Conclusion
Neither ECS nor Chaintech is known as a top motherboard company. This is certainly not because of their inability to make good products, but because they lack consistency in their product lines and usually concentrate on the OEM market as well. Although both companies have been known to design good motherboards, they have not been able to get favorable reviews on a regular basis, as is the case for Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI, for instance.
This time, Elitegroups is able to collect a lot of gold stars. First of all, they were the first to show courage by releasing their SiS 735 motherboard. Secondly, the board is suitable for the vast majority of users due to its features - even though both SiS and ECS might consider it as a low-end product. Thirdly, the K7S5A comes with both excellent performance and stability, which is mandatory for a motherboard if it wants to receive high marks.
The Chaintech 7SID targets the lower-end of the budget market, as it does not even make use of all chipset features (e.g. LAN). Unfortunately, the board does not run stably yet. I guess that they are already working on an updated BIOS. If not, this review posted should hopefully trigger some revision. The board is fast and has quite some potential.
I really hope to see more SiS 735 motherboards soon, as this chipset currently offers an unbeatable value. Motherboards like the ECS K7S5A can be obtained for less than $ 80 and perform as good and stable as high-end motherboards based on the AMD760 chipset.
SiS still has a good product, though VIA did their homework very well. Let’s see if they learned a lesson from the past and introduce the SiS 735 to the market in a decent fashion this time.
