SIS 648 motherboards?

[soki]

HI people! Iam upgrading my pc now and I want to ask when the new wave of motherboards with the sis 648(serial ata among other features ) chipset will hit the market? I want to ask also if there are any stability issues with the current sis 645/DX chipset on P4 platform

 

[Vette73]

The SiS chipsets are very good.

Anandtech.com has a new article on the frontpage.

 

[ToBeMe]

A few of the SiS chipset mobo's are out...................NewEgg "Had" the Abit SR7-8X............I got one...............but, now they are sold out until late this week...........I've heard the Shuttle boards are out too, and I've read the Asus offering may come yet this week or early next.

As far as how good they are............I have built a bunch of systems on SiS chipsets, both AMD & Intel and I have to say, especially the Intel boards are excellent IMHO...............You won't regret buying one!

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I eagerly await the Asus implementation of this chipset. The price/performance/stability of the P4S533 makes it my favorite board to use in P4 systems I sell.

 

[soki]

thanx people anandtech readers are cool and informed!

 

[Wishkar]

Does anyone know if the new sis chipset has agp/pci locking? I know that 645dx didnt' which what put me off that chipset. since i'm upgrading at the beginning of october, that'll give a bit of time to see how the 648 will fare against i845g

 

[ToBeMe]

You know what's really interesting here?????? You can't find the SiS 648 boards anywhere anymore.............a few places had them for like 4 days and now nothing............OK........now I read that YESTERDAY SiS introduced the SiS 648DX Chipset and boards are supposedly to come by September.............

I don't know what SiS is up to.........was there a problem with the 648's and DDR-400 as some have speculated or is this just coincidence?????

 

[GoodRevrnd]

What's the difference in the 648 and 648DX? And the DDR-400 problems you referred to... per Evan's reviews? I know it's unofficially supported but did they find out the DDR-400 won't be compatible in the future like they planned?

 

[Vette73]

The problem with the 400Mhz chipsets (Sis 648 and VIA P4X400) is that there is no standard for 400Mhz DDR ram. There was a lot of so called 333mhz ram that didn't work on some of the first 333 boards. That is why the Soltek P4X400 only list the board to do 333Mhz ram stable. They said in a e-mail then sent to me that the chipset supported 400Mhz ram, but that there was so little out there that works at a True 400mhz that they played it safe and only listed it at 333. That way they won't get a lot of returns. Even in the Anandtech review they said there is NO TRUE 400Mhz ram out yet, only overclocked 333.

This is also why VIA, SiS, and I think Nivida came together with Samsung to come up with a 400Mhz ram spec.

So the VIA P4X400, and SiS 648 are good chipsets, they just came out before the Ram and even AGP8 cards did.

If I was building a P4 System I would go with a P4X400, and if I could not find a board that had good on-board sound and Highpoint raid, then I would look at the SiS chipsets.

 

[gszorc]

This whole waiting sure sucks. I'm leaving for college on August 20th. I figure I have until the 10th to order a motherboard. I've been checking newegg religiously for new arrivals. I also stumbled upon the following Forum Post with a list of 648 boards. Maybe something will surface with other manufacturers, such as Gigabyte. For now, I guess I'll wait religiously. For you P4x400 lovers, Oustpost.com is taking preorders of Soyo's P4x400 board. No date on arrival though.

648dx? I don't see anything about it on SiS's site. I can't imagine what it has that the 648 doesn't. Someday I'll face the reality that no matter what I buy, it is already out of date. Until then...

...back to the waiting...

