Soyo P4I875P Dragon 2 Platinum Edition - Articles / Reviews

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Soyo P4I875P Dragon 2 Platinum Edition

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Soyo
Aug. 22, 2003

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Overclocking

Overclocking isn't too robust on this board. The latest BIOS only allows memory bus multipliers of 0.8, 1.25 and 1.33, and the CPU vcore is only modifiable up to 1.6V.

I was able to get the Corsair PC3500 to 442 MHz with timings of 2-3-3-7. The FSB/RAM was at the default 1:1 ratio, and the CPU was at 2.65ghz. With better FSB/RAM ratio options, I am sure I could have gotten the CPU speed a bit higher.

Conclusion

The price is a bit steep at around $190 USD, and the overclocking options are lacking, but that isn't to say this board is entirely bad. The Dragon 2 PE is packed with storage options. The PATA and SATA RAID ability is extremely nice, but it is certainly overkill for a lot of people. The integrated sound and Gigabit Ethernet are major pluses. The sound quality is just as good, if not better than my Sound Blaster Live! Extras such as the 6-1 card reader with USB and Firewire are a great addition if you use a lot of portable devices that require memory card storage. The software bundle is equally useful with several Norton products.

In the end, if you are looking for more storage options than a 5 acre warehouse, this is your board. If you are looking to do some hefty overclocking, look elsewhere.

Pros

SATA and PATA RAID
Onboard Sound
Gigabit Ethernet
Dual channel capable
Plenty of cables, software and other extras

Cons

Mild overclocking options

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Page 9 of 9

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Board Layout
Page 3: Features & Accessories
Page 4: BIOS
Page 5: Test Rig & Sandra CPU Benchmarks
Page 6: Sandra & Aida32 Memory Benchmarks
Page 7: ScienceMark & PCMark02 Benchmarks
Page 8: 3dMark01, 3DMark03, & GLMark Benchmarks
Page 9: Overclocking & Conclusion

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4 User Comments

1 - Posted by Kurtis on August 21, 2003 - 11:41 pm

feeding time is the best over @ Brian's house ;) ;)

2 - Posted by Rich on August 22, 2003 - 9:09 am

Who manufactures the Gigabit ethernet controller on that board?

3 - Posted by Brian on August 22, 2003 - 12:36 pm

Intel.

4 - Posted by Rich on August 22, 2003 - 12:48 pm

The reason I asked is because I have seen a lot of problems with Broadcom Gigabit controllers, especially with onboard Ethernet. Thanks for info :D

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