SIS748 chipset reviewed, contrasted

THE CHEAPER does not always equate to the better except perhaps when it comes to the CPU, where component buyers seem to usually prefer AMD, the cheaper counterpart, to Intel, the king of the hill. Some people forget that at the heart of any performing platform is a motherboard, a CPU, memory and a fan, not the CPU alone. Removing the memory and the fan, pretty much the same on both AMD and intel platform, as well as the CPU and we're left with the motherboard.

Now, at the centre of the motherboard is the chipset which dictates and control information flow within and outside the whole system. Our review of reviews today explores the SIS748 and motherboards based on this chipset. According to reviews read over the net, the SIS748 is a worthy member to the Athlon 7XX family which spans across the SIS730 up to the SIS760. The SIS748 succeeds to the SIS746FX which was criticized for several flaws, notably not supporting DDR400 except through overclocking using such exotic technology as Asrock's Hybrid Booster. The SIS748 might be SIS's last chipset Athlon XP but it probably is the best, matching the SIS735 in afficionados's hearts.

The SIS748 is a decent chipset by all measures. It supports the latest AMD Barton CPU (based on 400Mhz FSB), supports up to 3GB of memory as well as DDR400 memory and AGP8X. In addition, through the SIS963L southbridge, it provides now-standard features like 5.1 sound capabilities, 6 USB2.0 ports, 6 PCI slots plus a LAN connection via the SIS900 lan module. Additional SATA support is available through SIS180 dedicated module or by using the newer SIS964 south bridge. A SIS963 version exists which provide with Firewire support as well. A first criticism echoed was that the SIS748 accepts is very fussy about memory configuration. On many motherboards, only 1 module of DDR400 is supported at a time.

One innovation brought to the SIS748 is the Hyperstream technology which claims reduces latency with a single stream and increases performance without significant overhead. Ocworkbench says that “This new technology avoids many of the out-of-sync audio, jittery images, low frame rates and possible packet transfer errors... it makes single channel as good as a dual channel design”. The marchitecture behind it is purposely directed towards VIA and NVIDIA which have already released dual-channel based chipsets. Another innovation is the 1GHz MuTIOL link between the North Bridge and the South Bridge which apparently improves performance as well.

In the marketplace
Getting Intel to produce an AMD board or vice-versa is no easy feat. But arch-rivals SIS and VIA seem to have done just that. FIC is, like VIA, Nanya and a couple of other computer outfits, a subsidiary or spun-off of the Formidable Formosa Plastics Hyper-comglomerate. FIC proposes the KT-748 which is scarcely available anywhere except in the US where it can be found at USD 65. FIC's offer offers Firewire ports (using VIA's technology), Realtek 5.1 ALC655 audio solution (as compared to the more popular Cmedia) and Gigabit LAN from Realtek. In addition, it also features FIC's NOVUS software package which comprises of the BIOS guardian, the Overclocking Partner, Hotkey and Logo Genie II. A good overall motherboard with very good reliability in stress tests though others found that overclocking features were very limited.

Amongst all though, no one has brought the SIS748 to higher heights than long time friend ECS/PC Chips/Alton/Matsonic/Eurone/Elpina/PC Partner/Syntax/Elite/Amptron. The Elitegroup, as it is known, proposes three motherboards. The PC Chips M848A v2.1 here clone of the ECS 748-a here is the most one and at $37.67 is by far the cheapest Barton compatible motherboard out there. Even in the UK, it comes at a fairly affordable £21.99. Paired with a Barton XP 2500+ overclocked to 3200+, one 512Mb DDR400 memory modules and a good fan, you could find yourself the happy owner of a high-end rig for around £120 or $169. It comes therefore as no surprise that the M848 series seems to be the most popular SIS748 solution around, widely available in the UK and in the USA. On one occasion, I found out that many P4 boards alone cost more than the AMD Bundle. Furthermore, the M848A seems to be pretty stable, performing and reliable, not what PC Chips usually delivers.

On the other side of the hill, we find the W30 v1.1 here which is one of the few PC Chips labelled high end products. Strangely though, this "Tidal Wave" product while costing nearly twice as much as the M848A v2.1, it features only 2 DIMM sockets and the only other noticeable differences are the use of a Realtek LAN controller instead of VIA's - curiously, SIS748's own LAN solution, SIS900, does not seem to gather much support, WHQL certification, two more USB ports and the presence of two Serial ATA connectors.

