Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/387



Just a few months ago, AnandTech took a look at Soyo's challenge to the ABIT BH6, the SY-6BA+III. It promised to offer all the tweaking options of the BH6, including BIOS based voltage adjustments that has been a boon for overclockers looking to squeeze every last bit out of their CPU's. The SY-6BA+III did just that and we concluded that it would be an excellent alternative to the ABIT regime and it even offered some additional features, including a plethora of FSB speeds that we had never seen before.

But times have changed. ABIT has come back with the BE6 and BP6 as their premier boards for overclockers. Both of these boards added onboard Ultra ATA 66 support through the use of HighPoint's HPT366 Ultra ATA 66 controller as well as an increase number of FSB settings that surpassed the mark set by Soyo.

Soyo's response? The SY-6BA+IV, of course, the sequel to the SY-6BA+III. Taking a page from ABIT's book, they added even more FSB settings and added the same HPT366 controller ABIT selected for their boards. Once again, Soyo goes toe to toe with ABIT. Let's find out how Soyo does in the face of the new competition from ABIT.


New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
89/B+
Do not compare newer ratings to older ones, the newer ratings are much more aggressive

Motherboard Specifications

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

66 / 75 / 81 / 83 / 90 / 95
100 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 113 / 115
117 / 118 / 120 / 122 / 124 / 126
133 / 135 / 137 / 138 / 140 / 142
144 / 150 / 155MHz

Clock Multipliers 2.0x - 9.0x
Voltages Supported Auto Detect
(may be increased by
2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, and 10%)
Memory Slots 4 168pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots 0 AMR Slots
1 AGP Slot
5 PCI Slots (5 Full Length)
2 ISA Slots (1 Shared / 0 Full Length)
BIOS Award 4.51PG

The Good

Just like with the SY-6BA+III, the SY-6BA+IV is nearly identical to the earlier versions of the SY-6BA. The 5/2/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP) slot configuration remains. Add in a full 4 DIMM slots and expansion options are plentiful. The most obvious difference is the inclusion of the HighPoint HPT366 Ultra ATA 66 controller in front of the PCI slots and the subsequent addition of two additional IDE ports to support that controller.

The layout of the SY-6BA+IV is also virtually identical, with the ATX spec followed closely, for the most part. The exception is the placement of the ATX power connector behind the Slot-1 connector, which forces that cable to run over the CPU and memory slots, cluttering up the inside of the case. Otherwise, all HDD/FDD connectors are located where they should be, right at the front of the board. The board itself is a little longer than your average ATX board, but nothing that should cause any problems for most cases.

Three fan connectors are available - two right next to the CPU slot, and one at the left front of the board. Eight 1000uF capacitors are located immediately around the CPU slot with several other capacitors sparsely placed all over the board. Two large 1500uF capacitors accompanied by two toroidal inductors help keep the juice flowing to the memory slots. The standard green heatsink is mounted via spring clips and is adorned with the Soyo logo. A built in, fold down universal CPU retention mechanism comes preinstalled on the board and will hold any Celeron, Pentium II, or Pentium III CPU. Finally, a small green LED next to the DIMM slots indicates that ATX standby power is connected.

Just like the SY-6BA+III, the SY-6BA+IV features the "Soyo Combo Setup" where most important settings are found. Control over FSB, CPU ratio, AGP ratio, core voltage, and hardware monitoring all found in this section. Notably, Soyo has added an option for cache latency control to keep up with ABIT's plethora of tweaking options. The default is reported, but any setting from 1 to 15 can be selected. FSB settings of 66 / 75 / 81 / 83 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 113 / 115 / 117 / 118 / 120 / 122 / 124 / 126 / 133 / 135 / 137 / 138 / 140 / 142 / 144 / 150 / 155MHz are all available, just like the SY-6BA+III. Once again, that's more than any other board to make it's way into the AnandTech labs. This offers incredible flexibility when pushing a CPU to its absolute limits.



To help with every last bit of overclocking, core voltage can be increased by 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, and 10%. For a CPU that runs at 2.0V by default, such as all 0.25 micron Intel CPU's, this yields core voltage options of 2.05V, 2.10V, 2.15V, and 2.20V. Stability in both overclocked and non-overclocked situations was above average and our test bed Celeron 333 ran happily at 5 x 110 MHz = 550MHz at 2.2V. Finally, within the Soyo Combo Setup is another interesting feature - the "CIH 4-WAY Protection," which protects the system from the CIH virus at the BIOS level. The rest of the BIOS is the fairly typical Award fare. A specific IRQ can be assigned to a specific PCI slot, SDRAM timing adjusted, etc.

Through the use of a 1/4 PCI multiplier, the PCI bus speed is automatically kept between 31 and 41 MHz, regardless of the FSB used. Unfortunately, Intel's i440BX is only capable of 2/3 and 1/1 AGP ratios, so the AGP bus may well run out of spec at some of those higher speeds. At least the speed is reported in the BIOS, so you'll know exactly how high it is. Another nice touch is the fact that the BIOS will report that a CPU is locked at a particular multiplier upon boot if something else is chosen.

