Yoyotech Ice Dragon A925A-CS review

Few systems that enter the PC Pro Labs with an AMD processor hope to compete with the best that Intel currently has to offer but, thanks to some crafty overclocking, Yoyotech’s latest takes a mid-range CPU and gives it a good shot. The Ice Dragon boasts an AMD Phenom II X4 925 running at 3.3GHz – a figure that’s higher than every chip in Intel’s current range save for a single Extreme-edition part.

Consequently, the Yoyotech delivered one of the best benchmark results we’ve seen from an AMD processor, with its overall result of 2.04 actually faster than some Core i5 and i7 parts running at their stock speeds.

Despite also being overclocked, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 graphics card couldn’t quite match up to its ATI rivals, returning a score of 26fps in our very high quality, 1,920 x 1,080 benchmark. That's slower than almost every Radeon HD 4890-based system we’ve seen and proof that, if you’re serious about gaming, it’s worth siding with ATI right now.

Elsewhere, the specification is fairly standard, with 4GB of RAM, a 750GB hard disk and a Blu-ray reader being par for the course on most high-end desktop systems.

Yoyotech’s choice of peripherals is good, too. The 24in Iiyama Prolite monitor is a popular choice among PC makers thanks to its sharp detail and bright, even colours. The Ice Dragon also boasts a set of 5.1 speakers – a better choice than the 2.1 sets that we usually see with sub-£1,000 systems, and an addition that makes the Ice Dragon a particularly good choice when it comes to home entertainment.

The only real disappointment here is the Gigabyte GZ-X8 chassis, which is one of the ugliest we’ve seen thanks to its cheap plastic finish and odd metallic slats. The interior is little better, with large components and untidy cabling making upgrades difficult even if, in theory, there’s room for additional hard disks, memory or graphics cards.

Thankfully, the Ice Dragon is reasonably quiet and offers plenty of ports, with nine USB sockets, two FireWire ports and a pair of PS/2 inputs divided between the front and rear.

Aside from the chassis, though, there’s plenty to like about the Ice Dragon: the overclocked AMD Phenom processor just about competes with the best that Intel has to offer, the Nvidia graphics card provides decent gaming performance and the peripherals turn this package into a tempting and affordable all-rounder.

Author: Mike Jennings