SiS Chipsets
SiS seek to do a VIA in Q1 2004, with chipsets for pretty much everything. However there's nothing new compared to Q4 2003. Here's a rundown of their enthusiast offerings.Intel Pentium 4 Chipsets
655TX/964655TX supports dual-channel DDR400, 800MHz front side bus processors, Prescott (although look out for actual motherboard support, even thought the chipset does) and MuTIOL 1G support for a link to their impressive southbridge range.
The 964 is the southbridge of choice for current 655TX boards, until 965 comes along with support for 4 SATA ports and Gigabit Ethernet, drawing it closer to ICH6 and VT8251 in terms of features.
However until Q2, when PCI Express support hits their P4 northbridge, SiS are treading water. Their LGA775 plans will be key for their continued P4 support in 2004, expect them to be quieter than Intel and VIA in terms of P4 enthusiasm, at least for the first quarter of the year.
AMD Athlon 64/Opteron Chipsets
755FX755FX is SiS' bridge of choice for any board partners looking to put Socket 754 or Socket 940 boards together in Q1. Socket 939 support in 755FX is unclear, but assume it'll happen. Similar to K8T800 Pro in terms of features, 755FX supports a 1GHz HT frequency and should be performance comparible with VIA's bridge, barring disasters.
SiS' main problem is vendor support and getting someone to make a popular board. An enthusiast level board that locks AGP and PCI would go a long way towards appeasing a growing enthusiast userbase that now owns AMD64 processors, looking towards possible Q1 upgrades. It remains to be seen if anyone will produce a board that doesn't sit in the value segment, if at all. Here's hoping.
Paired with the same 964 southbridge that's mentioned above, it's Q2 before PCI Express and DDR-II support hits SiS' Athlon 64 plans, look for that in a future article.
AMD Athlon XP Chipsets
It's sad to say, but SiS has nothing to offer here for Q1 2004. Its 2003 offerings were non-existant either, we didn't review a single SiS Socket A motherboard in 2003, if my memory serves. Don't look for that to change in Q1 2004 and look to NVIDIA or VIA for your chipset choice if you're a Socket A fanatic.Summary
SiS feel static, their RDRAM chipset for P4 hugely irrelevant in the current market. They are just treading water and pretty much drowning with the enthusiast just now. Their main chance for a Q1 resurrection in the eyes of the performance hungry is a really good 755FX board with a good choice of peripheral ASICs, that is friendly to the enthusiast.Don't expect their P4 offerings to catch your eye in Q1, it remains to be seen what they do with DDR-II and PCI Express, with P4, in Q2 and beyond.
