, I won't bother with trying to overclock the CPU. However I might put the XP2200+ in another box and get a Newegg XP1700+ for $42. I understand people are getting the 1.5 volt T-Bred Bs and they can apparently often work at 200 FSB if you crank up the voltage a notch (and this board apparently supports 200 FSB, which means, I guess, that it has a 1/6 PCI divider, or whatever they call it). That would be XP2822+, which ain't too shabby. Does anyone know if I can run my RAM at a lower speed than the FSB with this chipset? I've got a couple of sticks of Crucial DDR PC2100 and a stick of Kingston DDR PC2700, so I probably can't handle too much of an overclock.

 

[ViperV990]

Unlike the AU11, the AU13 has absolutely nothing to do with Epox.

 

[Praxis]

This is a reply to this thread by dafish over at FW:

I picked one up today. The manual states

"CHIPSET

nVIDIA nForce2 SPP (Crush 18D) +MCP-T AGPset"

The board has 6 usb 2.0, 3-1394 Firewire, serial ATA with raid 0,1
and 5.1 surrond with A73 bracket and cable. No serial ATA cable or power cable though.

There is a vidio review of the board here:

http://www.3dgameman.com/vr/fic/fic_au13_chameleon/video_review.html

Pretty spiffy. The ad didn't say anything about S-ATA and the stuff I read on the board implied that the serial ATA was optional. The video is something like 23 MB, by the way, and I don't have broadband at the moment, so I didn't spend 1.5 hours downloading it with dial up, but it looks like it features a cute blond fondling a motherboard box, so maybe I'll give it a whirl.

 

[Praxis]

Well, dafish seems to have edited his message to say "The board has 6 usb 2.0, 3-1394 Firewire, and 5.1 surrond with A73 bracket and cable. No serial ATA." And indeed, my board arrived without S-ATA, as well.

However the scrawls on the CPU seemed to be as follows.
AXDA2200UV3C
AIUCB 0240XPHW

So according to
this website, it is a 1.6 volt 266 FSB Thoroughbred B. Not as good as a 1.5 volt chip, but better than a T-Bred A.

We'll have to see how hot it runs with the stock retail fan & heat sink after I get a power supply.

According to the review, not very good at Overclocking if you are into that stuff

The review was trying to overclock a near top-of-the-line XP3000+ (heck, it might have been the fastest Athlon when the review came out over a month ago). They were only able to push the FSB to 173 stable (166 default). But for a variety of reasons that I won't go in to, I think you can generally OC a current run CPU with a lower nominal speed by a greater amount than one that is closer to the contemporary state-of-the-art. In other words, I think you would stand a pretty good chance of pushing one of the "monster overclocker" 1.5 v T-Bred B XP1700+ processors up to 200 FSB with quality heatsink, fan & memory. Though the reviewer found the board very stable, he didn't like the small Northbridge heatsink, & thought it might limit overclocking. I suppose you could always screw and old 486 fan on to it if you were really driven to overclock. On the plus side of that, the AU 13 looks like about the easiest mobo I've ever seen in terms of wiggling on the CPU fan without cracking a capacitor.

The reviewer also rather liked the onboard sound:

The AU13 uses nVIDIA's MCP-T which includes the SoundStorm APU (Audio Processing Unit) which supports 5.1 speakers and is 100% Dolby Digital compliant. The MCP-T southbridge works in tandem with the AC'97 codec to produce chrisp clear audio which rivals even the top of the line soundcards on the market in terms of audio quality. This is certainly good news for audiophiles, gamers and multimedia users alike. One of the best qualities of nVIDIA's APU audio is that it takes up very few CPU resources so you're overall computer experience will not suffer due to the soundcard hogging the processor.

One other remark that I found interesting. Apparently "with all three DIMM slots used memory can only run PC2700 speeds." I don't know if that is specific to this board or the chipset as a whole and am not sure if it means you can't run the DDR at PC2100 with all three slots filled, as well.

Also, the board seemed to benchmark about as well as the fast, well regarded Epox 8RDA+, but I was surprised how little advantage either of the boards had over the the KT400 based Albatron KX400-8XV Pro (generally <5%). If I'd realized how competitive the Via chipset was, I would have seriously considered it, since it is MUCH cheaper than the Nforce2 boards & I'm not much of an overclocker. I could have bought a Biostar KT400 board and a T-Bred B XP1700+ for about $40 less than this combo from Newegg, but without the Firewire or hot-damn Sound Storm audio.

 

[Myth465]

i got the ecs deal but it was doa

should i try it again or just pay the difference for this one

 

[jimmyb]

Return the pos ecs crap and pay the difference for this combo. You will not regret doing so. Trust me. The chipset is what really matters for mobos... so do yourself a favor and get a nforce 2.

