There’s No Stopping Them: SiS Beats AMD & Co — THG.RU

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SiS Beats AMD & Co» —>

Sensation: SiS 735 Beats AMD 760

Our latest tests left us almost speechless. The SiS reference board — sporting the brand new SiS 735 chipset — clearly beats the competition with the AMD 760 module in terms of performance. More than that, the SiS reference is impressive due to its perfect system stability, something previously unheard of from this Taiwanese manufacturer. So with its 735 chipset the wilting wallflower usurps the throne once occupied by the AMD with its 760, and dons the performance crown. This is a fact for which many will need time to digest.

And yet the story behind SiS does not reveal an exemplary company with a good grasp of the upwardly mobile end-user market. For the past 10 years, starting from the days of 486 PCs, this manufacturer has only been serving project customers to build budget-priced boards with integrated graphics for low-cost systems. To ease its conscience, SiS has made half-hearted attempts every two years to gain a foothold in the end-user market. However, their chipsets could stand up to the competition in only one respect: price. Otherwise, boards carrying the SiS logo were typically characterized by poor performance, faulty device drivers and high support costs for motherboard manufacturers. Quite a few board manufacturers even decided not to use SiS chipsets at all for a while.

Newcomers: 635 and 735 from SiS with DDR-SDRAM-Support, Ultra-DMA/100 and 6 x USB.

It remains to be seen whether or not SiS knows how to position the 735 chipset correctly in the market and to make it attractive for motherboard manufacturers. In any case, the old argument — that price is the only deciding factor — is now history. We have subjected both of the new SiS chipsets with DDR support to extensive testing: the SiS 635 for all Intel processors and the SiS 735 for the AMD platform.

Single-Chip Technology: SiS 735 And SiS 635

From a technical point of view, the Taiwanese manufacturer can be proud of its achievements. Both the new chipsets, the 735 and the 635, consist of only one chip. Whereas the AMD, ALi, Intel and VIA modules are each made up of a North Bridge and a South Bridge, SiS has managed to incorporate all the functions into one chip. This design has some distinct cost advantages: additional resistors and capacitors are no longer required, and in addition, it costs less to produce a single, highly integrated chip in large numbers than it does to produce two different, less well integrated ICs. On top of that, single-chip technology saves space, makes for a less cluttered board and provides for shorter signal paths.

Schematic illustration of the 635-/735-chipset from SiS. In this module all the functions are integrated into a single chip.

* depends on clock generator

Comparison of all the important chipsets for AMD Athlon/Duron for socket 462.

Progress is also evident in the details. Neither a heat sink nor a fan are required for the chipset (735 and 635). The chip, with its large surface area, remains remarkably cool when in operation, while its competitors AMD and VIA fuss with heat sinks and humming fans.

Single-Chip Technology: SiS 735 And SiS 635, Continued

* depends on clock generator

Comparison of all the important chipsets for the socket 370 platform.

Good marketing strategists know the recipe for success in the end-user market: If you want to be successful, don’t touch integrated graphics solutions. Nobody needs this function. So, outside of the OEM business, this sort of feature is taboo. Unless, of course, you give the board an extra AGP interface so you can switch off the on-board graphics when you need to. SiS seems to have learned its lesson well, as neither of the new chipsets has integrated graphics.

Some motherboard manufacturers have already jumped aboard the SiS bandwagon. Currently, Asus (CUS266), Elitegroup (P6S5MT and P6S5AT), Jetway (635CS) and PC Chips (M700) use the SiS 635 chipset. Chaintech is the first manufacturer to bring the SiS 735 onto the market, with its 7SID. Other firms will follow.

For Intel — And AMD CPUs: Reference Boards From SiS

The two reference boards from SiS formed the basis for our test, one was equipped with the 635-chipset for the Intel platform and the other with the 735 chipset for the AMD platform. Most motherboard manufacturers will be working on these reference designs in the coming weeks and launching their own boards in the market. Notable features on both SiS boards are the three FireWire connections (IEEE 1394). For this, a controller chip from Texas Instruments has been used only on the SiS 735 board.

Both boards are factory-equipped with three FireWire interfaces (IEEE 1394).

SiS 735 For AMD Athlon/Duron

A look at our comparison table makes it clear that the SiS 735 chipset is almost indistinguishable from the competition in terms of the functions it offers. The SiS reference board represents a mid-range board, equipped with almost all the important features.

Reference board with the SiS 735 chipset.

On the socket 462 board SiS has installed only DIMM slots for DDR-SDRAM memory modules. The 735 chipset will, however, work with conventional SDRAM memory if required.

Function scheme for the SiS 735 chipset.

Some of the transistors for the system controller have been positioned on the upper and lower surfaces of the board.

