FIC's take on VIA's KT600 chipset is the appropriately named KT-600 PRO. The KT-600 PRO isn't a wild departure from the KT600's core feature set, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, I can't find any KT-600 PROs for sale online, but I'd expect them to be among the cheaper KT600 options once they're finally available.

Rather than dressing up the KT-600 PRO with a wild splash of color, FIC opts for a more conservative look for the board. Color is used sparingly to identify different expansion slots, and though I don't find the palette particularly attractive, my fashion sense is questionable at best.

FIC gets high marks for putting the KT-600 PRO's primary power connector along one edge of the board, but the auxiliary power plug is situated directly below the CPU socket where cabling can potentially create clutter and impede air flow. Since only half of the KT600 boards we're looking at today support any auxiliary power at all, I can't complain too much about FIC's plug placement.

The KT-600 PRO's socket region is tight but clean. Memory modules in the nearest DIMM slot can interfere with some heat sink retention clips, which is a minor annoyance, but one that's easily rectified by temporarily removing the DIMM during installation. The board also lacks mounting holes for alternative heat sink retention mechanisms, but since the holes are no longer a part of AMD's socket spec, it's hard to fault FIC too much for not including them.

With only five PCI slots, the KT-600 PRO easily has enough clearance between its AGP and DIMM slots. The board uses an AGP card retention mechanism that's quite a bit simpler than the hinged clips found on most boards, and in my experience, easier to use as well.

Like most of the KT600 boards we're looking at, the KT-600 PRO's Serial ATA and IDE ports are located along the edge of the board where they should create the least amount of cable clutter. The floppy port is buried all the way at the bottom of the board, but since floppy drives are rarely needed these days, it's not a big deal.

FIC uses a tiny heat sink on the KT-600 PRO's north bridge, and I have some serious reservations about how well it can keep the chip cool. Passive heat sinks on the other KT600 boards we're looking at have at least three times the surface area of FIC's diminutive north bridge cooler, which gets quite hot even when the board is running on an open workbench.

The KT-600 PRO's port cluster offers a full array of standard ports, four USB ports, and a trio of audio jacks. With only three audio ports, the board's center and rear output channels must share plugs with the line-in and mic inputs, but that's probably not going to be a big deal for most users.