Soyo KT600 Dragon Plus

Big B · Dec 13, 2006

<h2>Enter the Dragon</h2>
 
Soyo was a big name back when overclocking first started to take off, then just dropped out of sight. That is, until a few years ago when they came back with their DRAGON series of motherboards. They rivaled Gigabyte and MSI for features and then included extra goodies in the box to top it off. If you don't remember it, it was similar to what DFI's been doing for the packaging of their LanParty series of boards.
 
The KT600 Dragon Plus is Soyo's basic KT600 board, but that doesn't mean this is a vanilla motherboard. With the VIA KT600 chipset and the VT8237 "southbridge", the basic chipset features aren't as basic as they used to be.This is certainly a good thing, and just part of what the KT600 Dragon Plus has in store.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+board.jpg">
 

<ul>
<li>VIA KT600/VT8237 chipset
<li>Supports up to AthlonXP 3200+
<li>Supports up to Duron 1.8GHz
<li>3x 184-pin DIMM up to 3GB
<li>1x AGP 8x
<li>5x PCI
<li>2x Serial ATA ports w RAID 0,1
<li>2x IDE ports
<li>1x Floppy port
<li>4x USB + 4 w bracket
<li>1x RJ45 10/100 NIC
<li>1x Keyboard/ 1x Mouse PS/2
<li>2x Serial ports
<li>1x Parallel port
<li>1x Line-out/1x Line-in/1x Mic
<li>Award BIOS
</ul>
 
As you can see, the features aren't really any different than what's seen on most KT600 boards out there.
 
The KT600 Dragon+ that I have is Version 1.0. The first run of the SY-KT600 Dragon Plus had firewire included, but have been removed from V 1.0. If you want the Firewire, the original can still be found on-line.

Big B · Dec 13, 2006

<h2>Layout</h2>
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+acc.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+box.jpg">
 
The KT600 Dragon Plus box does the job. It's not flashy, but it does list the board's features on the front of the box. Inside, Soyo packages few extras, but they are enough to get you going. Included are 1 IDE cable, 1 SATA cable, 1 floppy cable, a manual,a custom I/O shield, a case badge, a driver CD, and a software CD. While the board does have headers for an extra 4 USB 2.0, they are nowhere in the box. The USB 2.0 isn't as big of deal, because you at least have 4 of those on the back I/O panel. The manual included is pretty sparse, and doesn't explain much in detail. The BIOS gets a single page; fortunately, a more robust manual is available on Soyo's website.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+board.jpg">
 
The board itself uses a stylish black PCB with purple PCI and DIMM slots mixed in. The Dragon Plus has a total of 4 fan headers, one is used by the fan cooling the KT600 northbridge.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+skt.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+hsfcap.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+atxpwr.jpg">
 
The socket area is pretty clean except for one corner with some capacitors close by. The Thermaltake Volcano 7 heatsink is a decent size and is fairly close to the caps in question. Soyo includes mounting holes around the socket for those wishing to use some high-performance heatsinks or watercooling. You really can't see it, but there are some clear protective strips under the socket lugs to help prevent a dead motherboard from the slip of a scredriver. The ATX power connector is behind the I/O panel, which means running the ATX power through the CPU area without creative cabling. There is also a lack of the extra 12V connector for extra juice to the board.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+iopan.jpg">
 
The I/O panel is pretty good. 4 USB 2.0 ports and an RJ45 port are a few items back here. Anymore a NIC should be standard on-board equipment, and Soyo comes through on this one.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+dimm.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+pciagp.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+agpdimm.jpg">
 
The KT600 Dragon Plus has a 5 PCI/ 1 AGP slot configuration. Usually, this prevents any sort of physical problem between the AGP and DIMM slots, but Soyo didn't take advantage of this. If you swap RAM often, you'll be popping out your video card frequently as well.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+bios.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+phy.jpg">
 
In front of the expansion slots lies the AC97 codec, the BIOS chip and the physical layer chip. Soyo goes back to VIA for the codec, using the VT1616 chip, and the for the PHY with the VT6103. I'm happy to see a socketed BIOS chip here as well.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+nbfan.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+vt8237.jpg">
 
Soyo adds an active heatsink to the northbridge, and a passive on on the VT8237 southbridge. The VT8237 doesn't really get hot enough to warrant extra cooling, but it doesn't hurt anything for looks.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+idesata.jpg">
 
The location of the IDE ports leaves much to be desired. For the standard mid-tower case, the positioning is fine, but if you have a full-tower, the location is less than ideal. If you have a case with the floppy drive at the top, this board also isn't favorable. This is of course, if you're using a floppy drive.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+fpan.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d+fw.jpg">
 
Soyo hasn't jumped on the train with other motherboard companies in color coding the front panel connectors, but I'm hoping that they will in the future. The USB 2.0 headers are there is green. You can also see the silkscreen for two IEEE ports.
 