Gigabyte is only the second top four motherboard makers to deliver a SIS748 board here. Noteworthy items include the well documented manual, above average overclocking features (voltage adjustments Vcore/Vdimm), Jack Sensing technology to stop those neck-twisting find-your-sound-port exercises and some nifty software like Gigabyte own overclocking Easytune software, five Norton Utilities, @Bios and Q-Flash. Performance was reported to be correct. Bear in mind that two versions of the board exist: one with a LAN connection and the other without. Its price start at below $50.

Even though Asus has not released any SIS748 board, its "mini-me" counterpart, Asrock, has two of them in its bag. The first, the K7S8XE R3.0 here, is presented as a value SIS748 board. It sports five PCI slots (while the earlier version had six) and has built-in ASRock U-COP CPU Overheating and Protection Technology as well as built-in ASRock Hybrid Booster Technology. With an upgraded South Bridge (SIS964), the K7S8XE+ here adds two SATA connectors, up to eight USB2.0 ports and support for JBOD, Raid 1 and Raid 0 and AC97 v2.3 audio. At around £51, it packs a lot of punch for its price.

DFI's SIS748 entry has had heads turning at Anandtech back in August last year. The fact that this board sported an "overclocker's2 chip, Attansic Overclocking chipset ATXP1 - a jumperfree overclock controller used in Soltek and Abit nforce2 boards for example, explains why that board is seen as the most overclocker-friendly SIS748 board around. With the last BIOS upgrade released only two months ago, it would be a good thing to cast a second glance at its overall performance. Still, that board is very much a "stealth" one, unavailable both on Dealtime, Pricewatch and the usual suspects in Britain.

Iwill released the first SIS748 motherboard on 1st May 2003. Like the DFI board, K7S3-N might well be a good board but its availability is absolutely appalling. Trying a search on the internet yielded a single result worth USD 99.99 motherboard, far too much for a budget board. Japanese buyers might get better results though as the board was released there first. From the only review on the internet, we learn that the board is very overclocking friendly.

The last board under scrutiny is the Aopen AK76-F which as the previous two tier-two motherboard manufactures, is also a rare bird. Reviews have been spotted only in Germany where the price is around €70. Aopen does not demark itself from other motherboards here. Performance-wise and feature wise, it is a middle of the pack, plain vanilla assembler board.

In conclusion
In performance, the SIS748 competes with NVIDIA nForce 2 single channel or VIA KT600 generally within 5%. It performs best in I/O intensive benchmarks and proved to be a good overclocker depending on the manufacturer. Features are there (Firewire, 5.1 Audio, SATA etc) and low prices of SIS748 motherboards destine them to the lower part of the spectrum. As I said initially though, cheaper does not equate with worse in this case. Motherboards based on the SIS748 chipset prove to be up to standards. My picks would either be the Asrock K7S8XE+, for sheer value and nice addons like SATA and RAID, or the PC Chips M848A, for bargain price. So in a nutshell, if you fancy yourself top notch performance without the price, take one of these boards, plug in the right products and enjoy. However picking anyone of them will not get you wrong. The future now belongs to the Athlon 64 while an improbable SIS751 might accompany the Athlon XP into its retirement as a Duron replacement here. There is no dowloadable benchmark table for this review of reviews because of the characteristic of the component being tested. Unlike video cards or CPUs, motherboard performance is one among many variables that need to be factored in order to decide over a purchase - features, presentation, stability are amongst others but unlike performance, they are more subjective in nature. Furthermore, figures gathered over the test shows that not only margins of error sometimes overshadows the difference between same motherboards across reviews but also motherboards from different manufacturers, given similar conditions of testing. Finally, frequent motherboard BIOS updates make it problematic to have a definitive guide. µ

Resources
This forum provides with latest bios for loads of motherboards
The ultimate AMD motherboard website
The download page for SIS748
Official website

Technical Information
SIS PDF

Number of Online reviews read and analysed: 19
Asrock K7S8XE
Overclockers.co.nz
Digital-Daily
OC Workbench
Informanews

Chilishome's reviews
Chilishome w7jo.de
w7jo.de
w7jo.de

Gigabyte 7S748-L
OC Workbench

FIC KT-748
MB Review
Allamd.com
X-trememodz
Key stream video review
OC Heaven

DFI 748-AL
Anandtech
OC Workbench

AOpen AK76F-400N
Hardtecs4u
www.au-ja.org

Iwill K7S3
Review