FIC, one of the main mainboard partners of ATI Technologies, today unveiled their new Socket A intended mainboard powered by the arch-rival’s NVIDIA’s nForce2 SPP core-logic chipset. The AU11, the first product from FIC to utilise a chipset from NVIDIA, does not provide integrated graphics core and also does not have any unique features integrated.

Here are some technical details of the mainboard:

• Supports all Socket A Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron CPUs with 200, 266 or 333MHz FSB;
• NVIDIA nForce2 SPP chipset with NVIDIA MCP-T I/O controller;
• 3 DIMM slots for up to 3GB of PC2100 and PC2700 or DDR400 memory. Dual-channel memory bus support: the memory modules should be identical and installed in pairs;
• 6 PCI and 1 AGP 8x slot;
• 2-channel integrated ATA-33/66/100/133 controller;
• 10/100/Mbit/s Ethernet from Realtek;
• 6 USB 2.0 ports;
• 2 FireWire (IEEE1394) ports;
• Integrated AC'97 6-channel audio solution from Realtek;
• The AU11 also comes with the full set of 1stMainboard NOVUS BIOS utilities (BIOS Guardian, Logo Genie, HotKey, Overclock Partner and 1stAid) and a bundle of free software which includes Norton Anti Virus, Norton Ghost, Norton Personal Firewall and Adobe Acrobat Reader;
• ATX form-factor.

As you may see, this is a typical high-performance mainboard for SOHO market with the support of all necessary features. As there are a lot of such products on the market already, I can conclude that the price seems to be the most important “feature” of the AU11.

As you know and understand for sure, it is a common situation with mainboard makers not to say a phrase in regards pricing and availability.