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Soyo has been one of the most well known motherboard manufacturers around the world for quite sometime now. In the last few years Soyo's boards have build up a good reputation for their overclocking capabilities. With the introduction of the Via Apollo Pro 133A chipset, pretty much every motherboard manufacturer out there began to release their own motherboards based on this chipset. In this review we will be taking a look at the Soyo 6VCA which is based on the Via Apollo Pro 133A.
75% Rating: 
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Soyo 6VCA |
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System Stability
The stability/compatibility of the
6VCA was excellent during our tests. We managed to install 3 different types of
memory and other peripherals (a scanner, a printer, a video grabber) and every
device was identified, installed and worked as it should work. All in all the
board didn't surprise us with any compatibility/stability issues at
all.
The 6VCA's AC97 CODEC was rather disappointing. As it is based on
a Sigmatel AC97 CODEC, which can be found on many Aureal Vortex soundcards, I
expected to hear very clean audio output. Instead of that, the audio output had
a lot of noise and interference (in fact when I was moving some windows or
opening any application the background noise became louder and a bit more
harsh). Even an old ISA Soundblaster had cleaner output than what is given on
the 6VCA. However, it is a known fact that CODECs such as this are not meant for
"performance" but rather to deliver a value added function to the
6VCA.
Though sonic reproduction is quite accurate, it is the interference
that was a turnoff to us. We have seen other motherboards with integrated audio
that had much cleaner audio output (for example the DFI CW35E).
Conclusion
We have seen many
VIA Apollo Pro 133A based boards come and go into our labs. With regard to the
6VCA, not much disappointed us. All in all, this motherboard should deliver what
it promises. Stability, GREAT performance as well as a nice array of
overclocking options does put this board among the top of our
list.
Disadvantages? Not many. Though the quality of components used are
of, well¡. Top quality, it is the arrangement that pretty much turned us
off.
As for the casual users they will like the stability / compatibility
and the feature set of the board. Soyo has made a big effort in supporting these
boards and they frequently release BIOS updates for their products.
In
short, the Soyo 6VCA delivers just about everything a user is looking for at a
cost lower than what the competition offers for a similarly configured
product.
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