Soltek SL-85DR-C Motherboard Review

The Intel i845 chipset is a very curious thing indeed. Originally released as a low cost P4 alternative to the i850 Rambus chipset the i845 only supported PC133 SDRAM memory. During this time AMD, SiS, and VIA were all moving towards using faster DDR memory so it appeared that once again the P4 would be deprived of memory bandwidth, at least in the Intel camp. That would change a few months later when Intel allowed motherboard manufactures to flip a switch in the memory controller thus enabling DDR memory support to the i845.

Since then the i845 has enjoyed much popularity in all P4 markets and is oftentimes referred to as the next BX chipset due to its wide range of uses and tweakable features. Soltek has produced quite a few motherboards based on this chipset both SDRAM and DDR.

The Soltek 85DR-C is the no frills DDR version without RAID or Creative CT5880 Audio. Personally I am not a big fan of onboard audio since it usually is never used but I cannot speak for the system integrators that oftentimes look for these features to cut costs.