As Intel's Celeron processor chips change shape, so must the motherboards that house them. This is Soyo's board for the new 370-pin chip range; it's an ATX board with a PGA 370 processor socket. That's not remarkable in itself, of course, but the SY-6VZA does have one particularly unusual feature. It is based on the VIA Apollo Pro chipset, rather than the seemingly-ubiquitous Intel 440BX AGP chipset that is favoured - for price, performance or other reasons - by the majority of desktop PC motherboard manufacturers.

Being an ATX board, there are solidly-mounted rear connectors for audio, serial, parallel, and PS/2 devices, along with a pair of USB connectors. Three DIMM memory slots are available, with a potential maximum memory count of 768MB - more than enough for most users, really. There are also two PCI EIDE channels supporting UltraDMA/33 access, along with a single floppy drive channel, while the board's functions are managed by an Award Bios. The board is supplied with one EIDE cable and one floppy cable, as well as a CD containing various drivers and documentation. For those in a hurry, a printed Quick Start Guide is also supplied.

If this board has a failing it's potentially in the number of expansion slots available. There's one for AGP graphics cards, naturally, but only three PCI and one shared PCI/ISA slot are present. For people wanting to make use of the board's built-in ESS 3D sound controller, that's probably sufficient, but if you add a PCI sound card, SCSI adapter and modem, there's not a great deal of expansion potential left. What is likely to appeal to end-users, however, is the over-clocking option, which Soyo even describes (but does not recommend) in the manual. Bus speeds up to 133MHz are available, with the usual clock multipliers available from the Bios.

Verdict
Aside from the possible lack of expansion slots in some configurations, this is a good motherboard. It's pretty easy to install, has sound built in, and will appeal to knowledgeable end-users wanting to experiment with the new range of Celeron chips. The VIA chipset helps the board to perform well, and the over-clocking features are an anorak's dream come true. Burn, Celeron, burn...

Company: Soyo

Contact: 01274 664110

Tags: atx motherboard intel corporation soyo conventional pci dimm intel hardware