hi all!!
does anyone have a soyo dragon 2?
it has the via kt880 chipset and you can hook up a ton of stuff to it. i am thinking of getting one and was looking for some input.
thanks!
You're going to get a lot of people who highly dislike Soyo around here. I had one a long time ago. KT333, though. Worked great. Though I've heard a lot of problems with Soyo. Read some reviews, and listen to toher folks on here. They'll probably steer you toward something better anyway.
I have setup five or six Dragons for clients and I'll charge extra to do another one is all I will say on the matter. Great feature list but I think the general board quality is below average. The want to market it as a top tier board and I just don't think its in that group
the main reason i wanted it is because there are 4 ide ports( 8 devices!!)and 4 sata connects and 3 firewire connects! i realy want a board that has that kind of options. if you can point me to a different one that has that much without using add on cards i would be more than happy to look at it.
it also has to be a socket A and cost less than $150.00
thanks!!
brian770
Buy a 15 dollar ide card. or a ten dollar fireware card if you have to.
Did I mention that of the five dragons I built... three MB's died now in the first 12 months also? Does it sound like as great a deal if your spending a couple months with it being shipped back on RMA's every year or so?
You asked for people who had used the SOYO dragons and I have and can't recomend them. I am sure you can also find someone to say they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. All took longer to get setup right and get all the devices configured. Just a general pain in the ass and I have built a few thousand PC's in the last 20 years.
I am lucky in that I get to touchand use a wide variety of boards and I have 20 years experiance building PC's so I have strong opinions on the current quality level of the differant manufactures based on a LOT of hands on experiance.
I am not dogging SOYO but lets leave it at this... I won't buy one or let my friends buy one. You get what you pay for and the SOYO dragon is a board full of features from a second tier maker trying to maquarade as a top tier one.
Your warned now and what you decide to do is your choice. You asked for people with experiance and you just didnt get the response you were searching for. Not my fault.
i would stay away from the soyo...they were just bought by pc chips i believe, so they are definetly low-end, and their warranty/rma policy totally sucks.
the closest board i could find is an epox one that has 6 sata ports but only 2 ide ports (4 devices).....but i have never personally used an epox so i am somewhat hesitant to recomend.
Try and stick to the three makers I mentioned if possible. Not saying you can't get a good board elsewhere but its much safer to stick to that list. And even that list has people that barfs up a bad board from time to time but in general their quality is just higher.
Okay, Tex. I will look into the three you mentioned. Any models I should keep my eye out for?
Thanks for the "heads up". I'll let you know what I decide. Will a add on ide card decrease hard drive performance? Thanks for your help.
brian770
and addon IDE card shouldnt decrease HDD performance, since the PCI slot goes at 133mb/s and IDE maxes out at ATA/133 anyways, but thats beside the point. Hdd transfers almost never get up to that speed in RL, so its fine. Just might need a couple extra drivers ^^
as for socket A boards, like ryko says, the Abit NF7-S 2.0 is the most popular one around here, but the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe is used by a fair number of us as well (me included)
hi all!!
does anyone have a soyo dragon 2?
it has the via kt880 chipset and you can hook up a ton of stuff to it. i am thinking of getting one and was looking for some input.
thanks!
I can vouch for Epox. But I suggest you get a Abit KW8 KT880 board and find a HPT370/372 or Promise IDE raid card. You're not going to find (m)any new boards with extr IDE ports as these are slowly being phased out in favor of SATA ports.
The DFI NFII Ultra is a great little board but it's finicky about memory and it undervolts the CPU when under heavy overclocking (over 1.85vcore), but thats not a problem if you run at or near stock FSB (~200-220mhz).
hi all!!
does anyone have a soyo dragon 2?
it has the via kt880 chipset and you can hook up a ton of stuff to it. i am thinking of getting one and was looking for some inpu thanks!
I would seriously think twice if you don't want a majoy hassle install. It is a discontinued board and believe me there is good reason for that IDE1 is next to impossible to get to work. It may take an act of god to get IDE1 to work at all!!!!! No joke. This thing has pissed me off like no other and I have built 4 systems now. If I would you I would give it a second look!!! Soyo tech support is USELESS!!!!! This forum is where I found the answer just to get the cd-RW and the master hard drive hooked up together to make an install even possible. No Joke avoid it with the pleg and take your money elsewhere. Hell I will rip mine out and sell it to you so I can afford to get a new one. Never again will I buy another soyo not even if the start making toilets!!! :banghead:
Comments
I prefer MSI, Abit and Asus.
Tex
it also has to be a socket A and cost less than $150.00
thanks!!
brian770
Did I mention that of the five dragons I built... three MB's died now in the first 12 months also? Does it sound like as great a deal if your spending a couple months with it being shipped back on RMA's every year or so?
You asked for people who had used the SOYO dragons and I have and can't recomend them. I am sure you can also find someone to say they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. All took longer to get setup right and get all the devices configured. Just a general pain in the ass and I have built a few thousand PC's in the last 20 years.
I am lucky in that I get to touchand use a wide variety of boards and I have 20 years experiance building PC's so I have strong opinions on the current quality level of the differant manufactures based on a LOT of hands on experiance.
I am not dogging SOYO but lets leave it at this... I won't buy one or let my friends buy one. You get what you pay for and the SOYO dragon is a board full of features from a second tier maker trying to maquarade as a top tier one.
Your warned now and what you decide to do is your choice. You asked for people with experiance and you just didnt get the response you were searching for. Not my fault.
Sorry
Tex
the closest board i could find is an epox one that has 6 sata ports but only 2 ide ports (4 devices).....but i have never personally used an epox so i am somewhat hesitant to recomend.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-123-221&depa=1
here's a dfi one wiht 4 sata ports...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-137&depa=1
still almost everyone will tell you that the abit nf7s v2.0 is the best socket A mobo....period.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-166&depa=1
Try and stick to the three makers I mentioned if possible. Not saying you can't get a good board elsewhere but its much safer to stick to that list. And even that list has people that barfs up a bad board from time to time but in general their quality is just higher.
Tex
Thanks for the "heads up". I'll let you know what I decide. Will a add on ide card decrease hard drive performance? Thanks for your help.
brian770
as for socket A boards, like ryko says, the Abit NF7-S 2.0 is the most popular one around here, but the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe is used by a fair number of us as well (me included)
I can vouch for Epox. But I suggest you get a Abit KW8 KT880 board and find a HPT370/372 or Promise IDE raid card. You're not going to find (m)any new boards with extr IDE ports as these are slowly being phased out in favor of SATA ports.
The DFI NFII Ultra is a great little board but it's finicky about memory and it undervolts the CPU when under heavy overclocking (over 1.85vcore), but thats not a problem if you run at or near stock FSB (~200-220mhz).
I would seriously think twice if you don't want a majoy hassle install. It is a discontinued board and believe me there is good reason for that IDE1 is next to impossible to get to work. It may take an act of god to get IDE1 to work at all!!!!! No joke. This thing has pissed me off like no other and I have built 4 systems now. If I would you I would give it a second look!!! Soyo tech support is USELESS!!!!! This forum is where I found the answer just to get the cd-RW and the master hard drive hooked up together to make an install even possible. No Joke avoid it with the pleg and take your money elsewhere. Hell I will rip mine out and sell it to you so I can afford to get a new one. Never again will I buy another soyo not even if the start making toilets!!! :banghead: