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Posted by
Toby Crundwell
on November 30, 2001
Company: Soyo
Product: K7V
Dragon Plus motherboard
Find
low Motherboard
prices here.
Soyo aren't the first name that come
into mind when considering the purchase of the new
motherboard, largely because they involve themselves in the
OEM section of the market a lot of the time. Soyo have been
making motherboards for a long time, and have built up a
reputation of being dependable, if nothing special.
Soyo's novelty named K7V Dragon Plus is
one of the latest Via KT266a motherboards to come out, and
superficially it would seem to be the most fully featured.
The name is itself an acronym, with the initials for DDR,
Raid, Audio, graphic, overclocking, network. Graphic is used
liberally to describe the AGP port, and the Dragon Plus does
not have integrated video. The Dragon Plus includes many
more than features than my previous four Socket A boards,
but does its performance live up to expectations? Let's find
out...
First
Impressions
Upon opening the classically oriental
styled packaging I was greatly surprised as to the contents.
The package contained:
-
Three double wired IDE cables
(suitable for UDMA 66+ use)
-
A floppy cable
-
A spare ATX backing plate
specifically for the Dragon Plus
-
The manual and driver CD
-
An extra CD with bonus software
-
A small bag with thermal compound
(silicone) for heatsink use
-
An audio expansion card with two
analogue, two digital and two coaxial ports
-
A "bonus" box containing a
front bay expansion plate with USB ports and an SCR port
-
The motherboard itself
This goes a long way to being the most
fully featured package around. Even my previous MSI K7T Pro2
RU with its ten USB ports and Smart Key didn't seem to cut
it anymore.
MSI have followed the fashions of the
moment with an unorthodox coloured PCB. In this case, the
Dragon Plus is black with dark brown circuitry. Whilst
rather more stylish than puke red as seen on the K7T Pro2 or
purple/pink as seen on the K7VTA3,
it will still be of little attraction to most users, or at
least those who do not spend any time looking at the insides
of their computer.
However, Soyo have not been totally
inconsiderate to those who value the attraction of bright
colours, and have included purple coloured PCI slots, five
of them in all. I was told a while ago by a friendly source
at OCZ Workshop that purple was the colour of the Samurai.
I'm not too sure about this as a reason for Soyo using
purple PCI slots, but it would fit into the general oriental
image the Dragon Plus conjures. At least, the clashing
colours will not effect the performance in any way (one
hopes).
Unlike some other manufacturers, Soyo
chose to put a small fan on the Northbridge chipset
heatsink. A positive point for some (notably FSB
overclockers), but those who value quiet would not be so
happy to see its unnecessary inclusion. Presumably though it
can be removed, and the motherboard operated without it,
warranty willing.
Soyo have not been as generous with DIMM
slots as Abit were with their KG7, including one less at
three, but supporting up to 3 GB of DDR RAM, this really
should not be an issue for most people.
You may have noticed with some curiosity
earlier I listed an ATX backing plate as one of the contents
of the package. The main reason for this, I suspect, is that
not all ATX backing plates have an extra port space above
the USB ports for an RJ45 connector. Of my two PCs, one had
space in the ATX backing plate for an RJ45 port.
Soyo have been good enough to include a
RAID controller from Promise. Similar to that used on Asus
boards, the RAID chip detects devices during boot and can
also function just as a separate Ultra 100 controller giving
support for an additional four IDE devices.
The layout of the board seemed fairly
similar to that of the K7T Pro2, and by this I was a little
apprehensive about installing it. The absence of an AMR/CMI
slot is noticed, but not mourned (most of you shouldn't be
using one of these such cards).
The software that came with the Dragon
Plus was in excess of expectations, including Norton
AntiVirus 2001, Norton Ghost, Adobe ActiveShare, eWalla,
Imagemore and trial versions of Intervideo WinDVD and Vcom
AutoSave.
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