..:: Introduction ::..

It has been some time since we were last able to take a long look at a motherboard from the likes of Soyo. Our initial look at the P4I875P DRAGON 2 "Platinum Edition" motherboard was a good one, as we noted both an excellent design, and the eye-catching aesthetics that it brought. We found that the system stability was quite good, although we felt that the product package was suffering in some aspects, while it was quite strong in others. Today, we’ll be looking at the “Black Label” version of this motherboard which now supports the Intel Pentium 4 “Prescott” core microprocessors. What exactly has been changed since our last look? Has Soyo addressed any of the issues we noted during our initial period with the first revision of the motherboard? Have there been any design changes to accommodate new features? Let’s find out.

..:: Soyo P4I875P DRAGON 2 V1.0 Specifications ::..

Processor

• Supports Intel Socket 478 CPU with Hyper-Threading Technology
• Supports Intel Pentium4/Celeron system bus at 400/533/800MHz
• Supports Intel Prescott CPU

Chipset

• Northbridge - Intel® 82875P MCH
• Southbridge - Intel® 82801ER ICH5
• Intel® 82547EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
• Ali M5281 IDE / SATA RAID Controller Chip
• VIA VT6306 IEEE1394 Chip
• CMedia PCI Hardware Audio
• Super I/O: ITE I/O IT8712F
• 4MB Flash ROM

Memory

• Type: Cual Channel DDR 400/333 ( PC3200/2700) ECC Support
• 4x DIMM Max Capacity: Up to 4GB

Expansion Slots

• 1 x AGP 4X/8X
• 5 x PCI
• 1 x CMR
• 4 x UDMA/133/100/66
• 1 x FDD
• 4 x SATA
• 4 x USB 2.0

Back Panel I/O Ports

• 1 x Parallel, 2 x Serial
• 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 Mouse
• 1 x Audio I/O (Line In, Line Out, Mic In)
• 4 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ-45 Port

Form Factor

• ATX (4 layers)
• 30.5cm x 24.4cm