Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe & Gigabyte 8S655TX Ultra: SiS 655TX Challenges Intel's Best
by Wesley Fink on December 9, 2003 1:52 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
In the months before Intel introduced the 800FSB Pentium 4 processors, the hottest boards on the market were not those based on Intel 845. They were motherboards based on the SiS 655 chipset. You may recall that one of these, the famous Gigabyte SINXP, was the first board at AnandTech to reach 800FSB before the 800FSB 'C' Pentium 4's were introduced. While it seems like ages since the SINXP was the hottest Intel board around, it was only in March 2003 that Anand pushed the SINXP to 800FSB to provide a preview of the 800FSB P4 processors.
When Intel introduced their 875/865 800FSB chipsets, everyone expected SiS to capitalize quickly on the success of the 655 chipset with the addition of 800FSB, but it just didn't happen when expected. We took a look at the first successor with real 800FSB and Hyperthreading support, called the SiS 655FX, in September. That Gigabyte 8S655FX Ultra was an interesting board, but the performance was not up to Intel 865/875 standards and overclocking was less than stellar.
Apparently, SiS and the manufacturers producing SiS chipset boards were discouraged by reviews because we began hearing about a 655TX chipset that would update the performance of the FX chipset. Now, almost 2-1/2 months later, the 655TX is starting to ship, and we have both the Asus 8S800D-E Deluxe and the Gigabyte 8S655TX Ultra in for testing.
Asus and Gigabyte are two of the largest motherboard manufacturers in the marketplace, but they are also the two who have historically produced the best SiS chipset boards for Intel. For that reason, we decided that a head-to-head comparison would be the best way to answer your questions about the new SiS 655TX chipset boards. With the updated TX chipset, does SiS finally have a chipset that is competitive with Intel 875/865 — or maybe even better?
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FFS - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
Q? to Wesley does these mobos have control of CPU fan speed (again like MSI Neo2), so it run more slow with low CPU load (= more silent)?Another one is how it's compatible with Radeon 9700 Pro? F.e. My SIS648 even with latest SIS-AGP drivers have have a conflict with Hercules R9700Pro when Fast Write is turned on...
Competition is G R E A T E thing,... but you know we also want stability :))) So far, as I know Intel chipsets before were far more stable and compatible with other hardware...
The bottom line "as fast" does not always mean "as good"... :(( And since I also love competition let's hope that SIS655TX as good as 875P.
ripdude - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
A good article on a serie of good boards, I'm very happy you took the P4C800-E dlx in the test.I'm more then happy with the increased competition these boards bring, the P4C800-e dlx is still about 199 in euro land.
SmoiL - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
When is the Asus P4S800D-E coming out? Nada on pricewatchWesley Fink - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
Several of the cells in the Feature Table on page 3 were reversed and have now been corrected.Dual Channel (2x64 bit) is called 128 bit mode on the SiS. The BIOS has the option to run 128-bit (Dual-Channel) mode or to force Dual 64-bit.
FFS - Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - link
Also, as I remember VIA VT6307 support 3 (not 2) 1394a FireWire ports (as on MSI Neo boards), so why Gigabyte would cut them to 2 ???And besides Wesley always trying to stress out color-coded panel connectors.
For me it's more important that you can change RAM without taking off videocard and ASUS had such problems with some of their mobos (now it looks better... but talking about overclocking ... hmmmm.
Even it's damn stable: heatsink on ASUS SiS 655TX is passive (already -) and too close to CPU (plus wrong orientation - same mistake as with original
P4C800 Deluxe. So - NO oversized cooler for CPU on this board.
FFS - Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - link
Realtek ALC658 codec AC '97 2.36-Channel with UAJ Shoud go to Gigabyte and vice versa...
Oh well.., I had my SIS648 for a while and .. so now I'd rather prefer to pay eXtra for board with Intel chipset :((
Plus Gigabit LAN will work faster(=better) with CSA...
FFS - Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - link
Hey guys... In the features table on-board audio codecs are mixed up :)Shalmanese - Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - link
Er, I don't think Sis supports 33Mhz Memory speeds... (pg 5) ;).What happened to the tech support turnaround time bit? That was always the favourite part of your reviews.
Tokelil - Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - link
On page 3 it says its the Gigabyte MB that uses the Marvel Gigabit controller, while on page 4 it says its the asus board that uses the Marvel controller... My guess is it is Asus that uses it and its wrong on page 3.FishTankX - Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - link
What on earth is the difference?There is no commercially avaliable 128 bit DDRSDRAM. All DDRSDRAM is 64 bit.