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Soltek SL-85ERV Motherboard Review

Author: Dennis Garcia

Published: Tuesday, August 06, 2002

Motherboard Features

Motherboard Layout and Feature

The SL-85ERV is Soltek's motherboard based on the VIA P4X400 chipset. The board encompasses not only tweaker performance in the typical Soltek manner but also includes their new market direction to make everything silver.

Board Features Include

VIA P4X400 chipset
Pentium 4 - 400/533MHz FSB
DDR 200/266/333/400 support (400MHz is unofficial)
3 DIMM sockets supporting 3GB ram max
1.5v AGP slot supporting 4x and 8x cards only
533MHz VIA V-Link (interconnects between north and south bridge chips)
6 PCI Bus Master slots
6 USB v2.0/1.1
ATA 33/66/100/133 disk support
6 Full version software titles included
AC'97 6-channel sound
Smartcard reader

As you may have noticed the SL-85ERV features an almost silver PCB. Many of the product pics depict this board to be almost peachy/tan color though under closer personal inspection I discovered this not to be true. The board is actually a metallic silver that becomes a faint pink where trace wires come close to the surface. (The encapsulant seems to be rather thin) Mixing these two colors together digitally gives the board a peachy/tan color.

You will also notice the addition of a backer plate under the cpu socket. This helps reinforce the PCB and stabilize the heatsink after installation.