VIA Apollo Pro 133A Motherboard Roundup - July 2000

6VCA

Soyo SY-6VCA Specifications
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CPU Interface	Slot-1
Chipset	VIA Apollo 133A VIA 694X North Bridge VIA 686A South Bridge
L2 Cache	N/A (on-chip)
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 68 / 75 / 80 / 83 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 103 / 105 / 109 / 112 / 114 / 115 / 118 120 / 124 / 126 / 129 / 133 / 135 / 138 / 140 141 / 143 / 145 / 147 / 150 / 154 / 160 / 166
Voltages Supported	Auto Detect Increase by 1.5 - 10% (in 1.5% steps)
Memory Slots	3 168-pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	1 AMR Slot 1 AGP Slot 5 PCI Slots (5 Full Length) 1 ISA Slot (0 Full Length / 1 Shared)
Onboard Audio	Sigmatel STAC9708T AC 97 CODEC
BIOS	AWARD BIOS 6.00PG

At one point in time, Soyo held the record for the most FSB speeds we had seen on a motherboard, and for all intents and purposes, the SY-7VCA ties the P3V4X in this roundup. They're all found in Soyo's Combo Setup, a custom portion of the AWARD 6.00PG BIOS that contains most of the settings that most users will need to set to get their system up and running. This certainly does make things very convenient, especially for novices.

A few tweaking options are included in the Combo Setup as well, such as CPU core voltage adjustments and CPU L2 Cache Latency Control. In fact, the Soyo boards are the only ones in this roundup to include L2 Cache Latency Control in the BIOS, a feature we saw ABIT introduce on their BX boards. More tweaking options are available in their standard locations in the AWARD BIOS, such as SDRAM timings, AGP mode, and CPU IOQ Depth control.

Soyo has also gone ahead and included their own diagnostic LED's on the SY-7VCA, similar to those implemented by MSI on all their recent boards. Once again, it's a feature that may not seem like a big deal until you actually need to use it. The 4 LED's are located between the 4th PCI slot and the AMR slot. Which brings up the somewhat odd layout of the SY-7VCA - the AMR slot sits between the 4th and 5th PCI slot, while the FDD connector sits in front of that AMR slot.

Despite using similar designs, the stability of the SY-7VCA was quite good, while the SY-6VCA was actually quite poor.

Soyo SY-7VCA Specifications
Click to Enlarge
CPU Interface	Socket-370
Chipset	VIA Apollo 133A VIA 694X North Bridge VIA 686A South Bridge
L2 Cache	N/A (on-chip)
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 68 / 75 / 80 / 83 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 103 / 105 / 109 / 112 / 114 / 115 / 118 120 / 124 / 126 / 129 / 133 / 135 / 138 / 140 141 / 143 / 145 / 147 / 150 / 154 / 160 / 166
Voltages Supported	Auto Detect Increase by 1.5 - 10% (in 1.5% steps)
Memory Slots	3 168-pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	1 AMR Slot 1 AGP Slot 5 PCI Slots (5 Full Length) 1 ISA Slot (1 Full Length / 1 Shared)
Onboard Audio	Sigmatel STAC9708T AC 97 CODEC
BIOS	AWARD BIOS 6.00PG