Greg Szorc

 

[Tru3]

Just a little help and request for some for myself if anyone out there is in the know (or very opinionated). The abit SR7-8X went out of stock at newegg but they just posted under the "in stock" option that they are expected to have more of these boards as of the 9th of this month. This is good news for me as i am in the exact same position as GSZORC (moving into the dorms on the 22). I have been unable to find any other version of the SIS 648 for sale elsewhere (asus, soyo, etc). Thus my question is twofoldish. 1. Based on the experience of those out there, which chipset manufacturer -VIA vs. SIS- is generally superior in terms of stability, compatibility, dependebility, overclocking, etc. I am looking for a mild OC of a 2.26 to 2.5-2.8 with XMS 3200. Secondly based on your experience which retail version should i go for. I have heard good things about abit (as with the IT7) and asus. Will their versions be generally superior to those from shuttle and soltek? Or is there no difference at all? Argh this is stressful i have to be up and running soon and reviews are barely availible lol. As a final bit of help, the X400 boards are widely availible, just go to pricewatch and search for p4x400 to bring up several sellers with soltek and vpsd versions in stock. Additionally, amd3d has just posted a postive review of the soltek Soltek 85ERV (no lan version i believe). Any help appreciated and good luck to others.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Tru3
Just a little help and request for some for myself if anyone out there is in the know (or very opinionated). The abit SR7-8X went out of stock at newegg but they just posted under the "in stock" option that they are expected to have more of these boards as of the 9th of this month. This is good news for me as i am in the exact same position as GSZORC (moving into the dorms on the 22). I have been unable to find any other version of the SIS 648 for sale elsewhere (asus, soyo, etc). Thus my question is twofoldish. 1. Based on the experience of those out there, which chipset manufacturer -VIA vs. SIS- is generally superior in terms of stability, compatibility, dependebility, overclocking, etc. I am looking for a mild OC of a 2.26 to 2.5-2.8 with XMS 3200. Secondly based on your experience which retail version should i go for. I have heard good things about abit (as with the IT7) and asus. Will their versions be generally superior to those from shuttle and soltek? Or is there no difference at all? Argh this is stressful i have to be up and running soon and reviews are barely availible lol. As a final bit of help, the X400 boards are widely availible, just go to pricewatch and search for p4x400 to bring up several sellers with soltek and vpsd versions in stock. Additionally, amd3d has just posted a postive review of the soltek Soltek 85ERV (no lan version i believe). Any help appreciated and good luck to others.

As this Soltek 85ERV (P4X400) review mentioned, DDR400 was unable to even post at stock speeds, which confirms my issues with DDR400 and this board (and the other two boards I reviewed here). I suggest you wait for some real DDR400, it's not worth spending the extra money even if JEDEC never does approve a DDR400 spec, CL2 DDR333 should do you just fine. Come to think of it, I might even try some CL2 PC3000 Corsair XMS memory.

 

[ToBeMe]

OK.....according to what I've found out........the difference between the SiS 648 and the SiS648DX is suppose to be "official" support for DDR-400. Apparently even though the standard is not JEDEC, Samsung, SiS, Via, and a few others have "approved" a standard and Samsung is shipping "official" DDR-400. NewEgg says they will have it as of Aug. 5th and apparently the 648DX boards will be available shortly.............

My question is.............if the 648 boards do not run DDR-400...........why even release them except for the new North & South bridge I suppose................I agree with above.............my SR7-8X will run fine at 333, but becomes flakey as hell at 400Mhz...........this board is going to flea-bay or being returned ASAP!

 

[soki]

wishkar there are some motherboards with the sis 645 chipset with lock agp/pci bus like the gigabyte 8srx

 

[ToBeMe]

OK............found an article concerning the newest SiS "DX" boards..................

• SiS Introduced 648DX and 746DX
  Posted 7/31/02
  
  Again we are returning to the Silicon Valley to tell you about the demonstration of working systems on SiS648DX and SiS746DX chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems, which was held at the Platform Conference. These chipsets are designed for Pentium 4 and Athlon XP platforms respectively, thus being the successors to SiS648 and SiS746.
  
