Soyo is one of the motherboard manufacturers that have been around for a while -- 15 years to be exact. While other manufacturers, such as AOpen and Abit, have been the cutting edge, Soyo has never been far behind. While Soyo's strength lies in the Asian market, in 1998 Soyo expanded to the Silicon Valley to permeate the American market.

Following AOpen's AX63 Pro, the SY-6VBA133 is the second board reviewed to boast the VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset. A new chipset, added BIOS features and UDMA 66 support has been added to Soyo's previous design. We shall see if Soyo still is on the ball, keeping up with AOpen's excellence.

New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
88/B+

The Good

The SY-6VBA133 is almost identical to the Soyo SY-6BA+III except that the VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset replaces the i440BX chipset. The traditional 5/2/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP) slot configuration remains. One of the advantages over the AOpen AX63 Pro is that Soyo provided 4 DIMM slots, which means that up to 1 GB of SDRAM can be added for the video or graphics editors out there.

The layout of the SY-6VBA133 is also virtually identical, with the ATX spec followed closely, for the most part. One of the advantages of the ATX specification is that the layout minimizes cable clutter. Soyo made an exception to the spec with the placement of the ATX power connector behind the Slot-1 connector. This forces the power cable to run over the CPU and memory slots, cluttering up the inside of the case. Unlike the AOpen, the floppy drive and the HDD connectors are located where they should be, right at the front of the board. The board is of average length, which means it should fit fine in any ATX case.

One way that Soyo did cut costs was by removing the third fan connector that exists on the SY-6BA+III. Of the two, one is located right next to the CPU slot, and one is at the left front of the board. Note that the one next to the CPU can be blocked by a large heatsink, as was the case with ours. There are ten 1000uF capacitors are located immediately around the CPU slot and other capacitors are placed sparsely all over the board. The popular green heatsink is embellished with the Soyo logo and is mounted via spring clips. A pre-installed fold down CPU retention mechanism comes on the board and will hold any Celeron, Pentium II, or Pentium III CPU. The Mobile South Bridge VT82C596B chip, which allows for UDMA 33/66 support on both IDE channels, is located in front of the PCI slots.

One of the best features of the SY-6VBA133 is the section of the BIOS termed "Soyo Combo Setup," where most of the important settings are found. Control over CPU ratio, AGP ratio, FSB, memory speed, core voltage, boot order, and hardware monitoring are all found in this section. FSB settings of 66 / 75 / 78 / 81 / 83 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 113 / 115 / 117 / 118 / 120 / 122 / 124 / 126 / 133 / 135 / 137 / 138 / 140 / 142 / 144 / 150 / 155MHz are all available; this is identical to the SY6BA+III except for the addition of the option of 81. By including so many different FSBs in small increments, this board offers incredible flexibility when trying to overclock a CPU to the best of its ability.

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).

The Bad

The stability was not up to par versus the AOpen AX63 Pro 133, but, being an average competitor, it performed similarly to ABIT boards. The layout is pretty standard other than the fact that the power cable must be stretched across the board making the cables more jumbled. The fact that Soyo included only two fan connectors, one of which can be blocked by a large heatsink, shows how noticeable and annoying cost cutting can be. The VIA Apollo Pro 133 has performed a bit slower than the i440BX chipset, so, for people trying to get maximal speed, this could be a factor. It would be nice to see a full manual included with the motherboard but that doesn't seem to be the trend nowadays.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 64MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.com

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

The Final Decision

One of Soyo's goals seems to be to provide the extras that most motherboard manufactures take for granted. For example, Soyo added a fourth DIMM slot along with the overclocking features such as voltage settings and multiple FSB speeds. For people looking for an ABIT type gaming board but with the Apollo Pro 133 chipset, this board is one to grab. Notice that the stability is not as great as some other boards, but the Soyo SY-6VBA133 is definitely a good buy.

How it Rates

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.