SOYO Announces DDR Motherboards, Previews Other Advanced Designs at CeBIT; Centralizes European Operations to Focus on New Markets and Deliver More Expedient Service.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

HANNOVER, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2001

See SOYO, Inc. at CeBIT 2001, March 22-28, Hall 13, Booth no. D86

SOYO Computer, Inc. today announced a pair of double data rate (DDR) memory motherboards with DDR chipsets for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Socket-A Duron/Thunderbird CPUs or Intel Corp's FC-PGA 370 Pentium III CPUs at CeBIT 2001 here. The company also announced the SY-7IS2 - an ATX footprint motherboard that maximizes performance of Intel's i815e (Solano-2) chipset, and will preview new designs for Intel's Pentium 4 CPU as well as Intel Tualatin, Coppermine, and AMD Socket-A CPUs.

In other European news, SOYO has centralized its entire European operations to promote more aggressive growth, deliver more expedient service, and seek new distribution sources in the United Kingdom. SOYO Deutschland GmbH, SOYO's European headquarters in Oldenburg, will now serve all of the customers in the European market. SOYO Deutschland GmbH add additional management, sales and technical service personnel, which will allow SOYO to speed product delivery and offer better support services to large volume customers in all European countries.

New DDR motherboards from SOYO include the SY-K7ADA for AMD Socket-A Duron and Thunderbird CPUs, and the SY-7ADA for Intel Corp's FC-PGA 370 Pentium III CPUs.

SOYO's SY-K7ADA is designed for AMD's Socket A Duron/Thunderbird CPUs. It features Acer Laboratories Inc.'s (Ali) ALiMAGiK chipset and utilizes the more economical DDR SDRAM. The SOYO SY-7VDA has been designed for Intel's FC-PGA 370, Pentium III and Celeron II CPUs, and features VIA's new Pro 266 chipset with support for DDR SDRAM. List price of both models is $159 (U.S.) with discounts to volume buyers.

Standard features on both boards include three DDR SDRAM memory sockets. Expansion slots include five 32-bit PCI slots, one AGP 4x/2x/1x-supported slot, a pair of ATA-33/66/100 IDE ports; 2 serial ports, 1 parallel port, Floppy Disk Drive (FDD) port, and IrDA (infra-red). Both boards also feature USB version1.1 with 6 ports, 2 rear and 4 front.

Other advanced features include an optional Sigmatel AC97 CODEC, which provides host-based audio support. SOYO also makes it easy to custom configure either board directly through the BIOS setup page without jumpers with the SOYO AI-BIOS and Combo Set-up feature. Users can select a combination of CPU FSB and PCI bus clock speeds. The CPU core voltage can also be adjusted through the BIOS directly without setting any jumpers.

For building advanced systems for consumers and small businesses SOYO has announced the SY-7IS2 - an ATX footprint motherboard that maximizes performance of Intel's i815e (Solano-2) chipset with support for Intel Socket 370 Pentium III CPUs 500MHz and above with 133MHz FSB. The board will also accommodate Intel Pentium III 100MHzCPUs, and Celeron Processors with 66MHz FSB. The board has a list price of $135 (U.S.).

The SY-7IS2 is expandable to 512MBs RAM with its three SDRAM DIMMs slots, and features five 32-bit bus mastering PCI slots. The on-board super I/O supports two RS-232 serial ports, one parallel printer port, one floppy disk port, two Ultra DMA100/66/33 ports, two USB ports, audio line/out ports, game port, PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports, and an IrDA port.

SOYO makes it easy to fine tune its motherboards for performance applications such as 3D modeling, animation or gaming with its jumperless Sofset configuration technology -- which allows users to configure selectable sets of CPU and PCI clock speeds directly inside the BIOS. SOYO boards also feature SOYO's trademarked AI-BIOS: Four-Way Active interception feature to automatically protect the BIOS from the CIH virus, which can overwrite the hard disk and the flash BIOS of an infected computer under Windows operating systems.

SOYO includes its Hardware Doctor Software package, which enables users to control and monitor their system at all times. Each board also includes a Symantec software bundle with Norton Anti-Virus, Ghost and Virtual Drive.

ABOUT SOYO Computer, Inc.

SOYO Computer, Inc was founded in 1985, with worldwide headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, and branch offices in Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. The company sells its products through Tech Data and a select group of resellers, system integrators, and VARs worldwide.

SOYO's U.S. headquarters are at 41484 Christy Street, Fremont, CA 94538. For information, call 510/226-7696 or visit www.soyousa.com.

European headers are located at SOYO Deutschland GmbH, August-Wilhelm-Kuhnholz-Str.15, D-26135 Oldenburg (Oldb), Germany, Tel: [phone], Fax: [phone], Web Site: http://www.soyo.de, Email:[e-mail]

SOYO is a registered trademark. Other product names are either trademarks or trade names of their respective holders.