By Tikkler - October 30, 2000

Infobox

Product Reviewed: SY-K7VTA Product Page Manufacturer: SOYO Computer Inc. Home Page Suggested Retail Price: Unspecified

"Make sure to get an ASUS or ABIT board"--that's what I have always said to friends or family asking me for advice on what to get for upgrading their systems.

I've always been a fan of the two most-respected motherboard manufacturers around, ASUS and ABIT-ASUS for their renowned quality and reliability and ABIT for their overclocker-friendly boards-and my hardware collection surely shows it. Ever since 1998, every single motherboard that I've purchased for myself has either been an ABIT or ASUS. In 1998, I bought an ABIT AX5, a motherboard based on Intel's 430TX chipset for my Pentium MMX 200MHz processor. That board was one of the first-ever boards made by ABIT that featured their then-new SoftMenu technology (this is version 1.0, folks) and it worked like a charm! Then, as I upgraded my computer to an Athlon 650MHz earlier this year, I went with the ASUS K7M, one of the first-generation motherboards for AMD's Athlon processor featuring the AMD "Irongate" 750 chipset. Needless to say, the board functioned like what I had learned to expect from ASUS; it gave me no problems at all.

When I was making arrangements with SOYO about their new SY-K7VTA Socket A motherboard based on VIA's KT133 chipset, I was a bit skeptical as to what I should expect out of a manufacturer other than ASUS or ABIT. How easy would it be to set up? Would I experience reliability problems? What about compatibility? Those are just some of the questions that ran through my head as I opened the box to the first-ever non-ASUS or ABIT motherboard to enter OnePC.NET's test lab (that's right, we now have our own "dedicated" test lab!) and those are the questions that I'm going to try to answer in today's review of the SY-K7VTA motherboard.

Product Specifications
Before we start to go into detail about the motherboard, let me first present to you the specifications for this product found on SOYO's own product page for this board.

Description 200MHz System Interface Speed Socket-A based AMD-K7 ATX Motherboard Processor Socket-A AMD AthlonŽ processors 550MHz~1GHz+ Supports AMD Thunderbird & Duron CPUs 200MHz System Interface Speed 128Kbyte L1 cache built-in 256Kbyte L2 cache built-in ECC Protection on system and cache interfaces Chipset VIA KT-133 AGP chipset VT8363 north bridge VT82C686A south bridge Front Side Bus Options Official available FSB options of 100/ 133MHz Auto PCI Clock The PCI bus speed is automatically set between 30MHz and 41MHz regardless of FSB setting. System Memory 3 x 168 pin SDRAM DIMM sockets Support up to 1.5GB PC100/PC133 SDRAM DIMM support Provides ECC (Error Checking Correction) capability Expansion Slots Five 32 bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (v2.2 compliant) One 16 bit ISA slots (One PCI/ISA Shared slot) One 32 bit AGP slot (v1.0 compliant, AGP 1X/ 2X/ 4X) On Chip Ultra I/O Ports Two RS-232 Serial Ports (16550 UART compatible) One Parallel Printer Port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode) One FDD port (supports 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD) Provides IrDA port with optional cable for transceiver

Two DMA-33 & 66 Ports Supports two independent channels for 4 IDE devices Two channels support up to PIO mode 4 & UDMA 33/66 Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports Onboard AC97 Audio Sigmatel AC Codec chip Board Dimensions Four Layer PCB, 30.5cm x 23cm(12" x 9.1") ATX form factor Boot-Block Flash BIOS Award PCI BIOS with ACPI function function Supports multi-boot from E-IDE/SCSI/CD-ROM/FDD/LS120/ZIP 2 Mbit Flash ROM Double Stack Back-Panel I/O Connectors PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports 4 USB ports (2 on back-panel and 2 to the front panel) 2 D-Sub 9-pin male Serial ports 1 D-sub 25-pin female printer port Audio I/O: 1 LINE-Out, 1 LINE-IN and 1 MIC Jack One Game port Enhanced PC Health Monitoring On-board voltage monitors for +5V, +12V, Vcore, Vtt and Vbatt status System health status detect System temperature sensor CPU temperature monitoring through flexible thermal sensor under processor heatsink FCC Class B and CE EMI Regulation Compliant PC98 Compliant

Through VIA's KT133 chipset, the SY-K7VTA is a Socket A motherboard for AMD's "Thunderbird" Athlon and Duron processors. Noteworthy features of the VT8363 north bridge include support for up to AGP 4X, up to PC133 SDRAM support and built-in audio using the common PC97 CODEC. The SY-K7VTA has 3 DIMM slots for support for up to 1.5GB (this should be enough for virtually anyone) of either PC100 SDRAM or PC133 SDRAM using the KT133's capability of running the memory clock asynchronous to the system Front Side Bus.

The VT82C686A south bridge supplies the motherboard with 2 ATA-66 channels, its hardware monitoring (temperatures and voltages) and its one parallel, 2 serial, 2 PS/2 (one for keyboard, one for mouse) and 4 USB ports (2 of them are optional).

On to: First Impressions