Update: We contacted SoyoUSA regarding the problem with memory that we had, here's the response we got:

"Hi Chris,

I have tested some 512MB modules made my PDP, these module are Non-ECC, unregistered and Unbuffered. according to PDP, they have tried several different brand of memory, registered and unregistered. but only Non-ECC, unregistered, unbuffered memories will work with this board. for XP support, please try our latest BIOS posted on the website. for Dragon Plus the latest bios is 2BA1.

With Regards,

Saeed"

Introduction

Via's KT266 chipset was a breakthrough in the industry by allowing DDR memory to be bundled with Athlon processors at a low cost to the consumer. Although the KT266 was a relatively stable and good-performing chipset, it lagged behind the likes of the AMD 761 and the SiS 735 (both of which outperformed the Via KT266) chipset in memory performance. This issue was pretty big with end-users and Via took some flak about it's performance pitfalls in its memory controller. The result of this is that Via released the KT266A, which features a new North Bridge (VT8366A) that addresses the issue of the KT266 (VT8366) by adding a new memory buffer along with deeper internal buffers.

Soyo is a company that has remained in the shadow of the likes of Asus and MSI in the motherboard game. While occasionally they pop up with a great product, they usually stay behind the bigger players: releasing products after them and not really marketing as much as them. But Soyo is a respected and talented maker of mainboards as we will soon find out and their boards feature some of the best bang for the buck. Soyo is a company that is still trying to recover from the release of the K7ADA which didn't fair well at all because of the low-performing ALi chipset. With the release of the KT133A chipset, Soyo put out the K7VTA Pro mainboard which was both a great performer and a great overclocker. As a follow up, they released the K7V DRAGON motherboard based on the KT266 chipset. The motherboard was a fairly good success with shortages at first. From the group consensus, the DRAGON was a great motherboard with all of the features that one will need AND want. The onboard RAID, 6-channel audio, and Ethernet meant more open PCI slots and greater compatibility. For all of you who are wondering what DRAGON stood for:

DDR SDRAM

RAID controller on board

Audio on board, with 6-chanel Hardware Audio

Graphic, Universal AGP Pro slot

Overclocking, setup FSB by 1MHz increment

Network, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet

The DRAGON original was a great board with no major issues to date (except low overclocking performance) and all of the latest features such as an AGP Pro slot to protect from obsoleteness. Also, it came in a fashionable black/dark red color scheme. Just a couple of months ago, Soyo announced the production of the K7V Dragon Plus motherboard, the successor of the KT266 based K7V Dragon. The Dragon Plus was based on the new KT266A chipset and promised better performance and stability. You could say that the Dragon Plus is basically a Dragon with a new North Bridge and compatibility for the new Athlon XP processors. The sentiment here is: if it works well, don't change it.

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

PROCESSOR
Supports AMD Socket-A type Processor
Including Duron & Athlon & XP CPUs

CHIPSET
VIA KT-266(8366/8233) chipsets
Support 200/266 MHz FSB

SYSTEM MEMORY
Three 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets Support up to 3GB

EXPANSION SLOTS
Five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant)
One Universal AGP Pro slot (support 1x/2x/4x mode)

On Board Audio Subsystem
On board CMI 8738 Audio chip to provide 6 channels audio solution
Supports optical output & SPDIF output

On Board Ultra I/O CHIP
Two RS-232 Serial Ports (16550 UART compatible)
One Parallel Printer Port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode)
One FDD port (supports 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD)
Provides IrDA port with optional cable for transceiver
Provides 6 USB ports (2 rear, 4 front)

Ultra DMA IDE Ports
Four independent channels for eight IDE devices (two for Raid)
Supports up to PIO mode 5 & UDMA 33/66/100
Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports

Boot-Block Flash BIOS
Award PCI BIOS with ACPI function
Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE/SCSI/CD-ROM/FDD LS120/ZIP
2M byte Flash ROM

Board Dimensions
Four Layer PCB, 30.5cm x 23cm(12" x 9.05")
ATX form factor

Enhanced PC Health Monitoring
On-board voltage monitors for +3.3, +5V, +12V, Vcore,(TBD)
CPU fan speed monitor (TBD)
CPU temperature monitoring through flexible thermal sensor (TBD)

DOUBLE STACK BACK-PANEL I/O CONNECTORS
PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports
2 USB ports
One RJ45 connector
Two D-Sub 9-pin male serial port
One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port
Audio I/O: LINE-OUT x1, LINE-IN x1, MIC JACK x1
One Game port

FCC CLASS B AND CE EMI REGULATION COMPLIANT
PC 99 COMPLIANT

Installation

Soyo has always done an above average job with their accessories and support for the boards. Included in the box was a 200 page printed manual (something MOST companies SHOULD have), the driver CD which is essential if you need to reinstall the computer and have network support, an 8-in-1 bonus pack featuring Norton antivirus (OEM edition) and Intervideo WinDVD (trial version), 3 ATA/100 cables, 1 Floppy cable, the daughtercard for the CMI audio, and of course the motherboard itself.

The layout of the board is exactly like the original DRAGON. As for the layout, I like how everything is easy to reach and connect except the ATX power connector that's toward the mid left of the motherboard; if you have a bird's eye view. Technically, there is nothing wrong with this position and it might seem convenient but I just don't like how the cord brushes up against the heatsink when plugged in. It's my preference that all of the cords and cables are concentrated in one area, this makes it look less cluttered and more open, allowing more airflow through the case.

