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Posted by
Toby Crundwell
on November 30, 2001
Company: Soyo
Product: K7V
Dragon Plus motherboard
Find
low Motherboard
prices here.
Integrated
functions
Rarely are these features of a
motherboard paid much due, but I feel an exception must be
made in the case of the Dragon Plus. Like the A7A266,
the Dragon Plus also has an onboard audio chip capable of
six channel sound, being the CMI 8738. Unlike Asus though,
Soyo have chosen to implement this in a way that you can
actually get six channels, not just the two that are
available on the A7A. The mainboard itself has the standard
mini-jack Mic, Line in, Line out and Midi connectors, but in
addition the audio expansion card comes with two further
minijack audio outputs, an optical output, a coaxial output,
an optical input, and a coaxial input. Surround sound can
thus be achieved with a DSP with any digital input, or a
sound system with multiple analogue inputs.
The sound quality is more than could be
expected. I hooked the Coaxial output to my Digital Sound
processor, and from there to my Videologic Digitheatre, and
six channel sound was indeed a reality. I also tested the
six channels using the three minijacks wired directly to the
Digitheatre, and this too worked, but the sound quality was
not as high. However the option of both is surely a big
bonus for those with a six channel input only system, such
as the Digitheatre, or a digital-only input system, such as
the DTT2500.
The package included a Trial Version of WinDVD for me to
test out the six channel sound. It was nothing compared to
that of a hardware decoding from the likes of Sigma Designs,
but for software decoded Dolby Digital it wasn't too bad.
The Dragon Plus also includes integrated
network functions; a single RJ45 plug supporting 10/100Mbit
Ethernet. This worked flawlessly, and it meant that I could
save a PCI slot by removing my old PCI network card. The
network cable does not plug in with a reassuring click, but
does stay held in quite firmly. The port also features an
orange LED that will stay on even if the PC is in Soft-Off
state.
Processor
support
As well as supporting Duron & Athlon
& Athlon XP 100 MHz & 133 MHz FSB models, the Dragon
Plus also supports AMD's upcoming Morgan CPU. Currently,
the Dragon Plus supports up to 1800+ processors
(officially), although with new BIOS files being released
this should be increased soon enough, or at least as fast as
AMD release newer processors. The multiplier can only be
changes via the BIOS, although this is no great loss unless
you prefer to fiddle around with jumpers (and curse when you
loose one).
The Dragon Plus was made with Athlon XPs
broadly in mind. Based on the core known as Palomino, the
main benefits of the Athlon MP will be increased speeds and
reduced power consumption. Reduced power consumption means
reduced heat. Reduced heat means a greater opportunity to
overclock, and of course you can increase the voltage too.
Other than that the XP is just your normal T-Bird Athlon,
with the same 384k of on-die cache, and the same Socket A
form factor, and clocked at higher speeds than the
traditional T-Bird and is really only a stopgap until
processors based on Thoroughbred/Appaloosa cores come out.
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