Soyo SY-K7VTA Socket-A KT133 ATX

In order to maintain good stability, Soyo puts thirteen 1500uF capacitors around the 462-pin socket-A, which helps to ensure that the signals driving into the CPU is clean enough and there is sufficient power. 

The 5/1/0/1 (PCI/AGP/CNR/ISA) expansion slot configuration on SY-K7VTA should be enough to satisfy most users.  The lack of any CNR expansion slot should be good news for all hardware enthusiasts.  The ISA slot provides a chance for people that just cannot give up their ISA hardware, such as a modem or old SCSI card for tape drives.  Since the VIA 686A “Super” South Bridge features a integrated PCI-ISA bridge, the only additional cost of including an ISA slot on the SY-K7VTA is the cost of mounting the physical slot on the board. 

Moreover, the VIA 686A South Bridge also features support for up to 4 USB devices.  Beside the two traditional USB ports mounted at the back of the motherboard together with the serial / parallel ports, there is also a connector ready for USB 3 and 4 in the front of the board.  However, in our evaluation sample Soyo did not include the necessary cables for those extra USB ports.

The SY-K7VTA is using the Award Modular BIOS 6.00PG, which supports the Jumperless CPU setup.  The FSB settings can be found under Frequency / Voltage Control in the BIOS.  FSB settings include 100 / 102 / 103 / 107 / 110 / 113 / 117 / 120.  From our experience, the EV6 bus of AMD’s chips cannot maintain much stability at FSB higher than 110MHz (there are always some exceptions ;), so settings over 110MHz are not that useful.  We would have preferred more FSB settings between 100MHz and 110MHz so that users can squeeze the last bit of power from the CPU.

In the BIOS, users can also check the PC Health Status.  From there, users can get information on the CPU temperature, system temperature, and also the speed of two fans.  It also reports the voltage for the CPU and AGP.

The Sigmatel STAC9708T AC 97 CODEC provides some basic sound card features for the SY-K7VTA.  However, for users who care about their 3D PC sound would definitely want a PCI sound card to get some higher quality sound effects.

Another feature of the SY-K7VTA is the use a diagnostic set of LED’s, similar to MSI’s D-LED, that are placed at the left hand side and closed to the back of the board.  The 4 LED’s blink green and red during startup as different components on the motherboard is initialized.  When everything is done successfully, all LEDs will be green.  If there is a problem, simply compare the pattern of the LED’s to the various combinations shown in the manual for troubleshooting. 

There are also two other LED’s; one is to indicate whether there is power supplied to the motherboard, and the other one is to indicate if there is power supplied to the AGP slot, so users will know if it is safe to touch the motherboard or take out the video card.

Bundled with the motherboard there is the Soyo CD, which has all the drivers and utilities you need for your motherboard.  Although we could not find a manual in our evaluation sample package, but from experience Soyo usually includes a user manual with all the details for first time users, and there are also details on the BIOS settings.  Also included in the box is the Soyo “3 in 1” Bonus Pack, which includes the Norton Ghost, Norton Antivirus, and Norton Virtual Drive.  Norton Ghost is very useful in cloning hard disk; Norton Antivirus is definitely important for every computer system; and Norton Virtual Drive can copy your CD to hard disk for ultra-fast access.