Two New i845 Motherboards from SOYO

i845 motherboards are popping up like springtime flowers this week. Earlier this week, we saw boards from DFI and Asus and now, we just found out about new boards from SOYO and Tyan. SOYO Computer, Inc. today announced a pair of Intel Socket-478 motherboards called the SY-P4ISR and SY-P4IS2 with "Brookdale" i845 chipsets, support for up to 2Ghz Intel Pentium 4 processors, and a 400MHz system bus. The SY-P4ISR includes an embedded Promise IDE-RAID chip for RAID Levels 0,1. Single board list price of the SY-P4ISR will be $155 U.S. The SY-P4IS2 has the same features, but does not include RAID. It will have a list price of $135 U.S. The SY-P4ISR and P4IS2 each have three 168-pin SDRAM 3.3V DIMM sockets to support up to 3GB of memory, and six 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant). Both include an AC97 CODEC on board, which provides 2-channel speaker support with 3D Surround sound. The on board Ultra I/O chip supports two RS-232 serial ports (16550 UART compatible); one parallel printer port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode); one FDD port (support 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD); IrDA/FIR ports with an optional cable for a transceiver; and four USB ports. The SY-P4ISR also features Ultra DMA IDE ports, which support four independent channels to accommodate eight IDE devices, including two for RAID. The board also includes a connector for Smart Card readers. The SY-P4ISR will feature SOYO's Mighty Bolt option, which lets you to set up a password-protected key lock security system through an IC Smart Card reader. The Mighty Bolt feature includes a Smart Card reader with two USB ports, 5 1/4 extension rack, driver disk software and USB and Smart Card reader cables. Using it, every time the system is booted you'll be asked to insert your Smart Card to certify identification, and the boss won't be able to read that screenplay you've been working on.