  The new Pentium 4 solution, SiS648DX, is a continuation of SiS648, which officially supports DDR400. Here are its major specs:
  
  Supports Pentium 4 with 400MHz and 533MHz bus;
  Supports DDR400;
  AGP 3.0, up to 8x modes;
  Enhanced MuTIOL interbridge bus with up to 1GB/sec bandwidth;
  New SiS963 South Bridge;
  ATA/133;
  SATA;
  USB 2.0;
  IEEE 1394a (FireWire).
  This new product of SiS? is very successful, which you can see even from the review of its predecessor, SiS648.
  As for the other chipset, SiS746DX, it is almost identical to SiS648DX in terms of technical specs, with that only exception of course, that it is intended for AMD Athlon and Duron CPUs. We should also recall that the previous product from SiS, SiS745, appeared not very successful in performance as well as in stability. Take a look at any review of SiS745 based mainboards or at the feedback of our visitors they shared in our forums. The diagram below shows all the features of the newcomer in detail:
  
  
  
  The slide shows that the new solution from SiS is very rich in different features. So, we can only hope that the company managed to eliminate the drawbacks of the predecessor from their new SiS746DX solution, namely the slow performance in asynchronous mode. So, we expect to see a new worthy alternative to nForce and some solutions from VIA.

Slides don't show up but it's on Xbit...................

 

[gszorc]

For those of you saying that the arrival of SiS 648 boards is inevitable and that newegg and other stores will get shipments any day, where are you getting your information? Do you contact a specific person at newegg or the mobo manufacturer or are you basing your estimates on the press releases from mobo makers?

 

[Tru3]

Evan thank you for your response and your article. Unfortunately i was originally planning on buying an IT-7 mobo from abit so I have all my parts purchased except for a mobo and processor. So basically I am stuck with my Corsair cas 2.5 XMS 3200. Thus I have three choices (in a macro sense anyway). Give up and get an IT-7 (which i dont really want to do). Get either an x400 or 648 and run in DDR 333 which makes the most sense (its still damn fast). Or wait for a DX which should logically take advantage of my corsair because it has OFFICIAL support for ddr-400 which means it should run it despite the latencey? Unfortunately, like i said i have to be ready by the 22nd so my hand will be somewhat forced in the end. ToBeMe, you said the DX boards are expected soon? lol do you know how soon? And again, if anyone has any opinion as to which manufacturer will make the best versions of these boards (abit vs asus, vs Gigabyte etc) then please, chime in. I am looking more towards the SIS 648 bc it is actually licensed and seemed to show more potential in the reference designs (this is the only major difference i can see). GSZORC, go to newegg and search for "SIS 648" when the sr7-8x comes up it will say ETA 8/9/2002 under auto-notify so i am hopefull that i will be able to get at least this board if no other. How do you like it ToBeMe (the sr7-8x)?
-sorry for the rambling nature of my posts, ive been working alot and im sleepy all the time *contemplates going to bed before 5 am

 

[Tru3]

LOL. Sorryfor the miscomunication Evan Lieb, when i pointed out the amd3d review as positive i should have said "generaly positive". I was just trying to help people out by pointing out one of the few other reviews out there and that they liked the soltek board (other then the lack of DDR 400 w/o overclocking). I wasn't intending to contradict ur findings on the matter of DDR-400 support. I was using the review as further conformation that the board doesnt just generaly suck .

 

[ToBeMe]

Um.........just an FYI here............I just bought quite a bit of Samsung True DDR-400 From NewEgg! When I ordered it was in stock and ready to go................who knows how long though..............already got my confirmation so I'm Happy!

 

[gszorc]

Tru3, I believe your Corsair XMS 3200C2.5 stick still fairs well. I read you can get it to CAS2 at 200MhZ with a little added voltage. I also believe it runs very fast timings at lower than the 200MhZ speed (180 maybe?) Check the "Enthusiasts Section" on Corsair's Forum.

What do you guys know about the VIA VPSD P4PB 400 mobo? It has a lot of the bells and whistles that the 648 does. No SATA, but I really don't need that now. MBreview.com had a review of it with VERY favorable ratings. Some people love VIA's chipsets with Intel, others say it is the marriage from hell. I don't know who to believe.


I can't wait much longer. Now if only the Abit IT7-MAX2 would magically appear...

