Worst thing said about chipset this year!

[TheRod]

The interview :
<A HREF="http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20041216PR202.html" target="_new">http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20041216PR202.html</A>

<b>The non-sense stuff in it :</b>

Q: Designing chipsets for K8 platform would appear to be easier because there is no need to incorporate a memory controller in the northbridge since it’s integrated in the processor itself. Does that mean the role of the chipset itself and the chipset maker comes to be less important when we talk about the AMD platform?

A: No, it doesn’t. Moreover, <font color=red>I believe we have more experience than AMD in designing memory controllers. Actually, we’d like to see AMD stop putting the memory controller in the CPU.</font color=red> I approached AMD about this several times, but they have their own reasons for integrating the memory controller with the CPU.

Damn! I can't believe this! One one the most impressive feature od the AMD64 architecture is questioned by the SiS Director. It's incredible, this must be a joke!!!

Now, I understand why SiS chipset never got acceptance from the motherboard maker. If the director take decision based on weird thinking, who wnats tobuy them chipset?


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A7N8X / <font color=green><b>Sempron 2800+</b></font color=green> <- <i>Is this affecting my credibility?</i>
Kingston DDR333 2x256Megs
<font color=red>Radeon 8500 128Megs</font color=red> @ C:275/M:290 <- <i>It's enough for WoW!</i>

 

[Mr5oh]

Yeah what was AMD thinking, not like there was any performance gain, Oh Wait....

Anyways who's SiS?

/end sarcasm

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>

 

[TheRod]

It is so incomprehensible to read things like that in 2004. SiS would prefer AMD to not innovate to keep their memory controller team working!

This is quite stupid. SiS should see a good opportunity to shift their ressources to implement more and better features in their chipsets. Like nVidia do with their integrated hardware firewall, etc...

I really don't understand the SiS point. There is no reason to ask AMD to stop making integrated memory controller. I think it's the best idea to increase CPU performance in the last 2 years (HT is a good idea too, but it was mostly implemented to "correct" the P4 architecture weakness : a long pipeline).

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A7N8X / <font color=green><b>Sempron 2800+</b></font color=green> <- <i>Is this affecting my credibility?</i>
Kingston DDR333 2x256Megs
<font color=red>Radeon 8500 128Megs</font color=red> @ C:275/M:290 <- <i>It's enough for WoW!</i>

 

[RichPLS]

ya aint saying longer and faster strokes aint wat we want?!?

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

No, you're reading it wrong! You have to "read between the lines" on this!

SiS has a superior memory controller to VIA, their main competitor. Their main claim to superiority over VIA was their memory controller.

Now, AMD has on on-die memory controller that obviously has some problems addressing several banks at full speed. The solution: use single sided DIMMs.

SiS would rather AMD give up their performance shortcut, in order to gain added memory stability with many banks, giving SiS back their chief technical superiority over VIA.

Of course SiS didn't mention VIA, they probably felt it would be inappropriate.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[TheRod]

SiS has a superior memory controller to VIA, their main competitor. Their main claim to superiority over VIA was their memory controller.

I agree, but it's not the point...

Now, AMD has on on-die memory controller that obviously has some problems addressing several banks at full speed. The solution: use single sided DIMMs.

SiS would rather AMD give up their performance shortcut, in order to gain added memory stability with many banks, giving SiS back their chief technical superiority over VIA.

Even if SiS would make the fastest memory controller, the on-die AMD memory controller would still be the fastest. Nothing can beat this controller in terms of latency and bandwidth (at DDR400 speed).

And for the "problem" about using several banks, it's more a Motherboard/BIOS design problem since many MB can run 4 banks at DDR400 without problems. And since the memory controller is on-die, every core revision can include bug fix, performance tweak, etc... This is quite an advantage for AMD, they can improve the performance of their CPU in many aspacts with each revision.

It's bad for SiS, but if their memory are so good, why don't we see more of their chipset on the market for P4 or SocketA? There is surely something wrong!

Most online reviewer's always says that SiS chipset are competitive, but they are nowhere to find except in low-cost feature-less no-name motherboard. If their chipset were that good overall, company like MSI or ASUS would make at least 1 board with that chipset. There would be a market for them, since most people don't want to pay an extra for VIA, nForce or Intel chipset.


