Integrated performance parts are worthless if they're inadequate to fill the roles they were intended too capably. If the video accelerator or audio chip isn't up to par on the mainboard it's actually a worse problem than in a regular PC since they buyer will have to go out and buy upgrade peripherals which use up valuable PCI slots on the mainboard.

Soyo obviously realized this when they designed the SY-6IBM, as they chose the Rage128VR video accelerator to propel the graphics system of the board. We've reviewed the Rage128 family of products at length the past six months and have found them to offer strong performance at a good price. In fact, the Rage128VR that's equipped on the SY-6IBM fares well when compared to other stand alone mainstream video accelerators like the nVidia TNT or S3 Savage3D.

For audio, Soyo looked to Yamaha for a solution and found one in their YMF740 PCI audio processor. The 16-bit PnP chip offers sample rates up to 48KHz, as well as support for MS' DirectSound and Direct Music.

Lets look now at the rest of the black and white on the SY-6IBM:

DESCRIPTION Slot-1 Based MicroATX Motherboard with ATI AGP VGA and Yamaha Audio

PROCESSOR Supports the following processors - 100MHz FSB Pentium III Processors 450/500 MHz - 100MHz FSB Pentium II Processors 350/400/450 MHz - 66MHz FSB Pentium II Processors 233/266/300/333 MHz - 66MHz FSB Celeron Processors 266~300MHz - 66MHz FSB Celeron Processors 300A~433 MHz with integrated 128KB full speed L2 cache

CHIPSET Intel 82440BX two chip AGPset

System Memory Three 168-pin DIMM sockets support up to 768MB

On-Board 3D AGP VGA Subsystem - ATI RAGE 128VR,Fully integrated, 128-bit graphics and multimedia accelerator for Workstation class grahic performance - Supports 8MB SDRAM memory configuration - Integrated 230MHz DAC allows 85Hz refresh rate at 1920x1440 resolution - Integrated superior video features and MPEG-2 motion compensation for software DVD

On-Board 3D Audio Subsystem - Yamaha YMF740 PCI Plug & Play audio chip - 16 bit stereo full duplex with 48KHz sampling rate - DirectSound/DirecMusic Hardware Acceleration - PC 98 compliant

Expansion Slots - Three 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (v2.1 compliant) - One 16-bit ISA slots

On Board Ultra I/O Chip - Winbond W83977TF I/O chip - Two RS-232 serial ports (16550 UART compatible) - One Parallel printer port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode) - One FDD port (Supports LS120, 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88MB FDD) - Provides IrDA port with optional cable for transceiver

Two Ultra DMA-33 IDE ports - Supports two independent channels for four IDE devices - Supports up to PIO mode 4 and Ultra DMA/33 - Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports

Board Dimensions - Four layers, 24.4 cm x 22 cm (9.6" x 8.7") - Micro ATX form factor

PC Health Monitoring - Seven on-board voltage monitors for CPU core, CPU VTT, +5V, -5V, +12V, -12V, and 3.3V - Supports up to 4 speeds of fan control - Fan speed monitor - Precision CPU temperature monitoring through CPU on-die thermal diode - Battery low detection

Boot-Block Flash BIOS - Award PCI BIOS with green, ACPI, APM, plug and play, DMI functions, and Year 2000 complaint - Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE / SCSI /CD-ROM / FDD / LS120 / ZIP - 2 Mbit Flash ROM

Double Stack Back-Panel I/O Connectors - PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports - Two USB ports - One D-Sub 9-pin male Serial ports - One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port - One Joystick Port - Audio I/O : LINE-Outx1 , LINE-Inx1, MIC JACK x1 - One D-Sub 15-pin VGA Port

FCC Class B and CE EMI Regulation Compliant