Soyo P4X400 DRAGON Ultra

SOYO Announces New P4X400 DRAGON Ultra Motherboard Based on the VIA Apollo P4X400 Chipset for the Intel® Pentium® 4 Platform

-- SY-P4X400 DRAGON Ultra Features Support for 533 MHz Front Side Bus, DDR400, 8X AGP,
Embedded RAID Chip, 6-Channel Digital Sound, On-Board USB 2.0, ATA-133, and 10/100 Ethernet

FREMONT, CA (July 24, 2002) - SOYO Computer, Inc. today announced its latest motherboard for enthusiasts of Intel® Pentium® 4 based systems who strive for both performance and superb features.

The P4X400 DRAGON Ultra motherboard continues the DRAGON legend with VIA's P4X400 chipset and many advanced integrated features. Doubling the speed of the current graphics support, P4X400 officially brings 8X AGP to the Intel® platform, providing incredible graphics bandwidth at 2100MB/sec. Another break through feature is the new DDR400 support, enabling Intel® Pentium® 4 processors with 533 MHz FSB to perform at exceptional levels. On board connectivity features include USB 2.0/1.1, IDE ATA-133, and 10/100 Mbps Ethernet. For the enthusiasts, several overclocking options are provided to bring the best performance out of the P4X400 DRAGON Ultra.

Echoing the recent trend in see-through system cases, SOYO's new DRAGON offering will go on to make a fashion statement with its platinum finish. The new P4X400 DRAGON Ultra will feature a platinum-colored PCB and a translucent chipset fan for building a stylish system.

Maximizing VIA's new chipset, the SY-P4X400 takes advantage of its support for DDR memory modules at 400MHz. The enhanced chipset solves bottlenecks created by increasing processor speeds, and accelerates the memory bandwidth by close to 20% to 3.2 gigabits per second (GB/sec), compared to DDR333's 2.7 gigabits per second (GB/sec) and DDR266's 2.1 gigabits per second (GB/sec)

In addition to higher memory bandwidth from the VIA chipset, another significant offering in the SY-P4X400 is its full support for 8X AGP. The addition of AGP 3.0 interface to the chipset's North Bridge brings unparallel graphic realism to the Pentium® 4 platform. PC gamers and graphics professionals can now take full advantage of the increased visual performance offered by this new DRAGON model.

Using high quality components, SOYO has integrated a wide array of on-board features to add performance and value. The P4X400 DRAGON Ultra features an on board CMI 8738 audio chip to provide crisp 6-channel digital surround sound. The sound chip eliminates the need for a sound card, and also supports optical & S/PDIF output. S/PDIF audio connector is a standard bundling feature in the DRAGON line of motherboards. The bundled S/PDIF card allows digital audio signals to be transferred from one device to another without having to convert them first to an analog, thus maintaining the integrity of the digital signals.

On board 10/100 Mbps Ethernet is another standard feature of the P4X400 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.

SOYO has integrated many enhanced overclocking, system management, and security features into the P4X400 DRAGON Ultra motherboard. Users can customize their boards to specific applications by adjusting the CPU FSB, DIMM voltage, AGP Pro voltage, and core voltage & multiplier 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 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.

Adding values to the motherboard package, SOYO bundles its Sigma Box featuring 4 front USB 2.0 ports and 2 diagnostic LED lights. The Sigma Box occupies a standard 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch drive bay, offering easy front panel access. A 8-in-1 Software CD Pack is also included with each board. The package contains Norton AntiVirus 2002, Norton Ghost, Adobe Active Share and Acrobat Reader, Vcom AutoSave, WinDVD, eWalla text & voice messaging software, and Imagemore photographic collection.

The MSRP of the P4X400 DRAGON Ultra is $155 (U.S.). Volume discounts are available.