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
Content Creation, General Usage and Memory Performance
Content Creation is a benchmark dominated by Intel processors until the recent introduction of the Athlon64 FX processor. If the 655TX-based boards had stayed in the general range of the Intel chipset, the 655TX would certainly have been considered a success. We were not expecting, however, to see the 655TX win both the Content Creation and General Usage benchmarks against the best 875 board that we have tested thus far.
Science Mark 2 was recently updated, and we used the latest 9/23/03 build for our Memory testing. One of the failings of the SiS655FX chipset was the poor latency compared to Intel's Dual-Channel memory controller on the 875/865 chipsets. The reduction of command cycles between the CPU and memory on the 655TX is paying off with results that are clearly in line with Intel 875/865 performance. SiS has done an excellent job in reworking the 655TX, so it is now competitive with one of the most highly regarded chipset memory controllers available.
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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.