Improving the price/performance ratio for PCs has been a strong goal of the manufacturing arm of the component market segment for some time now.

We've all seen "integration" really catch on and become more than just a typical industry buzzword this year, with even Intel touting the benefits of their i810 mainboard core logic set's integration potential for the value-conscious system builder.

Taiwanese mainboard manufacturer,A-Trend has taken a somewhat different view of integration and it includes the belief that value does not necessarily have to equal a lack of performance or features within their product line.

Today Sharky Extreme takes a look at one of the first mainboards that offers the full 440BX featureset along with an integrated 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 16MB video solution, the A-Trend ATC6254M.

Seeking to satisfy the needs of not only the PC system builder, but also the consumer as well, the ATC6254M is designed to fulfill the necessary requirements for enjoyable audio and video support.

For the audio portion of this magic mainboard formula, A-Trend settled on the Yamaha YMF-740 audio processor. The 740 is a stereo/Midi solution we've grown to like the past year as it has previously appeared in various versions on other integrated mainboard solutions we've tested.

While the 740 won't threaten the featureset supremacy of the top of the line add-in Creative SoundBlaster Live and Aureal Vortex-2 based PCI audio cards, it does provide high quality 2D stereo sound in both business and entertainment applications.

For video acceleration A-Trend chose the venerable 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 chipset, and buffed it out with a full 16MB of SGRAM.

16MB of on board memory is a rarity when talking about integrated mainboard video solutions, a good example of a more typical amount is the limited 4MB of dedicated video memory that current Intel i810 mainboards are being equipped with.

By outfitting the ATC6254M with what amounts to a fully featured Voodoo3 2000 16MB card, they're raising the bar for what defines a high-performance integrated mainboard.