The onboard HighPoint HPT366 controller provides for Ultra ATA 66 support on the SY-6BA+IV. This controller operates in addition to the Intel i82371EB PIIX4 Ultra ATA 33 controller that already provides for support for up to 4 Ultra ATA 33 compliant or compatible devices. The HPT366 doubles the number of EIDE devices supported by the board as it provides support for four additional devices, all of which may be Ultra ATA 66 compliant. All eight of the supported EIDE devices can be Ultra ATA 33 compliant, with the four on the HPT366 controller able to be Ultra ATA 66 compliant. While Ultra ATA 66 compliant devices can be installed on the first two IDE channels (driven by the PIIX4 SouthBridge) you won't be able to run them in Ultra ATA 66 mode and they will default to Ultra ATA 33 transfer modes. Soyo bundles a single 40-pin, 80-conductor Ultra ATA 66 cable with the SY-6BA+IV to take advantage of the Ultra ATA 66 support the HPT366 provides. For more information about the Ultra ATA 66 standard read AnandTech's own Ultra ATA 66 Review.

The HPT366 controller features its own BIOS so devices attached to the two HPT366 channels are initialized after the power on self test (POST). The HPT366's BIOS is not user configurable by default, so all devices attached to it are autodetected every time the system is powered on. This adds a few seconds to the boot time of your system, but, in terms of boot time, it's essentially the equivalent of adding a SCSI controller.

As you might be able to guess, the HPT366 throws off the normal boot sequence parameters in the Award BIOS setup because there is no option to have an external HPT366 controller your primarily boot device by default. The Soyo BIOS treats the HPT366 like a SCSI controller - you simply select SCSI first in the boot sequence in order to boot off an Ultra ATA 66 device. A separate setting controls whether Ultra ATA 66 or SCSI comes first.

The HPT366 controller does require driver support, which is provided for by a supplied drivers disk that includes both 9x and NT drivers for the controller. ABIT provides a nice explanation of how to install NT 4.0 with the Ultra ATA 66 driver on their website for their boards. The Soyo works the same way, so the information is applicable to SY-6BA+IV owners.

The Winbond 83782D chip that is becoming increasingly popular these days handles hardware monitoring duties. This chip has the ability to read the CPU temperature straight from any 0.25 micron Intel CPU's on die thermal diode for the most accurate temperature readings possible. The chip can also monitor up to two more temperatures, system voltages, and three fan speeds. The reason for "up to two more temperatures" is that the Winbond hardware monitoring chips monitor its own chip temperature and one more through an external thermistor. Unfortunately, Soyo has not included any headers for hooking up such a thermistor, so the SY-6BA+IV is really limited to just the CPU and ambient temperatures.

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. Finally, the SY-6BA+IV supports the ability to configure what the system will do when AC power is restored after a power outage. The system can either remain off, turn on, or resume last power state when power is restored. 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.

Bundled with the SY-6BA+IV (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).



The Bad

Soyo took a step forward by including a real manual with the SY-6BA+III, but they have gone back to a "Quick Start Guide" with the SY-6BA+IV. The guide provides the basic information that an experienced system builder needs to get the system up and running, but provides nothing for the first time motherboard installer. The full manual is included on the driver CD in PDF format.

The location of the power connector is less than ideal. As it is, the ATX power cable has to snake around the CPU to reach its destination, impeding airflow greatly and generally cluttering the inside of a system.

AnandTech's prerelease evaluation sample did have one major issue that should be fixed before any boards ship to market. Our SY-6BA+IV would not boot with any 100 MHz Pentium II or Pentium III processor. Our test bed Celeron 333 worked just fine, even overclocked with a FSB setting of 110 MHz. It's a strange problem that probably only affects our sample.

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: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB 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.

AnandTech Motherboard Testing Methodology

Test Configuration

Processor(s): Intel Celeron 333 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): Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB SGRAM - AGP)
Video Drivers: Matrox Millennium G200 Release 1677-411
Operation System(s): Windows 98 SE
Motherboard Revision: Soyo SY-6BA+IV Revision D

 

Windows 98 Performance

  Business
Winstone 99
Intel Celeron 333 (66MHz x 5.0) 17.4
Intel Celeron 550 (110MHz x 5.0) 22.6

 

The Final Decision

Soyo's done it again with the SY-6BA+IV - they've gone head to head with ABIT and come out on top. The SY-6BA+IV offers all the features of the ABIT BE6 and more. The selection of FSB speeds is currently unsurpassed in the market and matched only by the SY-6BA+III. If you were considering the ABIT BE6 or held off buying an SY-6BA+III due to the lack of Ultra ATA 66 support, make sure you put the SY-6BA+IV on your list as well.

How it Rates


AnandTech Motherboard Rating

  Business
Performance 87%
Price 87%
Ease of Use 94%
Overclocked Stability 94%
General Stability 89%
Quality 87%
Documentation 85%
Reliability 85%
Overall Rating 89%

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology

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