 

[SCRacer]

The FIC AU13 is not the Epox 8RDA+ clone...the FIC AU11 is...

my understanding is that FIC and Epox shared some development costs on the nForce2 boards and as a result..the 8RDA+ and the AU11 are nearly identical...although the Epox costs a little more.

I have both an 8RDA+ and an AU13 and they do not share the same board layout...and both are very good overclockers, and very stable.

i got in on this combo yesterday...good deal (not GREAT!) for a boxed cpu and this mobo.

just as an FYI...the split on the dollars for the combo was $66 for the mobo and $74 on the CPU.

I gotta agree with Jimmyb above. That ECS K7S5A Pro board ain't worth your time! i have one of those too...hate it!

 

[Blooz1]

I had an AU-13 for a while, but I couldn't get it to run at anything over 185FSB with any stability (using 1700 T-Bred B, PC3200 Twinmos/Winbond). It was, however, a very nice board under 180FSB. There weren't as many BIOS options as found on the Epox 8RDA+ for OCing. (Yes, it did come with the A1/Crush 18D chipset...)

It has a better layout in some ways than the 8RDA+, as the cable sockets are in the upper right corner of the board, next to the memory sockets. Sound was excellent.

One thing to note, the NB heatsink is small, but more importantly, is NOT FLAT! I removed it prior to installation, and found it extremely warped! It took over 6 hours of lapping to get a flat surface for installation with AS3. It's easier to just replace it with a Zalman or some active cooling solution.

From what I've heard, don't expect many BIOS updates for this board!

 

[studrew]

Got this package at Frys. Not very stable. Random crashes during stress test and games under XP. Its going back...

Note: I didnt overclock it and CPU temp is 55C.

 

[drokk]

I bought this combo on Friday, and it is a great motherboard. The processor was a Thoroughbred A though. I am currently running my Thoroughbred B 1800+ in it at 12x166 with a vcore of 1.725. That's 2GHZ for those counting at home. It is stable as heck. Prime95 ran overnight without a hiccup. 3dMark2001 finishes with a 11,416 with a PNY ti4200 64MB card. Sisoft Sandra scores are in line with an PX 2400+. These are the same scores that I received with this same processor, ram, and video card with both the Epox 8rda+ and the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. I am going to return the Processor, and just keep the board for the $89.99 regular Fry's price. Newegg is only $4 cheaper. The only problems that I have had is the nForce2 IDE still stink, but that is not FIC's fault. Do not install the nForce2 IDE drivers unless they fix them. The windows default controller works just fine. The other problem is the motherboard monitor 1StAid that comes on the CD says it does not work with this chipset. I have written an email to FIC, but have not heard back from them as of yet. I still think this a great buy. I have not tried the 200FSB yet, but I will when I can get my hands on a Barton! I have not had luck with this chip at 200fsb on any of the boards I've tried. Anyhow, that's my 2 cents worth. Don't spend it all in one place!

 

[Praxis]

Thanks for the heads up about the Nforce2 IDE drivers, drokk. I got a T-Bred B, so I guess what CPU you receive is the luck of the draw. What kind of CPU temps are you getting at XP2400 speed?

studrew, what kind of power supply did you use on the combo? I wonder if an OK 300 watt PS (e.g. SPI/Sparkle) is sufficient for an XP2400+? Though 55c. should still be an acceptable operating temperature for an Athlon, it seems a little on the high side. The T-Bred B XP2200+ is supposed to use about 68 watts, not much more than the 66 watts that my Palomino XP1800+ on my M7VIG sucks, and my temps are a good 10c. below that with a cheap, quiet $5 fan. Did you scrap off the thermal pad that comes with the stock CPU heat sink and apply thermal grease? Just curious...

 

[studrew]

Yeah, I got the same problem with IDE driver. Took me a couple tries before I figured out not to install it.

At 2400 speed, its hovers around 58C. The PS im using is a 400w Powmax that computer geeks includes with its black case for ~$33 (yes, Im poor). I didnt modify the heat sink (ie. scrap the thermal pad) cause I dont want to give frys any reason to refuse the return. Looking up previous post, I thought 40-55C was normal for the CPU. Do you think this would cause my random crashes? I guess I'll try underclocking the CPU and see if it makes a difference...

 

[drokk]

My temp is between 44C and 46C according to SiSoft sandra. Unfortunatly I still have yet to get the motherboard monitor 1stAid working for this motherboard. Have you tried to install 1stAid Praxis?

 

[sheltem]

Unfortunately, that cute blonde doesnt review the stuff... Some wierd fat dude does it. I know I was very disappointed too.

