Digital Trends

FIC Condor

August 5th, 2004 | by Ian Bell

Introduction

In the consumer electronics and computer marketplace, FIC may not be a brand that many readers are familiar with. And even though they produce a wide-range of products, the company can easily be overlooked because many of their products are produced for other companies. You do not see a lot of products branded under their FIC company name, but as an OEM/ODM manufacturer, their products are being re-badged and sold under big names such as Intel and Gateway.

But FIC has been making small form-factor (SFF) barebones systems for quite some time now an has made some waves with their ICE Cube brand. We were first made aware of FIC's latest SFF design, the Condor, at CES 2004, and looked forward to getting our hands on this innovative design.

A barebones system is a good way for a do-it-yourselfer to build a new computer without having to put everything together. Barebones means that you must supply most of the hardware including the processor, memory, hard drive, DVD/CD drive and a video card if the motherboard doesn't include on-board video. Most SFF systems come this way now, allowing PC builders to tailor the system to their specific usage. Priced at around $260 retail, the FIC Condor is being targeted towards gamers because of its radical design concept and support for high-end components.