Soltek or Soyo?

[blomando]

I want to upgrade and was planning on getting the SOYO Dragon+ because of all the extra features including ability to run 8 IDE devices. However, in reading the forums I seem to see a lot of issues and RMA's with the Soyo Dragon board. Unless its my imagination there seem to be a lot more issues with the Soyo then the Soltek. Please correct me if I'm wrong because I do like a lot of things about the board but not if its going to be a pain in the ass!

I'm starting to think that for the same price, I could always get the cheaper Soltek and add a promise 1oo or 133 controller to it and have pretty much the same thing but with maybe less hassle.

Any and all info and opinions would be appreciated.

 

[dohs]

i had both those on my short list also and went with the dragon+. did you see the reviews from www.tomshardware.com and www.amdmb.com? both had great reviews of dragon, and soltek also at least at toms. i liked the features the dragon had and believe it is a solid board. after reading the boards so much and seeing problems with all the boards i decided to go with my gut and get the one that had good tech reviews and was one i really wanted, the dragon+. i just ordered mine tonight with an xp 1700, 40 gb baracuda, 512 crucial, xp os, thermaltake volcano 7 cooler, visiontek geforce3 ti200 video, plextor 24x burner, and enermax case, and more. i can't wait to get it! good luck with your decision!

 

[blomando]

Sounds like a real Thoroughbred!
Let me know how you make out. I'm still trying to make up my mind, but will probably be ordering one of them in the next day or two.
Good Luck!

 

[johndoe52]

I just ordered the Soyo. Looks like a nice board. Hopefully I'll get lucky. Probably just has many problems with the soltek board.

 

[AA0]

I would take the soyo, if you want the RAID on it. IMO, Asus A7V 266-E is a better board, on anand's review it performs better and overclocks higher. It also has similar featues of 6 point sound and RAID. Both are good, about the same price too.

 

[BlueMysticWarrior]

I'm in the boat, but I was going to get the Soltec b/c I don't need audio,lan or RAID.

 

[crackerjack]

Beware of the Soyo board. As an owner of beforementioned MB for 2 months now I can tell you it's not the most forgiving board in the world and I do not agree with all the praise that it has been receiving.
The board has some serious issues. Many video related, but there are also problems with the SB Audigy on it. (my Audigy works fine though)

If you can you should check out the forums at viaarena..com and go to the part on Soyo mb's. Believe me, after reading the messages there you will come to think again.
My problems (freezes and reboots in 3d intensive games) are not too bad as compared what others are experiencing.

I know it's a beautiful loaded board with great potential. Heck, I got one myself after reading all the reviews on the web.

Even though I still hope to sort it out, I'm close to giving in and getting another MB. Maybe it'll all be resolved with new drivers (VIA, Geforce, Audigy) and Bios. But sofar no luck.

My system:
Soyo Dragon + (as you've guessed by now)
Athlon XP 1800+
512 MB PC2400 corsair DDR
Creative Geforce3 ti500
SB Audigy player
W2K (tried winXP as well, no improvement)

Good luck in choosing, and have fun with the building.

jack

 

[rondeemc]

I like the Soyo which I received as a gift. I don't need the raid but do have more then 4 ide devices so I don't have to buy an additional card with it. Also the above average sound quality (close to the Audigy based on several reviews I have seen) and the onboard NIC means a clean install with only the AGP card. And of course it has a pro AGP slot which gives you some flexibility. Also full copies of Norton Ghost and AV plus to upfront USB ports. Another thing you don't here much about in that it has 5 fan headers.

Haven't most of the issues been solved with the latest BIOS update?????

Never had a Soltek so I can't comment on them.

 

[markrb]

I have a Soltek DRV2 and I love it. As long as you can live with it's one issue then it's a winner of a board.

The only real issue is it's ability to overclock with the fsb. It cannot overclock well with 2 or more sticks of DDR.
I did extensive testing using a DOS memory subsystem tester and found that with 1 stick of memory I could run my fsb to 145
with my CPU multiplyer overclocked as well. If added in a second stick I could not get passed 139 with the same settings.

