Layout
The first thing that you'll probably notice is the PCB's color. Like with their previous DRVs, Soltek again used their trademark purple colored boards called Purple Ray. Some won't probably care what color their board is but it is nice to have that extra cosmetics for free.
The socket is your typical socket A with a thermistor in the middle of the slug. The area directly below the lugs are free from any circuitry in case the screwdriver slip happens during heatsink installation. There is also the presence of the 4 holes around it indicative of Soltek's anticipation of newer and bigger heatsinks for use with very hot AMD chips.
The location of the atx power switch is not the best location. The ATX power supply header is located near the AGP port behind the audio ports. I personally don't like the location of this because as soon as all the cables are connected, it gets too crowded in that area with all those power cables. It will also will somehow restrict the airflow going to the cpu area.
The Soltek DRV5 which uses the KT333 chipset supports three DDR DIMMs up to 3Gb maximum. It supports PC1600, PC2100 and PC2700 DDR RAMs. The motherboard only supports 2.5V true DDR Ram DIMMs. There is an LED that lights up to say that 2.5V is operating and flowing into DIMM slots. When this is lit up, don't add or remove memory modules.
Clearance between the agp card and the dimm locks is the best I have seen so far. There is more than enough room for you to add and remove RAM without having to remove the agp card. However, the last 3 boards that I reviewed, all have an agp lock. This one doesn't. I think I am already spoiled in having those locks as they are very useful when going to LANs.
The Soltek DRV5 supports ULTRA DMA 133, the fastest and newest standard at the moment. It is capable of supporting up to four UDMA 133/100/66/33 drives. The lack of RAID feature might be disappointing for some but cost could have been a factor in the absence of this function.
There are 5 PCI slots, an AGP slot, and a Communication and Networking Riser (CNR) slot for additional system flexibility. The CNR should have just been replaced by a PCI slot as the CNR is only useful to the OEM business.
Dip Switch and Jumpers are present in this mainboard. It is not totally jumperless. There are 2 dip switches and a few jumpers necessary for overclocking. The main function of the 2 dip switches is for multiplier and FSB adjustments. DIP switch 1 controls the multiplier option. You can set it to auto for cpu auto detection or you can manually choose the multiplier for those who have unlocked processors. Multiplier can be set from 5x to 12.5x thru this switch. DIP switch 2 controls the FSB, however you can also control this one from the BIOS. The jumpers control the memory/dimm voltage and the agp voltage adjustment. Note that the jumpers are quite hard to remove. Unlike other boards which uses easy to remove jumpers, this Soltek board doesn't. If you've got big hands, then you need to use a tool to remove it. A totally jumperless feature would have been a very nice option for a board like this if only I could have my way.
