SY-6VCA VIA MAINBOARD
A VIA mainboard with BX
performance
Manufacturer
- Soyo
Tuesday, August 22, 2000 - Hilbert Hagedoorn
Soyo is a motherboard
manufacturer with a stronghold in Europe. They have been in this market segment
for many years now  and are very successful. The company originates from Taiwan
like almost any other motherboard manufacturer. (ex. ASUS, Gigabyte, Chaintech
and MSI). They offer great boards, good support and all this at a reasonable price..
In the past we have tested a
motherboards which are based up-on VIA's PC133 chipset. Today we will be
reviewing Soyo's 6VCA version of this motherboard is based upon the new Apollo
Pro A chipset and sports gadgets like Ultra DMA-66, 133+ MHz FSB frequencies, a-synchronic
cpu and memory bus speeds,
Integrated sound and more.
Each motherboard differs in small subtlest like,
voltage tweaking (handy dandy for overclocking) FSB speeds, number of slots,
integration of sound and video and a dosin of more optionals that can be
in/excluded in a mainboard. It are those extra features that determine whether
you will or will not buy this motherboard or not. When it comes towards speed or
overall performance, motherboards are very close these days, however in the past
VIA always had to throw in the towel compared to Intels's BX chipset. Well,
times are changing. It is my believe that the package, new options and extra's
that will determine what you will buy. The 6VCA is your a VIA Apollo
PRO A based mainboard with integration of some very new and hot features and is therefore a very interesting buy. The
board has a luxury 5 PCI Slots, 1 ISA Slot (shared), 3 DIMM Slots which will
allow up-to 1.5 GB memory and a AGP slot (Advanced Graphics Port)
for AGP1, 2 and 4X compatibility.
DESCRIPTION AND
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
66/100/133MHz FSB Slot 1 Based ATX Motherboard
PROCESSOR
133MHz FSB Pentium III Processors 533B~800EB Mh
100 MHz FSB Pentium III Processor 450~800 MHz
100 MHz FSB Pentium II Processor 350/400/450 MHz
66 MHz FSB Pentium II Processor 233/266/300/333 MHz
66 MHz FSB Celeron Processor 266~300 MHz
66 MHz FSB Celeron Processor 300A~500 MHz with integrated
128KB full speed L2
cache
CHIPSET
VIA 694X Chipset
Supports 66/100/133 MHz FSB
SYSTEM MEMORY
Three 168-pin SDRAM DIMM sockets support up to 1.5GB
Support PC-100/PC-133 SDRAM
Provides ECC (Error Checking Correction) capability
EXPANSION SLOTS
Five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (v2.2 compliant)
One 16-bit ISA slots
One Universal AGP slots (support 1x/2x/4x mode)
One Audio/Modem Riser Connector (Revision 1.0)
ON BOARD AUDIO SUBSYSTEM
AC97 Codec on board to provide software audio solution
Built-in chipset Super I/O
Two RS-232 serial ports (16550 UART compatible)
One Parallel printer port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode)
One FDD port (Supports LS120, 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88MB FDD)
Provides IrDA port with optional cable for transceiver
TWO ULTRA DMA-33/66 IDE PORTS
Two independent channels for four IDE devices
Supports up to PIO mode 4 and Ultra DMA 33/66
Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports
BOARD DIMENSIONS
Four layers, 30.5 cm x 20 cm (12" x 7.9")
ATX form factor
BOOT-BLOCK FLASH BIOS
Award PCI BIOS with green, ACPI, APM, PnP, DMI functions and Year 2000 compliant
Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE / SCSI / CD-ROM / FDD / LS120 / ZIP
2 Mbit Flash ROM
SOYO AI-BIOS
ENHANCED PC HEALTH MONITORING
Built-in chipset hardware monitoring functions
On-board voltage monitors for CPU Vcore, VTT, +5v, +12V, and VBAT
CPU fan speed control & monitor
Precision CPU temperature monitoring through CPU on-die thermal diode
Battery Low detection
DOUBLE STACK BACK-PANEL I/O CONNECTORS
PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports
Two USB ports
One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port
Two serial port
Audio I/O: LINE-Out x1 , LINE-In x1, MIC JACK x1
One game port
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