The layout of two transistors in the three-phase controller is striking: They are on the underside of the board. The other functions read as follows: the chipset permits a total of six USB connections and three DIMM slots. The test board has 3 integrated PCI slots and 1 ACR, and hardly anyone will be eager to use the latter. The use of the AC’97 sound codec, which costs less than 40 cents per module in production, is also a money-saving feature.

SiS 635 For The Intel Pentium III

To cover the market as broadly as possible, SiS also has a reference board with the 635 chipset that supports all processors for the socket 370 platform. In the test, this board proved less impressive than the 735 board. In fact, the performance of the SiS 635 board was anything but astounding, so it doesn’t really represent a viable alternative to the chipsets listed in the table above.

Reference board with the SiS 635 chipset.

Function scheme for the SiS 635 chipset.

Ergonomic: The reference board with the SiS-635 chipset has helpful buttons for Reset and Power on.

What looks like a PCI slot turned around 180 degrees is called an ACR-Slot. There are no components for this interface.

Benchmark Summary

Both reference boards underwent a comprehensive testing procedure. The benchmarks that we ran were intended to reproduce operational performance as realistically as possible. A look at the benchmark graphics makes it immediately clear that only the SiS-735 chipset for the AMD platform shines with outstanding performance. In contrast, the SiS 635 placed last among its competitors in almost every benchmark.

Office Performance: Sysmark 2000

In the Office Performance benchmark, the SiS 735 left all its competitors in the dust, while the SiS 635 chipset for Intel (socket 370) was less convincing. The SiS 735 achieved a record score of 229 points in Sysmark 2000 — with all the default settings in the Bios.

OpenGL-Performance: Quake 3 Arena

The well-known action game is a yardstick for the special type of performance required for 3D games. The board with the SiS 735 is far in the lead and clearly outclasses the already fast AMD 760 chipset. The VIA KT133A cannot keep up and drops to last place. Among the test candidates for the Intel platform, the SiS 635 performs poorly — it comes in last place.

3D-Games Performance: Unreal Tournament

In this benchmark AMD 760 takes the lead, marginally ahead of the SiS 735 for the AMD platform. The SiS 635 for the Intel platform lags slightly behind its competitors.

MPEG-4-Encoding: Flask Mpeg (Divx)

The SiS 735 can even outperform its competitors in MPEG-4 encoding. The differences may be marginal but they are there. On the Intel platform the SIS 635 is not even in the running when compared with its competitors, taking last place once again.

Linux Kernel Compilation

Linux-Fans will be delighted with the SiS 735 chipset for the AMD platform (socket 462): This module is the quickest at compiling the kernel. The AMD 760, already a fast chipset, comes in second place. The SiS 635 for the Intel platform (socket 370) does not exactly show its best side: It takes the longest to compile the kernel.

In Detail: Reference Board Specifications

It’s A Fact: The SiS 735 — Faster And Cheaper Than AMD & Co

The performance results are enough to convince one that the SiS 735 is faster than the much more expensive AMD 760 chipset. Nor can the VIA Apollo KT266, the VIA Apollo KT133A and the ALi Magik 1 compete with the 735 in terms of performance. Our comprehensive tests on both reference boards have clearly proved this. SiS also gives itself a technological advantage: While the competition continues to work with two chips, this manufacturer has integrated all the functions into one module. This solution not only saves on production costs but also does away with the use of additional components on the board. It also should not be forgotten that the use of a single chip leaves more room for other components. The long connecting paths common in conventional designs are no longer to be found in the new SiS.

Admittedly, our positive evaluation only applies to the SiS 735 chipset, which supports all the AMD processors (Athlon and Duron). On the other hand, the SiS 635 for the Intel platform (socket 370, for the Intel Pentium III, Celeron I/II and VIA Cyrix MIII) is not a good choice. However, this is mostly due to the Intel processors themselves, which do not undergo any noticeable increase in speed as a result of DDR-SDRAM memory.

A Call To Arms: Preparing For The Challenges Ahead

It won’t exactly be easy to establish the SiS 735 in the market. To a certain degree the SiS brand has a negative image attached to it, at least in Germany. The major PC manufacturers will certainly wait to see what happens, reacting much later than, for example, the fast-paced end-user market. And then there is always the question: has SiS planned to supply large quantities to the retail market? Or will most of the chips end up with the system integrator and OEM? This chipset is almost too good for it to be damned to obscurity inside a PC from «PriceWar». The alarm bells should finally be ringing in Taiwan, now that the 735 chipset has proved to be far ahead of the competition. The time is ripe to wrest away market shares from its main competitors, VIA and AMD. Some motherboard manufacturers, such as Asus, Chaintech and Elitegroup, will be bringing boards with the SiS chipset onto the market within the next few days.

Finally back to my doctrine once more, which is particularly appropriate for SiS: Good marketing is when a product sells of its own accord and nobody knows why. Bad marketing is when a good product sells poorly and still nobody knows why.