 

[Praxis]

The PS im using is a 400w Powmax that computer geeks includes with its black case for ~$33

Though your temps are about 20 F above drokk's, I think your power supply may be the culprit, studrew. I got a "300 watt" Powmax with an ultra-cheap case and it was really light (bad sign) and didn't have the little CE or T&uuml;V "bugs" on the label that generally indicate that an electronic product lives up to certain standards. I didn't want to use it on a power-hungry AMD processor and it ended up in an Intel 810 chipset rig populated by a Via C3 CPU that only gobbles 6-12 watts (& was supposed generate so little heat that it could run comfortably with only a heat sink and no fan). $33 is about what I tend to pay for a power supply alone, say an SPI/Sparkle 300 watt. You figure even a cheesy bare case will run $18 or so, that only leaves about $15 for the PS. I've seen those Powmax 400 watt suckers for as little as $11. That one only weighs 3 lb., while an Antec SL300 300W comes in at 4 lb. Also, maybe your Northbridge heat sink is warped like with Blooz1. You could have a look at it and maybe screw on a spare 486 fan to see if that helped, I suppose.

As to the heat issue, you may want to review how you mounted the CPU to make sure the heat sink in properly in position; AMD has a guide here. I've mucked it up before. Or you may just have a defective CPU or mobo. Everything else I've read seems to indicate that the mobo is quite stable if not overclocked too much.

My temp is between 44C and 46C according to SiSoft sandra. Unfortunatly I still have yet to get the motherboard monitor 1stAid working for this motherboard. Have you tried to install 1stAid Praxis?

That seems like quite a reasonable temperature, drokk, especially running at XP2400+ level. Since I lucked out and got a T-Bred B, I think I'll shoot for 166 FSB if things look otherwise OK. I haven't fired mine up, though. I'm waiting for a computer show next Saturday to get a power supply and case.

 

[Myth465]

i just exchanged my broad and i must say that it looks really nice

i will hook it up this weekend but with the extra usbs and firewires it looks like it was well worth $40 extra

 

[Praxis]

I confirmed that the combo does not seem to work with most PNY Spectek RAM. I hooked it up to my new $18 Power Man 400 watt power supply and a 512 MB stick of 6ns PC2700 Spectek PNY and the fan spun, but it didn't light up the screen. I tried 2 other 256 MB sticks of Spectek RAM and a different video card, as well as a differenct power supply to no avail. I took the combo back to Fry's and the tech there was able to light it up with a stick of Corsair PC2100. He then tried my Spectek 512 MB stick again and got bumpkis with his PS and video card. Curiously, the Corsair RAM that did work with the board was also apparently Spectek, probably just a choicer grade (circle S logo, no?) I guess PNY is not only really lousy about redeeming mail in rebates, but isn't too picky about what chips it uses.

So I got a refund. If I wanted a board that was picky about RAM, I would have bought the ECS K7S5A combo. I bought the mobo so I would have a home for the RAM, on which I got good deals ($15-20 after MIR for 256, $40 for 512 MB). Instead I'm going to go for a much cheaper Albatron KT333 KX400 mobo ($50 at Fry's if I can find it in stock; they didn't have it a the Hamilton, Santa Clara Fry's) and a Newegg T-Bred B XP1700+ for $42. Via chipsets seem to be less selective about RAM and I'm hoping I can run the board at 166 FSB and get close to the same performance as the FIC combo for $50 less. I don't have any Firewire peripherals, anyway, though I would have liked the Sound Storm high quality sound. Oh well. If the RAM doesn't work with a KT333 at default speeds I'll see about returning it to PNY and hopefully getting back some Infineon or Samsung. I'm not going to buy any more PNY Spectek, I'm afraid.

 

[weepul]

how does FIC compare to MSI? i'd heard raving reviews on the MSI nforce boards.

//krunk (^_^x)

 

[Myth465]

thanks for checking praxis i was auctually on my way to frys today humm
now i have a bit more to think about

 

[peterpur]

Does anyone know if the AU13 at frys has A1 stepping?
From the nforcershq.com forum:
Check the bios of the AU13

TCCXX MOBO comes w/ A3 nforce2
TFAXX MOBO comes w/ A1 nforce2 ultra 400 chipset

 

[pxc]

WCPUID says the chipset in mine is revision A2. The motherboard says TCC41 and 0400 right below it (the box also says "E:0400" on the side). I can't reboot now, so I don't know what the BIOS says.

 

[Praxis]

The combo is on sale again through Tuesday the 24th.

I kind of wish I'd kept the combo and swapped out some Crucial from a VIA rig that is less eclectic about memory, but now I'm thinking about trying
this Newegg $90 Shuttle MN31N Nforce2 rig with Sound Storm MCP-T, LAN, Firewire & onboard Geforce4 MX with dual VGA ports. It doesn't support 400 FSB, but apparently FIC hasn't tested the AU 13 with 400 FSB CPUs either according to some cat from a local LUG who investigated the matter, & besides, I'm not planning on shooting that high. Also, it only has 3 PCI slots, but with so much integrated stuff how many slots do you need?