The board layout is fairly conventional, with Soyo taking the middle road here with 1AGP/5PCI/1ISA slot. Thankfully no useless CNR slots were included. Hardly any OEM's are using CNR, and certainly very few if any end users. I would have liked to see an additional PCI slot in lieu of the lone ISA slot, but 5 is ok. The board sports the 686B version Southbridge, for ATA/100 HDD support, something somewhat optional on the KT133, but apparently standard on all KT133a boards, and a welcome addition.

Here's a little addition that's becoming commonplace on KT133a boards, an actively cooled Northbridge. Although I've always had little faith in the little "greenie" Northbridge sinks, it should at least be kept cooler by the addition of a fan here.

Here we see a bit of a departure from Soyo's previous KT133 (non "a") board, which had a nice wall of capacitors VERY CLOSE to the left side of the socket. You will notice here that there is little of anything in the way of mounting a massive heatsink here. One detractor may be the location of the ATX power connector which may force the ATX power cable over the heatsink and lead to some unnecessary airflow restriction. A few manufacturers have taken the smart approach lately and placed the ATX connector along the very top of the board, allowing the ATX cable to be totally out of the way.

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