I am running 100% stable with my AMD XP 1700+ @ 12X @ 139 no problem with 2 X 256mb Crucial PC2100.
However that is also the fastest I can go at 11.5X as well.


If you can live with that this is a great motherboard.

Mark

 

[Atrail]

Nothing but praise for Soyo out of me. Setup was easy, flashed latest bios before
I started installing and I had no problems at all. I am running 3 Dimms 768mb RAM.
Lots of features and totally stable. Does not win any boot speed contests, but once
it is going, it is a pleasure.

 

[blomando]

Thanks for all the advice. Now I'm reading better things about the Abit Kr7a which I had originally ruled out and am even in more of a quandry. Ahh! These life altering decisions are tough!

 

[EXman]

XP333 might be a good choice then! cheaper than Soyo. tons of features and Stable! Also you cannot fit large HSF on the Solteks or I would have given the Purple Ray a lil more thought. Also XP333 has 1/5 and 1/6 dividers as well as more Vcore availible than any KT266A.

 

[Boonesmi]

ill cast my vote for the soyo dragon +

in the last few months ive put together about a dozen systems... the dragon was my fav board i just wish it was the one i used !!!

 

[dkvamme]

I also went and just ordered the soyo with an 1800 Athlon XP, Gainward Ti 200 from Newegg. I have a gut feeling that the Soyo is a very good board. The reasons you hear the bad stuff is because so many have purchased it. Very few people come to these forums to give praise to there systems. Most come to the forums to look for answers to problems ( or at least that is what I think.) I didnt listen to all the nay sayers on the ECS K7S5A and am glad I purchased that board also.... It is still running strong getting very tough usage as my main pc in the house. Im looking to give the ECS system to my sons for there use now and have the Dragon as my main.

 

[woodie1]

Didn't see any point in buying features I wouldn't use. Decided the features I needed were on the cheaper Soltek. Ordered the SL-75DVR2 and XP1700 from Newegg. We shall see how good this board is.

 

[ucdbiendog]

I recently bought a Soyo Dragon+, and have had no problems with it. I could not, however, get the onboard sound to work. But, I only made a half hearted effort to do so since I have a SB Live, and I just wanted to see how it was. This boarsd is fantastically stable. I'm running a 1.4 gHz T-bird at 1606@146x11 with no stability problems. The BIOS is very easy to work with, all the OCing options are in on e simple menu. One thing that bugged me though:
When you get the board, it has a fan sensor for the cpu, and if it doesnt sense a fan on the cpu fan header, it wont even start up. If you have a fan that connects directly to the p/s and doesnt have an RPM header like myself, you will get very frustrated if you dont read about it first. To bypass it just hold the insert key when you power up and disable that thing in BIOS. Overall though, its an excellent board. Kudos to SOYO for putting together an excellent board as well as including all the goodies they did. I have no experiance with soltek, so i cant comment on them.

 

[JimMc]

You simply can't compare the number of complaints on a BBS for one MB vs. another without considering how many of each are in the hands of folks. Check Pricewatch for the Soltek board and the Soyo and you'll see what I mean. If there are very few Soltek MB's in circulation you will see very few complaints. The more popular the board, the more you will see "problems"; remember, at least half the people with problems have no idea what they are dong and never bothered to even RTFM.

I have the Dragon + and it's been great so far, have no idea about the Soltek's quality, but from reviews it too looks good.

 

[pdampier]

Soyo Dragon+ here too. Love it. On board NIC is great, on-board sound is great, 6 USB ports are great, 5 fan headers are great, smartcard reader will be great once WinXP drivers come out and the 2 front usb ports on that panel are really handy. (+ the software bundle is cool)

One odd thing though is Ghost seems to just be the DOS portion - isn't there a UI portion of this too these days?

Athlon 1700 here which so far I've put at 136 front side bus.