SOYO hasn't offered too many new products recently. SOYO mainboards on new chipsets appeared considerably later than those from SOYO's competitors that's why they could hardly count on super popularity. Nevertheless, SY-7VCA mainboard we tested in May this year proved that all products from SOYO are of very high quality and very often can boast some really cool engineering innovations. In particular, we can return to the good old times when SOYO was one of the first mainboard manufacturers to allow changing the CPU Vcore.

The launching of i815 meant quite a lot for SOYO. And here SOYO managed to be the first to announce its mainboard on this chipset, which is expected to prevail in the market till late autumn, namely until new DDR chipsets come out. We managed to get a sample of SOYO SY-7ISM for review.

Specification

• CPU
  • Supports FCPGA and PPGA Socket 370 Intel Pentium III 450-1133MHz and up and Intel Celeron 333-700MHz and up. Supports 66/100/133MHz FSB
• Chipset
  • Intel 815 (Intel 82815 Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH), Intel 82801AA I/O Controller Hub (ICH), Intel 82802AB Firmware Hub (FWH))
• System memory
  • 2 168-pin DIMM slots supporting PC100/PC133 SDRAM
  • Max supported memory: 512MB
• AGP
  • AGP slot supporting 4x mode
  • AGP 4x graphics core integrated into the chipset
• Slots
  • 2 32bit PCI slots
  • 1 AMR slot (Audio Modem Riser)
• Integrated sound
  • Integrated AC'97 v.2.1 codec
• Integrated IDE controller
  • 2 IDE channels supporting ATA/33/66 (supporting up to 4 ATAPI devices)
• I/O ports
  • 1 FDD port, 1 serial and 1 parallel port, ports for PS/2 mouse and keyboard
  • 2 built-in USB ports and 3 additional USB ports (5 USB ports altogether)
  • 1 Game/MIDI port, line In, line Out, microphone In
• BIOS
  • 4Mbit Flash EEPROM
  • Award BIOS supporting Enhanced ACPI, DMI, Green, PnP Features plus Trend Chip Away Virus and Symbios SCSI BIOS
• Other
  • Hardware monitoring
  • Wake on modem, mouse, keyboard, LAN and timer
• Dimensions
  • MicroATX form-factor, 24.4x20.5cm

The mainboard is supplied in SOYO ordinary box of a traditional design, which remained unchanged for ages already. As for the package content, it is slightly different from what we are used to see coming with SOYO boards. Besides the FDD cable, UltraDMA/66 cable and a CD-disk with the required software and drivers, SOYO SY-7ISM is also accompanied by 3 programs from Symantec: Norton AntiVirus, Norton Ghost and Norton Virtual Drive. The first two programs are quite familiar to you, because you can see them coming with many mainboards. And the third one is a special utility, which allows creating a CD-disk(s) image on the system HDD and using it as a real CD-disk inserted into the CD-ROM. SOYO has given up common practice of providing their mainboards with a detailed user's manual that's why SY-7ISM is not an exception here. The mainboard goes together with a small Quick Start Guide and the complete manual is supplied in a pdf-file on the accompanying CD. Certainly, this approach is very convenient for experienced users, however, the commencing PC-owners will hardy be able to learn all they need without a working PC at hand.

Closer Look

If you take a look at the specification of i815, then the first thing that will catch your eye (besides the official support of AGP 4x and 133MHz FSB, of course) will be the fact that this chipset is designed to support only Socket 370 CPUs and allegedly doesn't work with Slot 1. Certainly, the official papers do not always correspond to the real state of things. Besides, Slot 1 and Socket 370 are electrically compatible if you remember. However, we haven't yet seen any i815 based mainboard with Slot 1. SOYO SY-7ISM based on this particular chipset is not an exception also. But this is definitely not a drawback of the board, especially keeping in mind that Intel has nearly ceased the manufacturing of Slot 1 CPUs.

As for the memory, SOYO decided to save time and trouble and equipped its product with only 2 DIMM slots, because Intel's PC133 specification implies that in case of over 4 memory banks the memory should be clocked for 100MHz. However, 2 DIMMs are quite enough for most cases. Speaking about the memory working frequency, we should mention a special option in BIOS Setup called System Memory Frequency, which allows setting the memory frequency equal either to 100 or to 133MHz manually. But do not be too happy about it: it works only for 133MHz FSB. If the latter is set to 66 or 100MHz, then the memory frequency will be always clocked to 100MHz. Unfortunately, there is hardly anything you could do about it, because this limitation is set by i815 chipset.

