Soyo has long been a bed-fellow of VIA, but with the distinct lack of anything good released from the floundering chipset manufacturer for a while, Soyo has been forced to improve its relationship with Intel. Today we will be looking at their entry into the crowded high-end canterwood based high-end P4 motherboard market – the 875 Dragon II motherboard. The 865 and 875 dual channel motherboard chipsets, along with the new ‘C’ 800Mhz processors, have played a strong part in firmly stamping Intel’s authority on the performance sector, with the new Pentiums making a mockery of AMD’s ‘performance ratings’.
Soyo’s boxes are the biggest in the business and its not just full of air either. As has become custom with all Dragon boards, this model comes teaming with all the features and extras you could ever want, as well as some Soyo-only goodies which cannot fail to make the board an attractive proposition. In addition to the board itself, soyo have included the following:
- Comprehensive Manual
- 3 IDE cables
- 4 x SATA cables
- 1 x floppy cable
- 8-in-one bonus application CD
- ‘Bayone UFO’ 3.25” smart media, compact flash, USB2.0 and firewire box
- A sachet of thermal paste
- Supplimentary Audio bracket providing SP/DIF, optical and centre/rear ports
The software bundle is exceptional, with full copies of Norton Antivirus 2003, Norton Personal Firewall, Norton Ghost, Adobe Activeshare, Imagemore and some trial software. Soyo certainly hasn’t cut any corners when it comes to the specification of the board itself either, and we will take a look at its full spec over the page. You can buy the Platinum Edition of this Soyo 875i Dragon 2 from Chillblast for £145.
