Introduction.

By and large the Pentium 4 chipset market has been the preserve of Intel with first the Rambus RDRAM powered i850 series later giving way to the many variants of the SDRAM compatible i845 family. The i845 series of chipsets have been hugely successful and have now gained a reputation for impressive performance coupled to class leading stability. As a result they have a large share of the Pentium 4 chipset market.

Given the dominance of Intel in the Pentium 4 chipset market it would be easy to forget that Intel are not just the only player. Both VIA and SiS make Pentium 4 chipsets as an alternative to those from Intel. VIA are in many respects only a bit player in the Pentium 4 market due to the long running legal saga regarding their right to actually produce products such as the P4X series. As a result many motherboard manufacturers are reluctant to produce boards based on the P4X series, or those that do have entered into a marketing agreement with VIA to conceal their true identity.

With VIA out of the question as a safe Pentium 4 chipset supplier, this has opened the door to SiS who have obtained a licence to produce chipsets for Intel’s latest platform. Whilst the past three years have seen VIA rise from being just another chipset maker to being a powerful force, smaller SiS have languished as an also ran producing a variety of Super Socket 7 (remember that), Socket 370 and later Socket A chipsets. The legal predicament VIA found itself in with Intel gave SiS a golden opportunity to prove to the market that it too can produce decent products.

The past year has seen a variety of DDR SDRAM compatible Pentium 4 chipsets from SiS which have gained a reputation for some of the best performing products in the market. This has though been coupled to a downside of not having shaken off a reputation for compatibility issues. Like any rising hardware manufacturer, SiS have been working hard to shake off it’s old reputations and to produce some class leading products.

With this in mind SiS launched the 648 chipset onto the market in October of this year. This has added features such as AGP 8X and USB 2.0 support to the existing 645 architecture.

Epox has over the past year produced a variety of boards based upon SiS Pentium 4 chipsets and has aimed them at the high end of the market. The EP-4SDA5+ is no exception to this as it hosts features such as IDE RAID, 533 MHz Front Side Bus and IEEE 1394 “Firewire” support.

SiS 648.

The SiS 648 chipset comprises two controllers, the first being the 648 North Bridge itself. This chip features support for a 533 MHz Front Side Bus, PC-2700 DDR SDRAM (unoffical support for PC-3200) and AGP 8X.

The SiS 693 South Bridge features support for U/ATA 133, as well as USB 2.0, AC-97 sound and an integrated LAN controller.

Specifications.