Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra and Dragon Lite (AMD)>> Two Different Boards

There seems to be some confusion as to how Soyo is marketing their AMD - Dragon Ultra boards.

Here is a press release from Soyo that may shed some more light on it:

tnx

>>> Def

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SOYO’s New VIA Chipset Motherboards for AMD Socket A CPUs
Offer features for all Levels of Users -- SY-K7V DRAGON Ultra and DRAGON LITE Feature On-Board 6-Channel Sound, USB 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet, Embedded RAID Chips See SOYO at CeBIT 2002, March 13-20 th , Hall 19, Booth #C39

HANNOVER, GERMANY (March 13, 2002) SOYO Computer, Inc. announced a pair of motherboards with VIA’s KT333 and KT266A chipsets for AMD Socket-A CPUs, which deliver the power and flexibility to meet the needs of any level user or application. SOYO’s new SY-K7V DRAGON Ultra is the company’s fastest motherboard for AMD processors with its VIA KT333/8233A chipset, DDR333 memory support, USB 2.0 on board, and many advanced and easily customized features. SOYO’s new SY-K7V DRAGON LITE offers many of the same features as the DRAGON Ultra such as DDR333 support, but eliminates the RAID and 10/100 Ethernet controllers to offer a more price-conscious motherboard without sacrificing performance.

The SY-K7V DRAGON Ultra flies past previous AMD Socket-A based boards with its VIA KT333 chipset, which now fully supports DDR memory modules at 333MHz. The enhanced chipset solves bottlenecks created by increasing processor speeds, and accelerates the memory bandwidth by 20% to 2.7 gigabits per second (GB/sec) compared to 2.1 GB/sec with existing 266MHz memory.

In addition to extra memory bandwidth from the KT333 chipset, the SY-K7V DRAGON Ultra also boosts performance with ATA-133 (133Mbytes/sec) support for hard drives, and USB 2.0 on board.

On board 10/100 Mbps Ethernet is a standard feature of the SY-K7V DRAGON Ultra with its Realtek 8100B controller. SOYO has also embedded a HiPoint IDE-RAID chip to provide ATA133 IDE RAID at Level 0 (data striping), Level 1 (disk mirroring) or Levels 0+1.

The SY-K7V DRAGON LITE is based on VIA’s KT266A / 8233A chipset with 200/266 MHz FSB. Both the DRAGON Ultra and DRAGON LITE motherboards are expandable with three 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets, which support up to 3GB of DDR333 memory. Both boards have five 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant), and one Universal AGP Pro slot, which support 1x/2x/4x mode.

The DRAGON Ultra and LITE motherboards feature an on board CMI 8738 audio chip to provide 6-channel digital audio. The sound chip eliminates the need for a sound card, and also supports optical output & SPDIF output. SPDIF allows digital audio signals to be transferred from one device to another without having to convert them first to analog. The DRAGON Ultra and DRAGON LITE each feature an on board Ultra I/O chip, which supports 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; an IrDA (infrared) port with optional cable for transceiver, and four USB 2.0 ports (2 rear, 2 front). The boards also have two PCI bus mastering ATA133 E-IDE ports, and Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE ports, which support four independent channels to accommodate eight IDE devices, including two for RAID.

Users can easily fine-tune either board by adjusting the CPU FSB, core voltage & multiplier, or AGP Pro voltage through the Award PCI BIOS setup. The FSB can be set in 1Mhz increments through the BIOS setup.

Support is also included for on-board hardware monitoring, and includes SOYO’s Hardware Health Utility to streamline PC system management. Among the many hardware monitoring functions found on both boards are CPU fan speed and temperature monitoring through a thermal sensor; WOL (Wake On LAN) function to simplify network management; software power-off controls and remote and/or alarm power-on control.

The SY-K7V DRAGON Ultra and DRAGON LITE motherboards will ship in March. Contact SOYO direct for individual and volume pricing.

ABOUT SOYO Computer, Inc.
SOYO Computer, Inc was founded in 1985, with worldwide headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, and branch offices in Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. The company sells its products through a select group of distributors, resellers, system integrators, and VARs worldwide.

SOYO headquarter is located at No. 21 Wu-kung 5 th Road, Hsing Chuang City, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan R.O.C. (Wu-ku Industrial Park), Tel: +886-2-22903300 Fax: +886-2- 22983322, email: [email protected] , website: http://www.soyo.com.tw

[STYLUS]

The Platinum version is very pretty [img]smile.gif[/img] lol, but the problem is that i live in australia and there is no retailers who sell soyo products, not to mention will even order one in for me, so its a pity.

But soyo makes some damn fine boards def, you got one yourself?

Sorry you don't have access to Soyo there Stylus.

(Australia seems to be able to get just about everything else though.)

It's weird on the KT333 Ultra Dragon.

I called to confirm the type of SigmaBox bundled with the one I was getting (it was the 4 each 2.0 USB ports in the 5 1/4 drive bay chassis - the Silver package).

(I had actually hoped it was the SigmaBox with the 2 ea. 2.0 USB ports and the FlasCard/IBM Drive card ports - the Platinum package.)

Well, I went to order it from my source (Newegg) the next day and it had been withdrawn from sale.

I'm waiting to get it back in stock (and hopefully the Platinum edition - I use digital photography), but have backed off the urgency some (it's not essential)... in the meantime I'm plugging along with the K7S6A/512MB Kingmax/Promise ATA133.

Perhaps Soyo will eventually come into the Australian market (or you may have to do the international purchase from Europe).

tnx

>>> Def
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by STYLUS:


But soyo makes some damn fine boards def, you got one yourself?<hr></blockquote>

;)

[STYLUS]

Well its actually quite weird now,
as the very next day after i wrote that post there Def, i received an email from an online company in indonesia, (which is as close as i'm gunna get to australia), telling me that they are a reseller for Soyo and have the Kt 333 in stock, well i was very shocked and quite happy (maybe they heard me or something, freaky as) [img]smile.gif[/img] and they also said that they will have the platinum at around the 15th of may (which is its actuall release date i do believe) so i can't wait to then and like you i also have an ECS board, just the one below yours Def, the K7S5A, which i have been very found of indeed, i've got it with a 1700 but am looking for a little change as i work in a computer shop and every sys we sell just about goes out with the k7 board, lol. not that i am dissin the board or anything, just after some fresh meat, lol. ;)

have a good one.