Bundle and presentation
The previous SOYO boards that have arrived at Hexus were enclosed in some of the largest boxes we'd seen. Their DRAGON series tried to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the package. We're not complaining as we like fully featured motherboards. This particular SOYO seems like a slimmer version.
Intel's newest CPUs have inherent support for Hyper-Threading technology. For it to work, we need support on both the CPU, motherboard, and software level. The i845PE natively supports it. We see that support proudly emblazoned on the cover. Hyper-Threading, put simply, fools the compatible operating system into thinking that they're two physical cores. Performance, as we've shown in the 3.06GHz review, can be improved by around 10%.
The bundle seems a little spartan by SOYO's previous standards. A well written manual, driver CD with various utilities, 2 IDE leads, floppy lead, backplane, and a decent bonus pack consisting of Norton's Ghost, Anti-Virus, and Firewall (all 2002 versions) complete the package. I'm disappointed to see no USB2.0 brackets supplied with the package. With only two ports on the backplane I'd have hoped to see all six usable via appropriate brackets. The headers are already there.
Serial ATA is all the rage amongst motherboard manufacturers even though the associated drives are yet to ship in volume. SOYO, not wanting to miss out include a S-ATA lead. I just hope that a number of drives surface soon. We've seen motherboards sporting S-ATA interfaces for a number of months now. It's about time that those currently redundant ports were put into real use.
