Layout and features
The first aspect that grabs your attention is the silver PCB colour; it's certainly different. I mentioned that SOYO have taken an attention to detail approach to this and other DRAGON-based motherboards, it continues here with the mounting mechanism employed for the Pentium 4 retention bracket. Most motherboard manufacturers attach the retention bracket via 4 plastic pins that affix through the bracket corners into the backside. The SOYO, however, uses screws that mount on the backside through a dedicated plate, shown below.
The main 21-pin ATX power connector is in a decent location next to the primary and secondary IDE ports. 3 DDR slots can house up to 3GB of system RAM (depending on configuration). 2 fan headers sit just to the right of the DDR slots and another 2 sit to the left.
The Northbridge fan continues the theme of individuality. Sitting to the left of it is an second P4 power connector for those of you who don't have the 4-pin 12v connection on your PSUs, a nice touch. The AGP slot is both 8x compliant and AGP Pro compatible.
The Highpoint HPT372 that graces the DRAGON P4X400 is fully ATA133-compatible, allows you to connect 4 IDE devices to 2 channels, offers full hot-swap capability (you can remove the drives even when the PC is operational, OS permitting), and offers RAID0, 1, and 0+1 support. Perfect for striping, mirroring and protecting your data. If one of your intended purposes requires fast disk subsystem speed, RAIDing drives could provide the answer.
The VT8235 SB features ATA133 support as well as in-built support for 6 USB2.0 ports (which are provided for). You see 2 headers that house 4 ports via the Sigma box to the left of the picture. The colour leaves a little to be desired. You'll recognise VT8235 from many a recent AMD motherboard. 5 purple-coloured PCI slots are provided, too.
The CMI8738 hardware 6-channel chip is well catered for with the aforementioned audio card. It's about as good as on-board sound gets. I'd take this over the other premium CODEC that's supplied with most motherboards (ALC650). The popular Realtek 8100B chip provides 10/100 LAN duties via an RJ45 port on the backplane.
The backplane is only irregular in its support for the on-board LAN. A custom backplane covering is provided. The DRAGON P4X400 looks a treat and has some novel solutions of its own. The emphasis here appears to be features with a relatively clean layout.