CPU configuring on SOYO SY-7ISM runs quite smoothly. In fact, it looks as if jumpers and dip-switches are becoming less popular for this purpose currently and all controls and settings are little by little moving to the BIOS Setup. SOYO SY-7ISM is a beautiful example of this popular trend: the mainboard is provided with only one single jumper for Clear CMOS function and that's it. You may change the FSB settings and set the clock frequency multiplier via BIOS Setup (though you will hardly be able to make any use of the latter option since the multiplier is now usually locked in the CPU).

Since i815 chipset includes an integrated graphics core based on i752 and very similar to that used in i810E, SY-7ISM allows using its integrated graphics as well as plugging an external graphics card into the board's AGP slot supporting 3.3V and 1.5V AGP 1x/2x/4x graphics cards. If you prefer the integrated graphics, all you need to do is just to insert no card into the AGP slot and connect the monitor cable to a corresponding output port on the case rear panel (it has replaced the second COM-port). However, you should bear in mind that i752 is relatively slow in 3D that's why it will suit only for office needs at the most.

In order to slightly speed up the integrated graphics of i815, SY-7ISM allows installing AIMM-cards into the available AGP slot, which has become common practice by many other mainboards. These cards are none other but a graphics cache, like the one used by i810E mainboards. The cache works at 133MHz and serves either to store the z-buffer or to buffer 2D operations.

SOYO SY-7ISM is fully compliant with PC99 spec and doesn't have any ISA slots. Since this is a MicroATX board, there are only 2 PCI and 1 AMR (Audio Modem Riser) slot. SOYO implemented an AMR slot instead of a more powerful CNR, because the South Bridge version used on it is an old ICH1. To tell the truth, there is enough room on the SY-7ISM PCB for one more slot, however, SOYO didn't make use of it for some reason. We really wished they had done it, because we doubt that 2 PCI slots will be enough for installing all the necessary expansion cards. As for the installation of full-size expansion cards, there is no way to do it, unfortunately. The connectors located on the font edge of the board will prevent you from inserting them.

In fact, the use of ICH1 South Bridge imposes a number of other restrictions. First, IDE-controller on SY-7ISM supports only ATA/66 data transfer interface, and second, the amount of USB ports implemented in ICH1 makes only 2. That's why SOYO had to use an additional USB Hub - Alcor Micro AU9254, in order to implement three more USB ports (the mainboard is equipped with special connectors for them). Nevertheless, ICH1 supports dual-channel software AC'97 sound. So, SOYO provides its board with Yamaha YMF-752S codec. However, this sound solution takes about 5-10% of the CPU resources. Therefore, you may disable the integrated sound controller via BIOS Setup, if you don't feel like sacrificing so much. Though you should be ready to do without any sound at all if both available PCI slots turn out occupied by some other expansion cards.

SOYO has always overlooked the ATX specification requirements. So, SY-7ISM isn't an exception here. Even though IDE and FDD connectors are located in their right places, the power supply connector is situated close to the right edge of the board between DIMM slots and Socket 370. It is not the best place, actually, because the power supply cable appears quite long in this case. Besides, the mainboard is equipped with only one single COM-port, which is also a tangible drawback. When the monitor-Out replaced the second COM-port on the board's rear panel, SOYO decided to save time and trouble and to give up the second COM-port at all. They didn't even care to provide their board with an additional connector for the lacking COM-port.

The chipset North Bridge is equipped with a small green heatsink. And at the mainboard front edge you can see a green light emitting diode, which should signal when the PCI bus is under power. The main aim of this LED is to warn the user against installing/removing the devices with the power on. We have to stress that it is more correct connecting this LED to the PCI bus, which has been done on SOYO SY-7ISM, rather than to the memory power supply, which is typical of the whole bunch of other mainboards. The thing is that according to PCI 2.2 specification, PCI slots on i815 based mainboards are powered even in standby mode, i.e. even when the system memory is de-energized. Besides, the mainboard is also provided with a small piezo-beeper standing for a PC-speaker.

Near Socket 370 of our SY-7ISM there are 8 capacitors of 1500uF each and a few smaller ones. These capacitors should "refine" the signal improving its quality and hence increasing the mainboard stability and reliability. We were please to find out that all of them are located in such a way that they do not hinder installation of large CPU coolers, such as Golden Orb, for example.

