Soyo SY-6VBA133 Apollo Pro 133 Slot-1 ATX

For the overclockers in us, the sheer variety of bus speeds pretty much guarantees that you'll be able to push the limits of your CPU to the max. For the Celeron users, there are a plethora of bus speeds right below 100 MHz and for the Pentium users, there are also a good number right above. As any good overclocking board should, the Soyo included voltage-tweaking options to help with every last bit of overclocked stability. The core voltage can be increased by 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, and 10%. To provide an example, for a 2.0V CPU, such as all 0.25 micron Intel CPU's, the core voltage options are 2.05V, 2.10V, 2.15V, and 2.20V. Right below this option is the addition of CAS Latency setting for the RAM. The two latency settings are for either 2 or 3 cycles. The rest of the BIOS is the typical Award fare. A specific IRQ can be assigned to a specific PCI slot, SDRAM timing adjusted, etc.

As with the Soyo SY-6BA+III, through the use of a 1/4 PCI multiplier when appropriate, the PCI bus speed is automatically kept between 31 and 41 MHz regardless of the FSB used. One of the advantages of the VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset is that it can use a 1/2 AGP multiplier while Intel's i440BX is capable of only 2/3 and 1/1 AGP ratios, so the AGP bus will run higher than it can safely run at some of those higher speeds. Soyo's combo setup reports the speed in the BIOS, so you'll know exactly how high it is. The other advantage of the Apollo Pro 133 is that it can run the memory speed asynchronously with the FSB. It can run at FSB speed, at FSB minus PCI speed, or at FSB plus PCI speed.

After all is said and done, Soyo's stability remained merely average in nonoverclocked situations. Because of the voltage tweaking options, overclocked stability was somewhat above average. However, the board matches up with the ABIT i440BX boards - perfect for the overclocking gamer but not quite good enough for a mission critical application. Performance was also about average, within a close margin of almost every other i440BX board out there.

The Soyo SY-6VBA133 sports the Winbond 83782D chip just like the SY-6BA+III. This chip adds the ability to read the CPU temperature straight from any 0.25 micron Intel CPU's on die thermal diode for the most accurate temperature readings possible. The chip can also monitor up to 2 more temperatures, 9 system voltages, and 3 fan speeds. The reason for "up to two more temperatures" is that the Winbond hardware monitoring chips monitor its own chip temperature and one more through an external thermistor. Unfortunately, Soyo has not included any headers for hooking up such a thermistor, so the SY-6VBA133 is really limited to just the CPU and ambient temperatures.

The power management options are the same as most other boards these days. For the users who wish the computer to turn on in the presence of network activity or an incoming, both wake on LAN and wake on modem ring headers are available. Also, the BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time so the computer can wake up before you. The CPU fan can be shut off when the system suspends to quiet things down a bit. ACPI support is built into the BIOS for added power management under an ACPI compliant OS like Windows 98 or Windows 2000. The system can be configured to power on via hot key or mouse click as well. Another option in the bios allows the system to respond to power outages or surge protectors by either keeping the same power state as when power was cut off, always turning on, or always staying off.

Even though the board only included a quick start guide, it is 22 pages long; the full manual can be found online or on the CD. Bundled with the SY-6VBA133 (and all newer Soyo boards for that matter) is the "Soyo 3-in-1 Bonus Pack," which includes full versions of Norton AntiVirus, Norton Ghost, and Norton Virtual Drive. Ghost is useful for backing up, imaging, or cloning a hard drive. Virtual Drive is designed to make an image of a CD on your hard drive for ultra fast access without the CD. The included AntiVirus and Virtual Drive are both Win9x only utilities. Soyo's own CD is a generic one for all their boards, and as such includes a variety of drivers for Windows 9x, NT, and even Unix. Hardware monitoring software is provided in the form of Intel LANdesk Client Manager (LDCM).