Installation was basically straightforward, mount the board, plug everything in, fire it up. This was pretty easy and the motherboard started without any problem. I felt that this board lacked some of the diagnostic features found in boards from MSI and EPoX. MSI boards have a 4 LED problem identified; a combination of the LED's indicate the specific problem. EPoX has a similar one but the problem is told by the 2-digit LCD display. The BIOS has preset settings for "normal" operation and "maximum" operation. The normal being the settings the board will work the best with (CAS 2.5, AGP2X, etc…) while the maximum has the best settings possible (CAS 2, AGP4X, etc...).

Benchmarks

Test Setup

• AMD ThunderBird 1.2
• MSI GeForce 2 Pro
• Pioneer 16X DVD
• 30GB IBM 75GXP
• 256MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM
• Windows XP Professional
• VIA 4-in-1 Drivers (versions 4.35)

Memory Benchmark

I was quite surprised when I ran this benchmark, although it does beat the KT266 by a good margin, the margin wasn't good enough in my eyes. I ran this test with 4 way bank interleaving and at CAS latency 2. I spoke to other webmasters about this and the only difference I had when running the test than they did was that I was using Windows XP, that might be the reason for the performance gap and it might not.

CPU Benchmark

The CPU benchmark was as expected. Just a TAD slower than normal, nothing to worry about.

I could go on and on with charts and graphs but as Anand said, motherboards all are getting good enough to close the performance gap within each other to about 1%. So all of the tests would be wasted as all of the numbers would be similar enough to declare that all motherboards are the same.

Overclocking

Overclocking is pretty important nowadays, AMD processors are still overclockable and very good at just that. This board features multiplier adjust, voltage adjust, the FSB adjust, all at very small increments. This is good news because it means precision Overclocking could be done… meaning that you can get the processor to it's maximum. This is where most board stand apart, some boards overclock well, others don't. The original Dragon wasn't a good candidate for Overclocking school but the Dragon Plus certainly was. I lowered the multiplier and cranked up the FSB to 140 for a first shot and it worked, I was surprised at this point since 140 is a high point for me (I don't overclock much). I pushed it up further to 150Mhz and then as high as 155Mhz before it lost stability. 155Mhz is nothing to be ashamed about, it is a pretty impressive overclock. This board is made well to overclock and it does its job well. The only problem is that there is no voltage I/O adjust for the DDR memory, this could be what costs you that extra 5Mhz at the end. Still, keeping stable at that high of a speed is impressive.

Usage And Performance

As with the Dragon, the Dragon Plus was really good in audio and LAN speed as well as the RAID. While these are similar, the performance in memory is not. The memory performance is supposedly a lot better than what I had when I tested but that was with a variety of different operating systems. For all I know, I could test with a PC800 i850 based system and get lower benchmarks on those too. You never know with a new operating system and as we all know, we need to move onto the newest systems. There was one problem though, the temperature of the CPU was higher than normal, not just a bit higher, I mean higher by 10 degrees C. When I tested the same CPU in a KT133A based board, the temperature of the CPU when idle was 38 degrees with a Thermoengine but it was 48 degrees idle on both the Dragon and Dragon Plus. I'm not sure if this is an isolated problem or not but it is a big problem, especially with systems that run hot by nature. Although 48 degrees is well within spec for Thunderbirds, I'd rather not take the risk so upgrading to a better heatsink is in the future for me.

On the positive side, the Dragon Plus remains as one of the most stable boards I have ever tested. When running the stability test, it only froze once in 3 days, which is amazing to say the least. While running Windows XP with normal usage, it never froze on me once. I cannot say how stable it is in Windows 98 and ME but it is also very stable in Windows 2000. When most people think "integrated", they think of mediocre video and sound put into motherboards to spruce up the specs. Soyo has gone beyond that by adding premium audio, as well as RAID, and LAN to make this a motherboard with integrated features that you will actually use. I would recommend using the onboard audio over outside audio because of the cheaper cost and the great quality of the CMI chipset. As for everything else on the board, it is designed with the Athlon XP, DDR SDRAM, AGP Pro, and RAID in mind. This means that this board will not be obsolete for a very long time.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Great features
• Good Overclocking
• Good performance
• Stable
• Future-proof to an extent
• Widely available

Cons

• Bad place for ATX power connector
• Strange rise in CPU heat
• No Voltage I/O adjustment for DDR SDRAM

Conclusion

This board is better than other boards for one obvious reason, it has everything you need and want and nothing you don't. The onboard RAID, audio, and LAN equals a lot of money saved by buying this board rather than buying it all separately. Also, it means more open PCI slots. The KT266A chipset is very promising and offers very nice performance, when looking at other reviews of the Dragon Plus, keep in mind that the benchmarks you will see on those sites weren't based on Windows XP and then make that choice to upgrade or not. I would say that this board is more stable with XP than it is with 2000 and that's also a plus. Although there are cons to this board, the pros far outweigh them and because of that, we have to recommend this board for it's superior performance and the value of the components that it is integrated with. If you're a power user, this board will not disappoint with its overclocking features and if you're just a enthusiast, this board will give you all that you need now and a lot of things you will want in the future.

SLRating: 9/10

Re-Printed From SLCentral

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