Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/364



Integrated video on a motherboard is not something often associated with high performance. With the introduction of the i810 from Intel, we finally have a base line chipset with complete 3D acceleration - no more ViRGE level chips should find their way into systems. It's still not really "high performance" but at least we're progressing to a point where anybody buying a cheap store bought system should at least be able to play the latest games.

Since the i810 features video integrated directly into the chipset at such a low cost, the bar has been raised for more expensive external video chipsets. That means the Rage Pro Turbo that we're used to seeing on motherboards may shortly be disappearing, and it's about time. It's replacement? For Soyo, it's the pin compatible Rage 128VR featured on their SY-6IBM.


New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
83/B-

Motherboard Specifications

CPU Interface Slot-1
Chipset Intel i440BX
L2 Cache N/A (on-chip)
Form Factor microATX
Bus Speeds

66 / 75 / 83
100 / 103 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 115
120 / 124 / 133 / 140 / 150

Clock Multipliers 2.0x - 8.0x
Voltages Supported Auto Detect
Memory Slots 3 168pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots

0 AMR Slot
0 AGP Slots
3 PCI Slots (1 Full Length)
1 ISA Slot (1 Shared / 1 Full Length)

BIOS Award 4.51PG

The Good


Click to enlarge

The SY-6IBM's big claim to fame is its onboard ATI Rage 128VR, which finally brings semi-competitive 3D acceleration to the integrated motherboard market. The only other motherboard AnandTech has tested to date with comparable 3D capabilities is Intel's SR440BX with its integrated 16MB SDRAM NVIDIA RIVA TNT. Just like the SR440BX, the SY-6IBM is a microATX i440BX Slot-1 solution. It features a 3/1/0 (PCI/ISA/AGP) slot configuration and 3 DIMM slots for memory expansion.

The onboard Rage 128VR differs from the Rage 128GL featured on cards like the ATI Rage Fury in that the VR only supports a 64-bit memory interface (as opposed to the 128-bit of the GL). The "128" in the name is still applicable since the core is essentially the same 128-bit core as the full blown 128GL. The big advantage of the Rage 128VR, at least for motherboard manufacturers, is that it is pin compatible with the older, cheaper Rage Pro Turbo. Thus, one board design can serve two slightly different markets and Soyo has in fact chosen this path, producing the SY-6IBM with either chip.

AnandTech's evaluation sample featured the Rage 128VR with 8MB SDRAM with the core operating at 90MHz and the memory at 100MHz. This is lower than the 105/105 that retail Rage Fury's ship at, but the same as most OEM versions. The chip itself is cooled by a small green heatsink, slightly smaller than the one shipping on retail Rage 128 cards. The drivers on the Soyo CD are quite old, so you'll want to grab the latest from ATI. The same Rage 128 drivers work on both VR and GL versions of the chip.

A Yamaha YMF740 chip handles PCI sound duties and completes the fully integrated setup Soyo is looking for. There's no 3D sound support, but for standard 2D audio, it gets the job done with low CPU utilization and little background noise. The Yamaha sound can easily be disabled from within the Award BIOS setup.

The ATX specification is also closely followed with all major components strategically placed to minimize cable clutter and provide the most room to work around the board. All HDD/FDD connectors are located where they should be, right at the front of the board, so that no cables are forced to run over the CPU and/or memory. The ATX power connector is right behind the DIMM slots, but still far enough forward to allow adequate air flow over the CPU from the power supply. Without any color coded connectors anywhere on the board, this may be one of the last you'll find with straight up black connectors throughout. The board is an average sized microATX and should fit fine in any microATX or ATX case.



Six 1500uF and four 1000uF capacitors surround the CPU slot. The standard green heatsink, this time adorned with Soyo's logo and attached with thermal tape, keeps the 443BX Northbridge nice and cool. The Rage 128VR chip features a similar heatsink, also attached with thermal tape. The DIMM slots are placed surprisingly far away from that Northbridge chip, which may cause some memory capacitance issues.

From within the Soyo Combo Setup in the BIOS, FSB settings of 66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 103 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 115 / 120 / 124 / 133 / 140 / 150 are available. Unfortunately, unlike Soyo's SY-6BA+III, this board does not offer voltage adjustment options here, limiting overclocking potential somewhat. To make matters worse, the highest FSB speed our Pentium II/400 testbed CPU could obtain was 105 MHz, despite the fact that it has been known to run at 112 x 4 = 448 MHz on other motherboards. This could be a capacitance issue related to the relatively large distance between the DIMM slots and the 443BX Northbridge chip. Regardless, the SY-6IBM is not the best choice for overclocking.

The rest of the BIOS is the typical Award 4.51PG fare. The onboard sound can be disabled there and each PCI slot can have a specific IRQ assigned to it. Power management consists of pretty much the standard stuff these days. Wake on LAN and wake on modem ring headers are available to allow the system to power on in the presence of network activity or incoming call. The BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time. The CPU fan can be shut off when the system suspends to quiet things down a bit. ACPI support is built into the BIOS for added power management under an ACPI compliant OS like Windows 98 or Windows 2000. The system can be configured to power on via hot key or mouse click as well.

A nice touch is the ability to configure what the system will do when AC power is restored after a power outage - either remain off, turn on, or resume last power state. This is a feature often overlooked since ATX and soft power became available, but is critical for anyone using their system where it must be on 24/7 or as close as possible. It also allows for users to shut the system on and off from a surge protector.

