The Economical Way to a Pentium 4 System: Five Motherboards with the SiS648 Chipset

Features
By published

Test Setup

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Hardware
ProcessorIntel Pentium 4, 2.26 GHz (133 MHz FSB)
Main memory256 MB PC3200 CL2, Corsair Micro or Twinmos
Hard driveIBM DeskStar 60GXP, IC35040, 40 GB, 7,200 rpm, NTFS
Graphics cardnVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4200, 128 MB
Other Hardware
Network card3COM 3C905-TX
Driver & Settings
Graphic driversDetonator 4 series, Version 30.82
Chipset drivernVIDIA driver 1.13
DirectX Version8.1
Screen resolution1024x768x16, 85 HzSPECviewperf : 1280x1024x32, 85 Hz
Operating systemWindows 2000 Professional SP3
Benchmarks
Quake III ArenaRetail Version 1.16command line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0Graphics detail set to "Normal"Benchmark using ’Q3DEMO1’
Unreal Tournament 2003Official Demo
Comanche 4Official Demo
WinACE2.20, best compression, Dictionary 4096 kB
SPECviewperfVersion 7.0, all tests
mpeg4 encodingXmpeg 4.5DivX 5.02 Pro (YV12)Compression/quality : HighestData rate : 780 kBitFormat : 720x576 Pixel@25 fps150 MB VOB file, no audio
Sysmark 2002Internet Content Creation
Lame MP3Lame 3.91 MMX, SSE, SSE2, 3DNow !
PCMark 2002Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
3DMark 2001SEDefault resolution : 1024x768x32

Our reference board was a Gigabyte GA-8IHXP based on the 850E chipset from Intel as well as PC1066 RDRAM. You shouldn’t try to compare these two platforms directly because they target a wide range of buyer groups : while the Intel chipset, in connection with Rambus memory, always attains the best performance, this combination is much more expensive than the SiS648 and DDR333.

However, the 850E chipset is still the standard - and the one against which the five candidates must ultimately be measured.

TOPICS