While many companies relegate the multiplier adjustments to BIOS, Soyo has a bank of dipswitches to do the task. I have to admit, Abit has spoiled me here. What is a problem is the location close to the front panel connectors and on the edge of the board that's adjacent to the bottom of a typical computer case.
 
While I have been picky about the Dragon Plus, many key items are labled in large lettering, which certainly helps with the setup. The fan headers are white, making them easy to spot against the black PCB.

Big B · Dec 13, 2006

<h2>The BIOS</h2>
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bmain.jpg">
 
Soyo uses the popular Award BIOS on the KT600 Dragon Plus.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bcmos.jpg">
 
The basic CMOS setup features are just that, basic.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-badvb1.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-badvb2.jpg">
 
Under the Advanced BIOS Features, you have everything you're typically a custom to here.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-badc.jpg">
 
Ahh...the Advanced Chipset Features this is the good stuff! The top FSB speed is determined by the base FSB used. For the 133MHz FSB, it tops out at 165MHz.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bfsb.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram0.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram1.jpg">
 
Soyo has an excellent selection of tweaks. With the KT600 still going by dividers instead of running locked PCI and AGP busses, the ratios might confuse some new to tweaking around. All you have to do is set the memory base speed to what you want. The only fault I can see is the complete absence of any voltage adjustments for anything. No vcore, vdimm, or vagp in sight, which is very odd considering the rest of the settings in BIOS.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram2.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram3.jpg">
 
I've not seen many boards that features a 1.5 CAS timing, but Soyo puts it here. Bank interleaving is also available, due to support on the KT600.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram4.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram5.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram6.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram7.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram8.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram9.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram10.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bdram11.jpg">
 
There are adjustments for Trp, Tras, Trcd, tWTR, and others. I'm not a real tweaker, but I do know that there are alot of tweaks to play with here.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bagp.jpg">
 
The AGP menu is pretty standard, but I noticed that the AGP transfer rate is only adjustable up to 4x. Not a big deal with AGP 8x only raising an untouched ceiling, but still puzzling.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bpci.jpg">
 
The last stop for this section is the CPU & PCI Bus section. Nothing terribly exciting, but you'll want to make sure the V-Link is turned on.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bide.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bvia.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bintper.jpg">
 
Moving along to the Integrated Peripherials, you're able to mess around with the IDE and SATA settings. Turning off the SATA channels will turn off the separate RAID BIOS. The rest of the on-board items are in their own place. With the lack of IEEE1394 on the board, Soyo probably left this in in case they put out a new version with the chip installed.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d-bhealth.jpg">
 
Lastly, you want to keep an eye on the voltages and temperatures. Soyo gives you 3 different read-outs for the CPU temp, including the external temp sensor and the on-die temp. If you have the Anti-Burn Regulator (ABR) enabled, you can set the shut off temp to your liking.
 
Time for some benchmarks!

Big B · Dec 13, 2006

<h2>Test Setup</h2>
 
System tested as follows:
<ul>
<li>Soyo SY-KT600 Dragon Plus v 1.0
<li>Duron 1.4GHz/266MHz FSB
<li>1x 256MB Buffalo PC3200
<li>ATi Radeon 8500
<li>Maxtor/Promise dual-channel ATA133
<li>Philips Dynamic Edge
<li>Western Digital 10GB 5400RPM HDD (OS)
<li>IBM 34GXP 10GB 5400RPM HDD
<li>Samsung 48x CD-ROM
<li>KingWin 350W power supply
<li>Via Hyperion Drivers 4.51
<li>Omega driver 2536b (Catalyst 4.4)
<li>Dynamic edge driver 4.05
<li>Windows XP Pro SP1
<li>BIOS set to default
</ul>
 
Software used:
<ul>
<li>SiSoft Sandra 2004
<li>ID Software Quake 3 Demo 1.11
<li>FutureMark 3DMark 2001SE b.330
<li>Clibench
<li>ScienceMark 2.0
<ul>

 
ScienceMark 2.0 is available in beta form and replaces the old Science Mark. I'll be comparing it to Gigabyte's GA-7VAXP Ultra KT400 motherboard. That review was done with a faster Athlon XP processor, so there will be a gap between the scores.
 