Complete hardware monitoring is included on the SY-6IBM through the Winbond 83782D chip that monitors 3 fan speeds, 9 voltages, and up to 3 temperatures. The 83782D improves upon the older Winbond 83781 by including a provision to read CPU temperature straight from the on-die thermal diode for the most accurate CPU readings possible. The 9 voltages measured include VTT, +5VSB, and battery voltage, in addition to the standard +/- 5V, +/- 12V, +3.3V, and Vcore.

The reason for "up to 3 temperatures" is that the Winbond hardware monitor can only monitor two temperatures on its own - the temperature of the Winbond chip itself and the CPU's thermal diode (where available). In order to monitor the other temperature, the Winbond chip requires an external thermistor. There is no place to connect a thermistor and none onboard, so with the 6IBM, you're stuck with just two temperatures - that of the CPU and ambient air in the system.

Bundled with the SY-6IBM (and all newer Soyo boards for that matter) is the "Soyo 3-in-1 Bonus Pack," which includes full versions of Norton AntiVirus, Norton Ghost, and Norton Virtual Drive. Ghost is useful for backing up, imaging, or cloning a hard drive. Virtual Drive is designed to make an image of a CD on your hard drive for ultra fast access without the CD. The included AntiVirus and Virtual Drive are both Win9x only utilities. Soyo's own CD is a generic one for all their boards, and as such includes a variety of drivers for Windows 9x, NT, and even Unix. Hardware monitoring software is provided in the form of Intel LANdesk Client Manager (LDCM).



Rage 128VR Performance

AnandTech's test bed consisted of the following components:

  • Soyo SY-6IBM with onboard Rage 128VR
  • Abit BH6 with 32MB AGP ATI Rage Fury (Rage 128GL)
  • Intel Pentium II 400 OEM
  • Western Digital Caviar AC28400 - UltraATA/33
  • 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM or 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM

Quake 3 Test 1.08 and Expendable were used to represent OpenGL and Direct3D performance respectively.

The effects of the 64-bit memory bus are quite evident in high memory bandwidth situations, such as 32-bit rendering or high resolutions. Clearly the Rage128VR is more impressive than the i810 or any of the more commonly integrated video chips such as ATI's own Rage Pro Turbo. Today's hottest games are playable at 640x480 and image quality is superb compared to the i810 and Rage Pro Turbo. Some visual anomalies, primarily flickering textures, were detected in Quake 3 and appear to be a driver issue. Of course, users of the Rage 128 family all know about the 16-bit dithering issue that causes a haze over the entire screen with 16-bit rendering. The i810 does not support 32-bit rendering at all and hence the exclusion of the i810 from tests involving 32-bit rendering. Scores for Quake 3 Test at 1024x768x32 for the Rage 128VR were omitted since entering that mode in Quake 3 causes the whole system to bog down to a completely unusable level.



The Bad

Unlike Soyo's latest board, the SY-6BA+III, the SY-6IBM continues to include a quick start guide with the manual on CD. Once you get to it on the CD, the manual is decent for the experienced system builder with all BIOS options and pin outs explained. The quick start guide provides enough information for the experience builder, but not nearly enough for a rookie.

Overclocking is basically out with the SY-6IBM. Unlike Soyo's SY-6BA+III, this board does not offer voltage adjustment options here, limiting overclocking potential somewhat. Even worse is the fact that FSB settings above 105 MHz are completely unstable and unusable on the SY-6IBM. Overclocking of the Rage 128VR core or memory was also not possible on our test sample.

As mentioned earlier, the manual is a bit weak in the installation section. Anyone that has never installed a motherboard before will not feel comfortable with the complete lack of information given in the Gigabyte manual on this topic.

The biggest issue may in fact be the Rage 128VR itself. The Rage 128 family has its own set of issues, mostly driver related. The strange 16-bit dithering issues have yet to be fixed properly. The Quake 3 special drivers, albeit "unsupported" according to ATI, but available from their site nonetheless, fail to complete Business Winstone 99 and sometimes produce visual anomalies in games.

One minor issue with Soyo's implementation is that it detects as a Rage 128VR PCI, but utilities such as Powerstrip and ATI's own driver status tab report that AGP 2x is in use.

Finally, the SY-6IBM is actually offered with either the Rage Pro Turbo or the Rage 128VR since they are pin compatible chips. However, the Rage 128VR version is somewhat difficult to find, whereas the Rage Pro Turbo seems to pop up everywhere. Make sure you know what you're getting ahead of time.


USB Compatibility

  • Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

  • Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

  • USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

  • USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes


Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 64MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site:
http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website:
http://www.mushkin.com




The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

Test Configuration

Processor(s): Intel Pentium II 400 OEM
RAM: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM
1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital Caviar AC28400 - UltraATA/33
Bus Master Drivers: Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers
Video Card(s): On board Rage 128VR
Video Drivers: ATI 6.20CDH28
Operation System(s): Windows 98 SE
Motherboard Revision: Soyo SY-6IBM Revision B

 

Windows 98 Performance

  Business
Winstone 99
Intel Pentium II 400 (100MHz x 4.0) 20.3

The Final Decision

If you're looking for something with integrated video, and want more power than the i810 or an onboard Rage Pro can provide, the Soyo SY-6IBM may be just what you're looking for. Just remember that it's not the same as an integrated Rage Fury and thus performance suffers a major hit as the resolution or color depth is increased. A bit more money will get you the Intel SR440BX with a full fledged 16MB TNT onboard, but then you're largely defeating the advantages of integrated video - cost savings. For an even larger cost savings, Soyo produces another version of the board using the i440ZX chipset, but a DIMM slot is lost in the process.


How it Rates

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

  Business
Performance 85%
Price 87%
Ease of Use 90%
Overclocked Stability 70%
General Stability 80%
Quality 84%
Documentation 83%
Reliability 83%
Overall Rating 83%

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

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