The BIOS of SOYO SY-7ISM is based on Award Medallion BIOS v. 6.0 and its interface is very similar to BIOS from Phoenix. Unfortunately, SOYO removed a lot of fine tuning settings from its BIOS Setup, such as AGP modes, for instance. This BIOS Setup will hardly please an experienced user, however, it appears very simple and understandable for an unsophisticated guy. By the way, the memory timings setting remained in BIOS Setup.

SOYO SY-7ISM also features hardware monitoring, which is implemented by means of WinBond W83627 chip. It measures 2 temperatures (that of the CPU and of the mainboard), rotation speed of 2 fans (there are 2 cooler connectors) and 7 voltages. The mainboard is also equipped with a chassis intrusion detector. Unfortunately, SOYO chose a really outdated method for CPU temperature measuring: instead of taking the values from the sensor built into the core of all Socket 370 processors, the temperature is taken from the thermal diode located in the middle of Socket 370.

Overclocking

All latest mainboards from SOYO offered very rich overclocking opportunities. SOYO mainboards used to have a special section in the BIOS Setup called SOYO COMBO SETUP, which contained the whole bunch of useful overclocking options, such as changing Vcore, FSB or even L2 cache latency. Unfortunately, SY-7ISM doesn't have any of those as it doesn't have SOYO COMBO SETUP in the BIOS. SOYO may have considered it unnecessary to provide a MicroATX mainboard aimed mostly at OEMs and not at individual users with extensive overclocking options. However, we also dare suppose that SOYO may have also changed its general attitude towards CPU overclocking.

Well, what can an overclocker do with his SY-7ISM? The only thing allowed by this mainboard is setting the FSB frequency (though even this opportunity is also severely limited). The thing is that the board detects the basic FSB frequency (33/66/100MHz) automatically and there are no jumpers or BIOS functions to let you set it on your own. And this means that depending on the basic frequency you get a certain range of the allowed FSB frequencies, which you can set manually. For instance, if you've got Intel Celeron CPU with 66MHz FSB you may set it equal to: 66, 67, 68, 70, 80 or 83MHz only. For Intel Pentium III with a 100MHz FSB you are given: 100, 103, 105, 110 or 115MHz FSB. And for Intel Pentium III with 133MHz FSB the allowed range includes: 133, 137, 140, 145, 150, 160 or 166MHz. So, please, forget about extreme overclocking with SOYO SY-7ISM. To our great disappointment, this mainboard won't let us use a Celeron processor overclocked up to 100MHz FSB as well as Pentium III with an overclocked 100MHz bus. The only CPUs, which do not suffer that much from these restrictions, are those with 133MHz FSB.

As for other overclocking options, we should point out that SY-7ISM doesn't allow changing Vcore and increasing Vio.

And now we are passing over to real tests. To check the board's overclocking potential we selected Intel Pentium III 600 with cB0 core stepping, which we managed to overclock up to 960MHz (160MHz FSB) on other i815 based mainboards. However, since this CPU is initially designed for 100MHz FSB, the maximum frequency we managed to get was equal to 115MHz only. Of course, it worked impeccable at this FSB frequency, but the 690MHz we got could hardly be called a good outcome for this CPU. So, since SOYO SY-7ISM doesn't allow setting the basic FSB frequency, it cannot be regarded as a good choice for overclockers.

Performance

Our test system was configured as follows:

• Intel Pentium III 800EB (6x133) CPU
• Creative 3DBlaster Annihilator Pro (NVIDIA GeForce256 DDR) graphics card
• Creative Sound Blaster Live! sound card
• IBM DLTA 307030 HDD
• 256MB PC133 SDRAM by Micron

We have already considered the performance of Intel 815 chipset (see Intel 815 Chipset Review). And now let's take a look at the results shown by some mainboards based on this chipset:

SOYO SY-7ISM shows average performance among the mainboards of the same class. However, speed characteristics aren't the main argument when you choose a mainboard from a range of products based on the same chipset. The performances of different products differ so much, that you can't rely only on the benchmarks when selecting the right board. It's much more important to pay attention to the special features of a product.

As far as the mainboard stability is concerned, SOYO SY-7ISM proved just perfect.

Conclusions

Our tests showed that SOYO SY-7ISM is an ordinary MicroATX mainboard without any extraordinary peculiarities and without any flagrant bottlenecks. It performs perfectly and doesn't arouse any reproach on our part. Just a good mainboard on a still popular i815 chipset.

Highs:

• 133MHz FSB, AGP 4x
• High stability

Lows:

• Poor overclocking options
• No second COM-port
• Two few expansion slots (2 PCI) caused by the MicroATX form-factor
• Old ICH1 South Bridge