Quake 3
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bq3.jpg">
 
The Soyo board scales like the Gigabyte KT400 board, running roughly 20 FPS behind the board. Again, the Gigabyte was tested with a faster processor.
 
3dmark 2001 SE
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_b3dmk2k1.jpg">
 
In the second graphics benchmark, the results scale pretty much the same between the two boards.
 
SiSoft Sandra
 
Sandra is a quick and dirty test suite to give an idea of potential performance.
 
Arithmatic
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bsanarith.jpg">
 
This test is primarily CPU intensive, and of course the Duron 1.4GHz runs behind the XP2000+
 
Multimedia
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bsanmulti.jpg">
 
Another CPU test, the scores are again in the KT400 board's favor.
 
Memory
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bsanmem.jpg">
 
While the processors differ, this shouldn't affect the memory bandwith, with both CPU's and memory running at 266MHz. Obviously, something else is coming into play here.
 
Clibench
 
Clibench is another system test suite like Sandra.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bcli1.jpg">
 
In the first set of tests, it seems like the results of the Whetstone benchmark are a tad closer under Clibench.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bcli2.jpg">
 
Again, we see the tests favoring the KT400 simply because of the CPU used.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bcli3.jpg">
 
Here, the floating point test seems to have the KT600 gaining a little more ground in comparison to the Sandra results.
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bcli4.jpg">
 
In the last test, the memory benchmark, the processor doesn't make a difference. The KT600 and KT400 score exactly the same, which is what I was expecting from the get go.

Big B · Dec 13, 2006

<H2>Benchmarking, Continued</h2>
 
Science Mark 2.0
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bscimk1.jpg">
 
<img src="http://www.zone365.com/z365-images-2/63/kt6d_bscimk2.jpg">
 
Well, there's not much to say about either one. Both sets are times in seconds. The BLAS tests are Single (1x) and Double (2x) precision benchmarks. The extra work takes longer for the system to complete.
Overclocking
 
With the lack of voltage adjustments, you basically hope for the best with the stock voltages or try modding the CPU packaging to add some extra voltage. Either way, without PCI/AGP locks, the KT600 plays a part in how far you'll be able to go. I tried a 166MHz FSB first, and while that booted into Windows, it failed Prime 95 after about 30 minutes. 160MHz passed with flying colors, but upon a reboot, the hal.dll file was corrupt, prompting a reinstall of Windows. It appears that the IDE controller is not fond of PCI bus speeds around 40MHz. I feel that the addition of some voltage adjustments would've allowed me to hit a stable 166MHz (or better), and been able to keep the PCI bus happy.
 
Final Words
 
Let's start with the good points. It's obvious the SY-KT600 Dragon Plus is a stylish board. A black PCB and purple PCI and DIMM slots will look good in a case window. Soyo has made good use out of the VT8237 southbridge with the SATA ports and using the available NIC (with VIA's PHY chip). Except for one corner, the CPU socket has good clearance and mounting holes to boot. The BIOS has an awesome selection of memory tweaks to round every thing out. Lastly, and very importantly, the board is stable. I did not have any trouble setting it up and getting it going.
 
Now, the not-so-good points: With a traditional 5 PCI/1 AGP slot design, there is no reason why there should be a layout where the DIMM clips run into the AGP card when opened. In a 6 PCI/1 AGP design or those boards with 5 PCI slots, but have one missing right under the AGP slot (like Abit's IS7-E), this is unavoidable with the traditional layouts. The ATX power connector is behind the I/O panel, which means running the ATX power cable over the CPU or getting really creative with the routing. The IDE and floppy connectors are toward the bottom of the board and will be a problem for those with full tower cases. While I'm not opposed to jumpers and dipswitches, the multiplier dipswitches are in a really bad spot beside the front panel connectors. In the BIOS, Soyo pretty much kills any decent overclocking with a complete absence of voltage adjustments for the CPU, memory, and AGP slot. This is disregarding that the board is based on the KT600 chipset which still operates on dividers instead of AGP/PCI locks.
 
The SY-KT600 Dragon Plus V 1.0 has alot going for it, but it has about the same amount of things going against it. If you want a board for overclocking, you're best not looking at any KT600 board for starters. However, this board is fine if you want something that you can drop in and go. In the end, if you want a reason why you should pick this board over all other similarly equipped KT600 boards, it's main selling point is price. This board can be found between $50-60 on-line, which is a pretty attractive price even for a KT600 motherboard. It works, and it works well and has a great set of memory tweaks, but that's about it.
 
Final Score
3.5 out of 5.
 
Thanks to <a href="http://www.directron.com" target="blank">Directron</a> for making this review possible.

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