Motherboard: SOYO SY-P4I Fire Dragon Review :: Features

The Fire Dragon is built on a red four layer PCB based on the Socket 478 Intel i845D chipset. It sizes in at a modest 30.5cm x 23cm (12" x 9.05"). This motherboard has almost every modern feature a desktop motherboard can have built on-board and still fit into an enclosure. One thing is for certain, when it comes to features SOYO does not skimp, and that is a really good thing about their Dragon series of motherboards.

For starters the motherboard supports all of the Socket 478 P4 line including the new Northwood core based CPU's and offers a quad-piped 400MHz FSB. For your memory the board has two onboard DIMM slots supporting up to a total of 2GB of PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM which is more on the low end of the spectrum as far as memory features go. Many of the high-end boards support up to 3GB.

There are both dual ATA133 IDE and ATA133 RAID controllers on the P4I Dragon offering the user the option of using up to eight IDE devices simultaneously in their configuration. The first two channels, IDE 1-2 are for E-IDE devices such as a CDROM or ZIP drive and channels 3-4 are the High Point RAID controllers, which you should be used to connect your hard drives and can be used in RAID modes: 0, 1, and 0 + 1.

Six available PCI slots means there is plenty of room for your inline card expansion with the P4I Dragon. The board should be able to accommodate the current lineup of PCI products available on the market without problems for maximum compatibility. The slots are also colored an off purple to offset the red PCB making the board a looker as well as a player. You can also use older power supplies that do not have the 12V connectors as the P4I Fire Dragon has an onboard adapter for the power conversion.

Another great feature of this board is the breakout box, called the E-Box that fits in a 5.25 bay and comes as a bonus. The E-Box features a smart card reader an IEEE1394 connector and two additional front panel USB ports. This can be a very ergonomic feature depending on what you are plugging in and removing from your system. For things like camcorders CD burners and other external devices this can be a big plus.

Audiophiles will find the onboard sound to be more than adequate as the P4I Dragon features digital 5.1 surround sound via its onboard C-Media 8738 chipset. You also get a digital connections bracket that allows the use of optical inputs for the clearest sound available. This bracket connects to the motherboard by way of a header on the board and then goes into one of your open back slots on the case for easy access.

For the Network and/or DSL use the P4I Dragon comes with its own onboard 10/100 PHY Network adapter. The only lagging feature about this motherboard lies is the USB connectors. There is no support for USB 2.0, which a board of this caliber should have included as a feature option. You do get a total of six available 1.1 ports so all is not lost though in this department.

SOYO has a special BIOS feature called the Mighty Bolt security feature, which uses a key and your smart card interface to keep users other than your self from booting up the system by locking out potential intruders. There are also hardware-monitoring features available within the BIOS for keeping track of your system/CPU temperatures as well as the system and CPU fans status and RPM speed. Let us move on to the setup and performance phases of the review as this concludes the available features on the P4I Dragon.