Included with the board is a driver CD (for chipset support and the onboard
audio) and an "8-in1" software bundle consisting of Norton Antivirus 2000,
Norton Ghost, Adobe ActiveShare, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Apollo shopping
assistant, X-Stop (an anti-porn block for html), CuteDialer, a replacement
dialer for MS Windows Dialup Networking, and Imagemore, which is an image
browser. Bleh! As if anyone really cares about pack-in software. :)
The included manual, is an abbreviated quick start guide, that at 20 pages has
all of the setup information you will need. On the driver CD is an Acrobat
version of the full manual.
Overclocker features are good here, albeit not as good as the best offerings
here. Core voltage adjustments are available in the BIOS, as are FSB
adjustments. You have to set a jumper for 100 or 133mhz operation in order to
reveal the two distinct ranges of FSB's available ( 100, 101, 103, 105, 107,
109,110, 111, 113, 115, 117, 120 @ 100; 125, 130, 133, 135, 137, 139, 140, 143,
145, 148, 150, 155, 166 MHz @ 133). Alas no 1mhz at a time adjustments here, and
there are a few large leaps in between some of the settings. Soyo has thankfully
included the ability to turn on 4-way memory interleaving, which can add
significantly to the performance of system RAM. Multiplier adjustments are
accomplished with a set of dip switches, with settings ranging from 5.5-12.5) It
*is* really nitpicking perhaps, but we're all too spoiled by "Softmenu" type
BIOS's I guess. Real world, most people aren't fiddling with their multiplier
settings on a daily basis, so the lack of BIOS adjustable multipliers isn't bad,
just not what we've come to expect these days. One missing feature that I've
come to expect, is VIO voltage adjustments, which can lend an increased level of
stability at higher FSB settings. Although I encountered no problems in my
testing that would indicate that I needed this, I still wish it had been
available.
One "odd" feature to mention in passing, is the boards "Voice Doctor", which is,
as you may have surmised, a basic set of audio diagnostics. Boot the board up
without a stick of memory, and you'll here a slightly accented voice say in
English "Your CPU may have a problem". Not exactly overly informative there
(there are more diagnostic phrases in it's vocabulary), but this is a nice
feature nonetheless.