New SiS 648 board has it all

[eden]

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1708&p=1" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1708&p=1</A>
I was pretty bored when I came up with this thread.

For starters, after reading this I can only conclude, to those who still think PC1066 is a much for P4 setups, please, stop the FUD.
There is a mere 1% improvement in almost ALL tests that include bandwidth stressing and gaming. For crying out loud, this chipset just proves how efficient SiS is at chipset making, and with DDR400 still using dated CAS 2.5 performance, at 3.2GB/sec, 1 GB less than RDRAM, this thing holds up a lot. I can only imagine CAS 2 DDR400.
Not only this but that so called 1 DIMM bank maximum for DDR400 is a fluke. This board can use 3.
Also, the rep the 648 got for bad overclocking, is pretty much erased, as the board was able to attain 150MHZ FSB at STOCK RETAIL cooling.
And finally, for 100$, this board proves exactly why those who spend nearly 100$+ more for the RDRAM system, are wasting a LOT. In Canada, the price gap would be so much bigger, we stand to save over 250$ CDN, which easily can be spend on better hardware.

So again, PC1066 at the moment, is a novelty, nothing special, it IS NOT the best way to get performance on P4s. I'm surprised not much has been said here about the SiS 648 in overall. But AMD_Man has been right all along, why waste so much for a mere 1-3% improvement! Even in bandwidth stressing apps, you will barely notice that extra 100$ effort.

Of course all of that is in my opinion.

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[Black_Cat]

The 645DX chipset is an excellent chipset. I've been running my Asus P4S533 for a few months now without a glitch. At the time I paid $105. I'm running my FSB at 145MHz and the cpu/mem ratio at 4:5 with Corsair Cas 2.5 PC3200 DDR RAM. With regard to performance, is my system on par with an Intel chipset with PC1066? No. Is it close. Sure. Plus my board has built in LAN. Also stability has never been in question.

The moral of the story is that SiS is producing excellent DDR platforms for Intel and AMD at significantly lower prices. Now with the 648 with DDR SiS is actually beating the 850E in most benchmarks <A HREF="http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/SiS/SiS648/page6.htm" target="_new">http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/SiS/SiS648/page6.htm</A> and the 655 is right around the corner. Cheaper and better. Hmmm.

To start press any key. Where's the "any" key? --Homer Simpson.

 

[The_Bear]

Not to point out a flaw with your link, but that review at vr-zone used a reference board, not production (good luck getting the same specs with a production board). I agree with Eden, there is only a slight advantage with the pc1066 boards not worth the money for that little improvement in speed. The same logic holds true with processors... look at the price of a 2.8 vs 2.53 now...

The only problem is that some of the early 648 boards have been noted to have some instability when running at DDR400 speeds. The best board (most feature rich) for the 648 at the moment is the Shuttle which I still can't seem to find available anywhere. The other thing is that the 648DX is expected to be available within a month.

So herein lies the problem. The fastest currently available for the P4 is the 850E chip set boards (several available, and spec'ed for the pc1066) price is an issue. I could wait for the 648 Shuttle, and take a crap shoot on it being stable with DDR400. I could always wait the month or so for a 648DX board... hell might as well wait a little longer for the DDR-II. There is always something better, faster coming down the road. Can't sit and wait forever.

BTW... It took SIS how long to build a chip set to compete with the now 2 year old 850?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by The_Bear on 09/22/02 00:55 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[javentura]

I also like the SiS 648 but the problem is most of the boards has either no onboard LAN or IEEE1394 or RAID. Although having AGP 8x is a plus, only ATI Radeon 9700 Pro has AGP 8x support. And there are still bugs running the 9700 in 8x mode. NV30 also supports 8x but it is not yet released. A minus for the board is no support for Pentium with hyperthreading support.

Is there a benchmark somewhere showing the difference between AGP 8x and 4x?

 

[DrJeckyl]

Just so you know, the Shuttle AS45GT and AS45GTR are currently available.
The AS45GTR has the Highpoint RAID372 onboard, and also has firewire. I'll have the board this week and will be posting in another thread as to it's performance. I'm going to be using the Mushkin DDR400 on the board. Stay tuned for results :tongue:

 

[Crashman]

FUD? You mean "quit spreading the truth", and you try to cast doubt on the truth.

A couple test showed much higher scores, in the area of 10% to 20%, while most test showed only around 1%. I've been telling people around 5% overall I think. But you still can't overclock PC3200 by more than a few percent, while Kingston PC1066 can get a 25% overclock. This performance gap will widen significantly between two systems if you're forced to leave one at DDR400 memory speed while the other gets it's PC1066 up to PC1200. So for people who overclock for performance instead of for value, PC1066 is still the best choice by far.

And I don't discourage people from using DDR memory when they are on a budget. And this looks like a great board.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Flyboy]

The P4S8X has integrated LAN, IEEE1394, RAID, USB2.0, and AGP8X.