Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra Platinum Edition
Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra Platinum Edition
Price: £160 at time of writing
Site: www.soyousa.com for information
Uses: Latest motherboard technology
The boards layout is very good a great deal of thought has gone into the placing of the many functions and features and the result is excellent.
The main difference from the norm is the colour of the PCB itself which is a very cool looking silver. Soyo have made this board eyecatching and different with the PCB and the contrasting colours of the PCI and USB connectors.
There is plenty of room around the CPU socket.
The ram slots are far enough away from the AGP slot which allows for easy insertion of hardware. If you didnt know some manufacturers leave little space between the ram and agp which means you have to remove your graphics card before you can upgrade / remove a ram module.
To the right of the ram are the two main IDE connectors.
The Northbridge comes complete with cooler already installed which matches the rest of the board with its colour of silver.
To the left of the northbridge is the Power connector which again is on the leftof the board this shouldnt be a problem unless your case and PSU location makes space a problem.
8X AGP Pro slot located just above the AGP slot is is aadditional power input which is for sole use by the AGP and its hardware.
Below the AGP lies 5 PCI slots in the different colour of purple, under these slots are the USB and SmartMedia pin outs. And to the right are the system pin outs and the IDE Raid and Floppy drive connector.
The Raid is supplied by the built in High-point HPT372 controller which can support up to 4 Raid devices
Also built in is the audio which comes from a C-Media 8738 audio chip it provides 6-channel audio, oviously if your more than the average user you will no doubt disable this feature but for the average and most users the sound will be more than adaquant. As mentioned by the reviewer of the DFI KT400 they mentioned the lack of a digital input well... Soyo include in the package a SPDIF audio connector which of course is complete with silver PCB.
The board looks fantasic the colour of the PCB is a main feature i like but looking and using the board you can see that a lot of time has been put into the smaller fatures, the spacing around the hardware is generous when compared to others. The mix of contrasting colours adds to the overall look of the board, the floopy drive connector being moved down the board is a benift i never did like having all 3 connectors close to each other and then trying to make them neat and connect at the same time.
The board has only 1 jumper : ) I like jumperless motherboards so much as you can basically just slot and go this makes it so much easier if you are swapping hardware around or upgrading alot, the only jumper is for the CMOS and this is located at the bottom of the board along with the CMOS cell battrey.
The connectors are fairly standard comprising of the 2 PS2, 2x USB and Lan, then to your com ports and on to your audio connectors.
The manual is the most comprehensive motherboard manual i have seen it comes in at 186 pages!!! That isnt a bad thing at all it covers absolutly everything on the board and gives a brief but detailed look at each connector. Also easy to understand sections on RAID and Audio are also included.
Another which i like about the board is the attention to details as mentioned above good use of space and features is included but the etchings / markings make the board easy to read this is especially of use when connecting the case cables.
You also get bundled with the pack a 8 in 1 Cd which isnt anything special but is a nice addition especially if you wanted Norton Antivirus & Ghost 2002, also included o nthe disc is Adobe reader and ebook, and also WinDvd 2000. Just think if you were to buy the virus on its own would cost £20, Ghost another £25 or so, its a good addition to have included.
Also included in the package is a Sigma Box
This is a device that can fit in either a 3.5" drive bay or a 5.25" bay which is also included. The connectors at the front of the box comprises of 2 x USB 2.0 ports and a SmartMedia & Compact Flash ports which allow easy connection of USB and of course your digital media the Sigma allows both the SmartMedia and CFlash to be used at the same time.
This is a unexpected additional feature of the KT400 Dragon which gives you even more versatile options especially if you havent got front USB ports within your case this gives you that option. The USB 2.0 connect via a cable to the one of the connectors at the bottom of your board.
Supplied with the KT400 comes a seperate S/PDIF card which offers In and Out & RCA connections, the ability to connect Centre and rear speaker outputs are also catered for.