Greg

 

[phsf98]

As for the performance review, i found that brenchmarks are different and confusing in many website .... sometimes is not consistance.... Such as review below has moderate/ bad comment on the SiS 645, 648 and VIA P4X400 motherboard:

Thirteen Pentium 4 DDR Motherboards (this review has low benchmark result for Asus P4S333)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,18244,00.asp

Six High-End P4 Motherboards ( here they showed that sis648 and VIA p4x400 is much slower than intel 850E)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,427910,00.asp

Will the VIA P4X400 and Sis648 with DDR 333 outperform the 850E?
Compare VIA P4X400 and Sis648 which chipset will be the more stable for P4?
Do any user of VIA and sis face any stability and imcompatible problem?

thanks

 

[ToBeMe]

Originally posted by: phsf98
As for the performance review, i found that brenchmarks are different and confusing in many website .... sometimes is not consistance.... Such as review below has moderate/ bad comment on the SiS 645, 648 and VIA P4X400 motherboard:

Thirteen Pentium 4 DDR Motherboards (this review has low benchmark result for Asus P4S333)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,18244,00.asp

Six High-End P4 Motherboards ( here they showed that sis648 and VIA p4x400 is much slower than intel 850E)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,427910,00.asp

Will the VIA P4X400 and Sis648 with DDR 333 outperform the 850E?
Compare VIA P4X400 and Sis648 which chipset will be the more stable for P4?
Do any user of VIA and sis face any stability and imcompatible problem?

thanks

I, personally don't even like the Via boards anymore for my Intel systems.................never even had any bad problems, just weird instabilities and quirks..........had the same thing with the SR7-8X I got, but it's now going back.

IMHO neither the Via or SiS will outperform the i850 with DDR-333. They may come close with DDR-400, but that reamins to be seen since my Abit 648 board was very unstable with the True Samsung DDR-400 I got from Ingram. Strangely, my P4S533 (SiS 645DX) board runs fine with the DDR-400 but the memory scores are still below my i850 scores.

As for stability, I can't speak for either the P4X400 or the SiS 648/648DX since I have none and the one I had was either a faulty board or the result of the DDR-400. SiS in my opinion has been a very stable platform for Intel chips of late, but then who knows, the new Via board may be very good also! If there are enough people bragging the results and stability of the Via board, I'll probably buy one and try it........Via simply is not my first choice. Also, aside from the Abit 648 board, I have not had any instabilities or incompatabilities with any of the many SiS 645 and 645DX systems I've built.

 

[soki]

Anyone knows if the new motherboards with the 648 chipset can handle 3 dimms with ddr memory and the fsb can run @ 133 mhz in the same time ??? I think is a stupid think from intel to limit @ 4 banks
Why? Anyone knows? Because I think memory upgrade is an important factor in a PC Thats why Iam confused now if I should go with KT333 or wait for a sis 648 motherboard

 

[Raider]

Someone on a forum here in the UK has an Abit SR7-8X, one of the first SIS 648 mobos, and frankly it sucks big time for overclocking. It won't do anything over 150FSB stable.

And this was using a tested 2.26B that was good for 2.9Ghz, and using RAM suitable for DDR400.

It seems the chipset is limited FSB wise, but I guess its fine for P4 A users, as they don't really need any more than 150 FSB. But for Northwoods I think you'll be better off sticking to the good ol' IT7

Its what I'm going for

 

[ToBeMe]

Originally posted by: Raider
Someone on a forum here in the UK has an Abit SR7-8X, one of the first SIS 648 mobos, and frankly it sucks big time for overclocking. It won't do anything over 150FSB stable.

And this was using a tested 2.26B that was good for 2.9Ghz, and using RAM suitable for DDR400.

It seems the chipset is limited FSB wise, but I guess its fine for P4 A users, as they don't really need any more than 150 FSB. But for Northwoods I think you'll be better off sticking to the good ol' IT7

Its what I'm going for

I've got an SR7-8X too..........it does suck at DDR-400 speeds and is quircky and not completely stable.................BUT............at DDR-333 speeds, i am able to O/C as well as with the 645DX boards and my scores are quite a bit better at the same speed..............I agree though the Abit 648 boards do seem to have some sort of problem at DDR-400 speeds...........probably correctable with an updated bios though, but, I also wonder if this plays into the reason the 648DX has been released so soon........ As I've told others too though, IMHO, wait for the Asus 648 board, or, the 648DX boards..........