Finally we found something
different when looking at the external case
connectors! The K7-DRAGON + was the only board
in the round-up equipped with an on-board 10/100 NIC!
The slots are in a 1 AGP Pro. 5 PCI configuration, but
we rally can't fault Soyo for not including a 6th PCI
slot on the DRAGON + considering all of the on-board
features. This board has a quality on-board
sound solution powered by the same C-Media CMI8738
chip found on the Asus board (but Soyo included the
necessary connectors to utilize the 6th. channel and
Digital-Out) , an on-board NIC and a Promise RAID
controller. Slap in a processor, RAM and a video
card and you've got a full featured system! Like
the Asus board, the CPU socket has enough space around
it to accommodate a large cooler, but it's mounted a
bit to close to the DIMM slots for our liking.
Initially, we were happy
to see that Soyo also chose to include active cooling
on the Northbridge, but when we removed the cooler, we
were disappointed to find that no thermal interface
material was used.
The ATX power connector
was placed between the power array and external case
connectors. We would have proffered to see it
placed a bit higher on the board. In it's
current location we had to drape the power supply
directly over our CPU cooler. The case header
was well labeled and well placed at the lower corner
of the board.
All of the IDE, Floppy and
RAID connectors are well placed, mounted parallel to
the edge of the board. We prefer the these
connectors to be mounted this way, it makes it much
easier to bundle the cables and keep in the inside of
the case neat...
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MSI's Board is Up
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