Motherboard offerings
are really beginning to get overwhelming.
Why is this you ask? Well, for starters
Intel finally has true competition with AMD firmly
perched in the heart of its mainstream PC product
offering. With a well rounded and entirely
new platform now entrenched in the market place,
there are easily 2X the number of motherboard
flavors available from any given
manufacturer. Not to mention the fact that
VIA has proven itself to be a formidable opponent
to Intel in the chipset market, offering solutions
for both CPU platforms.
As a result, the
testers at Hot Hardware have their hands full with
new products to test. What a wonderful
problem to have. This is a look at the AMD
side of the fence. Soyo,
long known for its high quality Intel based
motherboard offering, has recently released a long
awaited VIA Apollo KT133 based motherboard.
Sporting AGP4X and ATA66, the SY-K7VTA has been
eagerly anticipated as a Socket A solution from a
manufacturer known for catering to the high
end. Let's see if it hits this mark.
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| Specifications
/ Features Of The Soyo SY-K7VTA |
| Standard
issue VIA based product but where's
that #6 PCI Slot? |
|
- 200MHz
System Interface Speed AMD Socket-A
Based VIA KT133 ATX Motherboard
- Processor
Single Socket-A for AMD Socket-A type
Processor
Including Duron and Thunderbird
- Chipset
VIA KT133 and 686A chipset
- System
Memory
Three 168-pin SDRAM 3.3V DIMM sockets
support up to 1.5GB
- PC100/PC133
SDRAM 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 shared ISA/PCI
slot)
One AGP slot (v1.0 compliant, AGP
1X/2X/4X)
- On Board
Audio Subsystem
AC97 CODEC on board to provide audio
solution
- On Board
Ultra I/O Chip
Two RS-232 serial ports (16550 UART
compatible)
One parallel printer port (SPP/EPP/ECP
mode)
One FDD port (Supports LS120, 3 mode,
1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD
- Provides
IrDA port with optional cable for
transceiver
|
- Ultra
DMA 33 & 66 IDE Ports
Two independent channels for four IDE
devices
Supports up to PIO Mode 4 and UDMA/66
Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports
- Boot-Block
Flash BIOS
Award PCI BIOS with ACPI function
Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE/
SCSI/ CD-ROM/ FDD/ LS120/ ZIP
- 2 Mbit
Flash ROM
- Board
Dimensions
Four layers, 30.5 cm x 23 cm(12"
x 9.05")
ATX form factor
- Enhanced
PC Health Monitoring
On-board voltage monitors for +5V,
+12V, VCORE, VTT and VBAT status
System health status detect
System temperature sensor
CPU temperature monitoring through
flexible thermal sensor under
processor heatsink
- Double
Stack Back-Panel I/O Connectors
PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard
ports
Two USB ports
Two D-Sub 9-pin male serial ports
One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port
Audio I/O: LINE-Outx1 , LINE-Inx1, MIC
JACK x1
One game port
|
Let's run down the short list. AGP4X, ATA66,
PC133 Memory Support, On Board AC97 Audio and PC
Health Monitoring are all standard fare for the
VIA KT133 chipset. Soyo pretty much went by
the book with this board. It does offer a
comprehensive CPU Setup in the BIOS which provides
for some ability to over-clock. We'll take a
look at this shortly. However, beyond that
there is not a lot that makes this board stand
out. There is no ability to set the CPU
multiplier as we have seen on a select few boards
available currently.
Finally,
Soyo decided to configure the SY-K7VTA in a 5 PCI
/ 1 ISA setup. 6 PCI slots would have been
preferred and it is quickly becoming the norm with
most recent generations of chipsets supporting
this configuration.
Soyo
does a very nice job however, of providing
excellent filtering and signal conditioning with
its abundance capacitors and chokes (the round
torroidal magnets with copper wire windings on
them, you see in the above shots ) around the CPU
socket and other areas of the board. This
board should prove to be very stable as a
result. We'll provide more detail in the
following pages in that regard.
The
BIOS is sort of the "heart" of any
motherboard giving you critical control over the
performance and setup of a given system.
Let's look at what Soyo brought to the KT133 party
in this area.
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