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Features
First off, let's start with the "D" as in DDR SDRAM. DDR needs no explanation, it gives radically higher memory throughput than SDRAM and is roughly equivalent in cost, it should be without question the standard in PC memory today. The highlight of the KT266(A) is its ability to run DDR memory. With 3 DDR slots, you can have up to 1.5GB of memory with a cost of around $300, not a bad price compared to even a year ago.
RAID is another important feature that this board has. It's based on the integrated Promise IDE RAID controller mounted on the bottom right of the board. This is a Lite version of the controller that is available through retail chains meaning that it only has RAID 0 and 1 modes, not 0 + 1. This isn't a big problem since most people use RAID 0 anyway.
Audio on board. This is an interesting feature. The Dragon Plus features the CMI 8738 audio processor on board that is capable of outputting to 5.1 digital audio. CMI is short for C-Media International, a sound card maker based out of Taiwan (http://www.cmedia.com.tw/e_products_1.html). The 3738 3D Positional Audio Processor on the Dragon Plus is C-Media's most powerful product featuring optical and S/PDIF output as well as six channel processing. The motherboard includes a daughtercard that possesses all of the output jacks for the audio on board.
Audio Features
- HRTF-based 3D positional audio(C3DX™) for 4 / 6 CH output.
- Professional digital interface, supporting 24-bit SPDIF IN/OUT (44.1K and 48K)
- Built-in 32ohm earphone buffer, ZV port, and PCtel® HSP56 Modem™ interface.
- 32-bit PCI bus master.
- Comprehensive driver support: Microsoft® DirectSound™3D, EAX™, Linux™, BeOS™, etc.
- Microphone echo and Karaoke ascending/descending key effects.
- Single chip design, digital power +3.3V, analog power +5V, 128 pins QFP.
- C3DX™ is the registered trademark of C-Media.
I would just like to add that this solution presents a better quality output than the SoundBlaster Live! I used beforehand. It is in fact a bit clearer and a lot louder than the Creative card.
The Universal AGP Pro slot is a great addition to this board. The main reason why there is a need for an AGP Pro slot is that as video cards get more and more powerful, they require more power, soon, they will need more power than is currently being supplied to them by the AGP slots on today's motherboards. The AGP Pro slot provides more power to the card than a normal AGP slot. This is another way to make a motherboard future-proof.
Overclocking. What can I say? Soyo is one of those companies that isn't afraid to tell people how to overclock on their motherboards. Unlike some companies, they actually have directions on how to do it printed in their manual. This is a great thing because it really shows that Soyo supports the overclocking and enthusiast community and isn't afraid to hide it and save some money by not honoring warranties caused by Overclocking. This board features most things that most boards made by Soyo do, including voltage increases by increments of .05v and FSB increase increments by 1Mhz along with multiplier adjustments. This board is completely jumper free when it comes to everything. The only jumper this board has is the jumper to clear CMOS settings.
Along with all this, this board is topped with a 10/100 Network controller courtesy of a Via chipset. The drivers for this aren't standard in Windows like some other network controllers but that's fine as long as you have the driver installation CD. The performance of the network controller is almost as good as those of Linksys or D-Link but it's not as fast. I've noticed slightly slower download times but similar upload speeds. None that is noticeable though.
This board also features support for a Smart Card Reader connector. Just in case you needed a reader, this board has onboard support for it. Also, there is room for more USB slots, there's 2 rear slots, plus support for 2 more sets of USB connectors. There are options in the BIOS for enabling which ones you would like to use. Everything is done through the BIOS on this board. Enabling/disabling the LAN, RAID, AUDIO is very important as I had problems getting those to work until I realized that the BIOS had those set to DISABLE. Since everything is done in the BIOS, messing around the jumpers is limited to only clearing the CMOS settings.
>> Specs
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