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A7N8X / <font color=green><b>Sempron 2800+</b></font color=green> <- <i>Is this affecting my credibility?</i>
Kingston DDR333 2x256Megs
<font color=red>Radeon 8500 128Megs</font color=red> @ C:275/M:290 <- <i>It's enough for WoW!</i>

 

[Crashman]

What's with the BS? First from SiS, then from you? I already implied the on-die solution was faster.

What am I really saying? What is SiS not saying? SiS wants their memory controller advantage back over VIA.

You know why not very many SiS chipsets were on the market for Socket A: YOU. The collective, not personal you. VIA threatened to short-supply anyone who used SiS chipsets, and all the enthusiast companies dropped their boards. Some of those boards were production-ready. Why would a company fear VIA so much that they'd swallow the expense of dropping a finished board? They knew that most of you wouldn't buy an SiS chipset board no matter how good it was.

SiS sold a ton of P4 chipsets. 645 was better than 845 in performance, with no clear drawbacks. The memory controller was SiS's chief advantage over Intel, who themselves are known for fine memory controllers. Lots of P4S533 boards are still out there, as well as 645 board from various other brands.

SiS has been pigeon-holed into low-end boards due to their value pricing. So when SiS introduced the 648, most companies decided to produce their new boards as cheaply as possible by modifying their existing 645 board designs. Asus put a bunch of squiggly lines in the memory traces of their P4S8X so they'd be nearly equal-length, and this new design caused problems. Other companies ignored the recommendation for equal-length memory traces, and had fewer problems, but still problems. Gigabyte is the only company I know of to introduce a completely new board design for the 648, and low and behold, their 648 boards were nearly flawless in regards to memory and AGP stability.

If their chipset were that good overall, company like MSI or ASUS would make at least 1 board with that chipset. There would be a market for them, since most people don't want to pay an extra for VIA, nForce or Intel chipset.

Completely wrong. People WILL pay extra for "Intel Inside". And your perception of SiS typifies why people pay more for VIA. Anandtech showed the SiS 755 superior to VIA's A64 chipset, yet no high end board maker expected you'd buy it. And the lack of Socket A boards on SiS has already been explained.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[TheRod]

People WILL pay extra for "Intel Inside". And your perception of SiS typifies why people pay more for VIA. Anandtech showed the SiS 755 superior to VIA's A64 chipset, yet no high end board maker expected you'd buy it. And the lack of Socket A boards on SiS has already been explained.

I would personally get a SiS based MB today if they were available and reliable. I know that many people would be worried by a SiS based MB, but I do really take into consideration AnandTech, Xbit, THG, etc...

And most review are good for SiS, but the MB built around the SiS chipsets are often missing features I need or they have weak BIOS options (which are important for me, since I always overclock). So, I can't blame myself or users like me if MB makers don't make good SiS MB. If they want to keep SiS in the low-cost market, they loose potential customers.

The latest AnandTech SiS chipset review, really made me wish to buy a "cheap" MB based on this chipset... But the overclocking options are not good enough for me. And the other problem is availability. Here in Canada (Montreal), SiS based board for AMD64 are nearly impossible to find/buy.

Or they are not good buy... I can buy a K8N NEO Platinum for lass than 150$CA and a ASROCK with SiS chipset is only 15$CA cheaper! Come one, the choice is obvious, it's not worth to sacrifice all the features for only 10-15$ when the overall upgrade cost at least 400-500$.

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A7N8X / <font color=green><b>Sempron 2800+</b></font color=green> <- <i>Is this affecting my credibility?</i>
Kingston DDR333 2x256Megs
<font color=red>Radeon 8500 128Megs</font color=red> @ C:275/M:290 <- <i>It's enough for WoW!</i>

 

[Crashman]

SiS's image problem means that they're forever marginalized to the low end. They could charge more, but nobody would buy. In fact, if they could get away with changing their name without the world knowing, they'd be more successful as a high-end chipset maker under the new brand.

Those boards you compared, the difference in chipset price was probably close to $15. The savings in features and so forth means the board probably wholesales for $50 less. So why is it expensive there? You figure that one out, you're smart, I can't be bothered with the rational behind the poor retail pricing.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>