While many computer users have made the move away from socket A to something newer, there are still many users who are still using and buying products for socket A, and Soyo hopes to captivate this audience and draw them into making the switch to one of their boards. Read on to find out what we think about this board from Soyo, and how it compares to the Soyo KT600 Dragon Ultra Platinum and the Abit NF7-S rev. 2.
Features (from Soyo's site)
Processor
* Socket A up to 3200+
Interface
* Socket "A"(462)
Chipset Type
* VIA KT880
Chipset Description
* VIA KT880 / 8237 chipset
* Supports 266/333/400 MHz FSB
Graphics Info
* AGP PRO slot supporting up to 8X AGP
Form Factor
* ATX
Memory Type
* Dual Channel DDR400/333/266 SDRAM
Memory Description
* Provide DUAL Channel DDR for total of Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support up to 4GB
* Supports PC3200/PC2700/PC2100 unbuffered and registered double side DIMMs
* Click here for memory speed/CPU FSB compatibility information
Expansion Slots
* Five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant)
* One Universal 8X AGP Pro slot (supports 8x/4x modes)
Expansion Slot Types
* Five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI
IDE Type
* UDMA 66/100/133
IDE Description
* 4 channels Parallel ATA IDE ports
* Supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD
* 4 channels Serial ATA IDE ports
* Supports RAID 0, 1, JBOD
* Supports up to PIO mode 5 & Ultra DMA 66/100/133
Audio Description
* On board C-Media CMI9780 AC97 8 channels audio CODEC
* Supports SPDIF input/output
IO Port Description
* One COM port pin header
* One parallel printer port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode)
* One FDD port (supports 3 modes, 1.2/1.44/2.88MB FDD)
* Provides IrDA ports with optional cable for transceiver
* Provides 8 USB 2.0 ports (4* rear, 4 pin header)
* Provides two 1394 Firewire pin headers
IO Connection Description
* Double Stack Back-Panel I/O Connectors
* PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports
* Four USB 2.0 ports
* One embedded RJ45 LAN connector (10/100/1000)
* One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port
* Audio I/O: LINE-OUT x 1, LINE-IN x 1 (share SPDIF-in), MIC JACK x 1, Center/BASS x1 (share SPDIF-out), Rear x 1, Side Surround x 1
BIOS Description
* AMI PCI BIOS with ACPI function
* Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE / SCSI / CD-ROM / FDD / LS120 / ZIP
* 4 Mbyte Flash ROM
Health Monitoring Description
* On board voltage monitors Vcore +3.3v, +5v, +12v
* CPU fan and CHA fan speed monitor
* CPU temperature and CHA temperature monitor
* CPU temperature overheats protection
Dimension Description
* Four layers, 30.5 cm x 24.5 cm (12" x 9.6")
* ATX form factor
This board certainly has some nice features. One big feature which is not present on previous boards from Soyo is support for Dual Channel. Another big feature is the support for four SATA drives and eight IDE drives. Yes, that is twelve devices. Simply amazing. The user looking for a board which can accomodate many harddrives would be very pleased with this board, and it would serve well in a home user's file or media server.Other features include gigabit LAN, 4 RAM slots, and onboard 8 channel audio.
Now let's move on to take a look at this board.
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