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  • While not as large as the FIC SD11, the KA11 is no shrinking violet either. Checking in at a healthy 8.2" x 12 ", the KA11 is definitely in the upper range of Slot 1 motherboards. Thankfully, the added size relates mostly to its 12" length, something that can easily be accommodated by all my ATX reference cases. Width is where it can get more troublesome and the KA11 is actually slimmer than competitive BX motherboards like the Abit BX6R2 and the MSI MS-6163Pro. This ensures you'll have plenty of room to add or remove hard drives without skinning your knuckles too badly.

    The FIC KA11 also features a 1 AGP /5 PCI /2 ISA slot layout, something that looks more like a throwback to a bygone era. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as I'm sure that many users will appreciate the two ISA legacy slots. Since the KA11 has on-board sound (IRQ5), the fifth PCI slot cannot accept a busmaster device. The AGP slot is well positioned, and I could upgrade SDRAM DIMMS with few issues. Speaking of DIMMs, the FIC KA11 features a full complement of four sockets for a maximum of one GB of memory, though FIC warns that the fourth socket should not be used with PC133 SDRAM.

    The KA11 also has hardware jumpers for CPU core voltage selection and a DIP switch box for fixing the CPU multiplier. The DIP switches are located between the DIMM sockets and IDE connectors and can be easily reached. The core voltage jumpers are a different story and I found I had to remove the FDD cable to gain proper access to them. The rest of the board is extremely well designed, with FDD and IDE connectors well positioned and the ATX power connector right in front, well out of the way of other components.





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