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Some weeks ago, we reviewed a Socket A motherboard from Soyo, the 7KVTA. As promised, we are now looking at a revised version of the same model the Soyo 7KVTA B. These boards look almost identical but they do indeed have some significant differences between the two.
85% Rating: 
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Soyo K7VTA B |
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Memory Bandwidth
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Memory
performance scores shown above are based on a low level benchmark (Sisoft Sandra
2001) and do not reflect real world performance. However, these scores are a
good indicative comparison between memory bandwidth between different
motherboards.
SiSoft Sandra 2001 shows that the Soyo K7VTA B (like its
older K7VTA brother) offers top notch memory bandwidth. The K7VTA B is
definitely the fastest Socket A board ever tested here in terms of memory
bandwidth. Soyo has managed to squeeze all available performance from the VIA
KT 133 platform.
The K7VTA B is
equipped with a Sigmatel 9721T AC97 audio CODEC. This particular CODEC can be
found in many medium priced sound cards. After listening to the sound output of
the K7VTA B we observed that it throws out a lot of interference. In fact, the
level of interference increased when we opened applications or moved windows
around the desktop. If you're not too concerned about sound quality, we would
recommend coupling a pair of low end speakers with the K7VTA B.
Overclocking
One of the more
interesting features of the K7VTA B is the presence of dip switches for manual
CU clock multiplier tweaking. This feature is very handy as every hardcore
overclocker can easily connect the L7 bridges of any locked Socket A CPU and
then adjust the multiplier through these switches. We were able to overclock our
reference Duron 600MHz up to 909MHz (9x101MHz) at 1.85V. The limiting factor in
this case was the CPU itself and not the board. The board supports multipliers
up to 12.5x and was stable up to 105MHz FSB. We have included the following
performance charts, comparing the Soyo KVTA B with the DFI AK74 AC (based on the
new KT 133A which supports upcoming 133Mhz FSB AMD CPUs).
By
checking out the above charts, it's quite obvious that the SY KVTA B offers
excellent overall performance. As we previously said, its memory bandwidth
performance is top notch even when compared with boards based on newer chipsets
like the KT 133A.
The Soyo K7VTA B amazed us with its performance, stability and
feature set. This board definitely packs in some of the newest features (ATA 100
support, multiplier adjustments) for a very low price (only 99$ on Pricewatch).
Perhaps the only missing feature is the support of 133MHz FSB AMD CPUs (due to
the limitation of the KT 133 chipset). Even without this feature, this board
proved that Soyo can build excellent boards challenging even upcoming platforms.
All in all, we really liked this product. It's definitely on top of our list for
a Socket A board, especially when performance, overclocking and low pricing is
the ultimate
goal.
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