440BX Motherboard Review - Fall 1998

Soyo SY-6BB

• BIOS Version: 1A6 (September 8, 1998)
• Board Revision: unknown
• This board is the only baby AT motherboard in our review. It's not surprising that there are only very few AT Slot-1 boards on the market since they all face two problems: A small amount of expansion slots due to the space consumption of Slot-1 CPUs and possibly a heat problem (the Pentium II 300 gets quite hot, and since the cooler is at the bottom of the CPU with BAT boards, heat could become a problem).
• External clock speeds: 66, 68, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 133 MHz
• Slots: 2x short PCI, 1x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, short AGP
• Memory: 3x DIMM

As the other Soyo boards, the 6BB performs quite well in all benchmarks and is easy to configure thanks to the CPU menu within the Award BIOS which is ready for clock speeds far beyond 500 MHz. The monitoring system allows to check up to three fans, but there are only two on the board (one for the CPU, one additional chassis fan). Good news also from the memory front: The only memory which did not want to run at all was the big 64 MB module with 32 chips. All PC-100 and the Samsung PC-66 memory ran fine at up to 112 MHz. At 133 MHz my choice was smaller: Only the 256 MB modules ran (thanks to their 6 ns I think) as well as the LGS PC-100 memory. Overclockers will be glad to hear that you can freely select every bus speed between 66 and 133 MHz, no matter which CPU ist actually running.

Nevertheless there are a few things to criticize: First I faced the well known double initialization of the Adaptec controller; what I don't understand is that this bug has been resolved with other Soyo boards months before, but still the latest BIOS version (dated September) doesn't improve this. What I also don't like very much are the LED, reset and power button connectors which are not labeled for some reason. Today most boards don't differ very much from each other, thus such things can become decisive when chosing a motherboard! The BIOS allows the USB IRQ to be disabled successfully. The board also comes with both the AT and the ATX power connector.

Soyo SY-6BE

• BIOS Version: 6ibe 0721 (July 21, 1998)
• Board Revision: unknown
• External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 124, 133 MHz
• Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
• Memory: 3x DIMM

Soyo's SY-6BE has only two visible differences to the 6BA or 6BA+. It has three instead of two ISA slots, only four instead of five PCI slots and three instead of four DIMM sockets. And there's one solidarity which I cannot approve: Once again the connectors for reset, LEDs etc. are not labeled at all.

"Soyo Features Setup" is the name of the special submenu within the Award BIOS which consists of all important system settings. The clock options are similar to those of the SY-6BA+. Please take a look at it for more information. Back to the solidarities: Performance! At the moment it's really convenient to say that all Soyo BX boards perform quite good. Also the 6BE reaches a very good position in the benchmark charts. The USB IRQ assignment can be avoided as well, as you know by disabling the corresponding setting in the BIOS setup. The 6BA+ had some problems with the memories. But don't worry, this one does not cause such problems with very large SDRAM modules. The 256 MB modules ran perfectly. Once again, the 32 chip module was only recognized as 32 MB type, but as always this is no criterion. In case you are an overclocker searching for a good board you have now possibly found an adequate candidate: good choice.