SOYO Dragon+

[dekkar]

hello EYO guys.... can u get in the Soyo Dragon+ (266A) mobo??


If so, how much is it going for???



FINALLY.... what is the diff between buffered and unbuffered ram??


thnx....

Dekkar

[dekkar]

No one have any clue?????



If not then im thinking of making the purchase from the US over the internet...


Has anyone done this before??????? anything to watch out for????



thanks,
dekkar

[nsu]

Is there anything special about this Soyo board?

We sold some Soyo board in the past, but the quality was not the best. Also it took us a long time to get a replacement from the distributor when something went wrong.

Soyo sent someone from Taiwan the year before last year and tried to really market their products in Australia, unfortunately the result has not been as good as they would have expected.

Selling an odd motherboard is often a bad move. Even if a dealer sold ten motherboards and have one come back, that will make it not worthwhile.

[dekkar]

I really think this is gonna be a hot mobo...... it has everything I need... Toms hardware just reviewed it and said it was 1 of the best.... easily had the best features......



I keep my mobos for a long time.... so when I get one.... I need to make sure it is the one I really want :) and this is the one...

[allocta]

Hi

Have you consider the MSI K7T266 Pro RU?
this board is like the Soyo dragon with more extra features and different colour board. The SOYO board was not popular but there are newer better boards being released. The current favorite board is the Epox 8KHA+ on the net at the moment and the newer one, the K7RA from Abit will be like be the next board to be the favorite. It is great to stock every board that is released but the Soyo board has been around for a while and the newer boards like the Epox, MSI, ASUS, and Abit are new to the market and has newer features which the Soyo doesn't. My advice to you is to check out the latest boards released on the net and you'll are more likely to choose the newer ones. If you do have problems with the board then a more popular brand boards would have fixes where the Soyo are harder to find.

[dekkar]

here are the reviews given at toms:

MSI 266a board:
At first glance, the MSI K7T266 Pro 2 is really easy on the eye - the red coloring of its PCB and the delicate packaging can enthrall any user. The most striking characteristic on this board is its integrated USB 2.0 feature, which ensures the board will cope with what the future brings, too. A Promise RAID controller allows you to hook up four additional IDE devices using the Ultra-DMA/100 protocol. A very practical feature is the clip on the AGP slot, which ensures that your graphics card won't stick in the slot. When tested, though, the MSI turns out to be another victim of marketing hype. Every time we booted up, BIOS reported a faulty keyboard, even though the keyboard was properly connected. And our D-Link network card only worked in the first and second PCI slots.

Epox:
The Epox board is all the rage with particularly ambitious AMD users. The reason is simple - it's an ideal CPU for overclocking Athlon XP processors. And that's not all - you can also change the voltage settings for both your RAM and the CPU core. The only caveat is that the maximum core voltage is set to 1.85 volts at the factory, making it necessary to modify the board itself if you want to set the voltage any higher. If you credit the reports of some users, this board makes insane clock speeds beyond the 2000 MHz sound barrier possible. Unfortunately though, according to all the field tests we performed at our THG lab in Munich, these claims turned out to be a load of bunk. On the bright side, we were able to hit a clock speed of 1666 MHz using the Epox and an unlocked AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (equivalent to the "2000+" rating). We found it very useful that the Epox has an integrated Port 80 card that gives error messages as early as during booting by using two 7-segment displays. The six PCI slots and the clip for the AGP slot were real plusses. The board is the leader of the pack in performance, and takes the gold in several benchmarks.

Soyo:
No other motherboard manufacturer can top this one - the Soyo comes with a 3.5" card reader, smart cards and integrated USB ports as front outlets. And there are also three IDE cables thrown in, with a 5.25" mounting bay for the card reader to boot. A rather odd bird is the integrated sound feature that can be accessed using the slot bracket included with the mobo. Thanks to this baby, both analog and optical (digital) input and output devices (SP/DIF format) can communicate with the board. A few of the highlights on the board are the AGP Pro slot, the integrated Promise RAID controller and the network chip. The board's colorful port and slot design is especially pleasing - although the choice of colors is a matter of personal preference. BIOS includes a user-friendly tuning menu that allows you to overclock both the RAM and the CPU.

A separate feature allows this board to be automatically run in its fastest mode without much extra effort, which helped propel Soyo to the top of all the benchmarks. Judging this board by all its characteristics, it definitely deserves the winner's laurels.


This is only 1 review of the Soyo board...... there are plenty of others out there that say much of the same thing..... that is why im after it :)

[dekkar]

So EYO not gonna be bringing this mobo in???? u know of anyone else I could try?

[nsu]

No plan for them.

You could try Canda International in Melbourne. They used to handle Soyo boards.

[dekkar]

OK cool..... thanks for the info.... u should consider getting these boards tho.... I think they are a hot piece of hardware.....


or will be..... when they get here...

[sonyfier]

Originally posted by dekkar
OK cool..... thanks for the info.... u should consider getting these boards tho.... I think they are a hot piece of hardware.....


or will be..... when they get here...

Dekka
I think you should wait and read some more reviews and face off's between boards from other testers.
Lately Tom's Hardware has been contradicting itself so much with reviews, as an example look at the review and comments of the MSI KT266 Pro 2 in his motherboard line up "When tested, though, the MSI turns out to be another victim of marketing hype. Every time we booted up, BIOS reported a faulty keyboard, even though the keyboard was properly connected."

And in a seperate review of MSI board a little while ago none of this was mentioned, he was raving about it.

Now better boards do become available that surpass others that were tops but a board he previously raved about doesn't become a bad or mediocre board in a second review just because something that is faster comes along.
I find his reviews lately inconsistant, contradictory and confusing to the point of virtually being worthless.

[dekkar]

very true mate...... but there has to be a time where u put the foot down... and decide what mobo u r gonna get....


I use that theory... and I still have my old abit BH6 ehehhehe :)

I could of course wait around a few months and there will be something better ..... but u could be doing that for a very long time...!!:)


will keep an eye on the market tho... thx for the heads up..