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Post to SlashdotComing from the very low-end of the market, in less than two years SiS managed to become a respected provider of not only cost-effective, but also high-performance chipset solutions. That is why its plans should be interesting to quite a lot of hardware enthusiasts who want to stay on the cutting-edge of PC technology.
Next year the Number Three chipset company in the world will offer a bunch of chipsets with DDR-II SDRAM as well as PCI Express interconnection support. SiS does not want to stick to general standards, it will exceed them and bring support for 667MHz and even 800MHz DDR-II memory next year, according to specifications found over this web-site.
In the short-term SiS will release two new chipsets – SiS655TX and SiS R659 – in October and November respectively. The former will be a version of SiS655FX – core-logic with up to 800MHz QPB and dual-channel PC3200 memory controller – with Advanced Hyper-Streaming Engine. The latter is a well-known quad-channel RDRAM chipset with 800MHz PSB support. In short, expect nothing really exciting from SiS this year: a re-worked one-year old SiS655 is definitely not a big innovation, whereas the SiS R659 – the world’s first quad-channel RDRAM solution – will definitely not become widely accepted by the industry. Well, maybe SiS will paper-launch it and then will have to forget about it completely?
Next year SiS prepares to unveil two chipsets for higher-end market and one for mainstream segment with integrated graphics core. The first performance part is named SiS656 and will sport both dual-channel PC3200 and DDR-II SDRAM with ECC memory. Besides, it will have PCI Express x16 controller inside substituting the good-old AGP already in March 2004. Certainly, it will provide an opportunity to install processors with 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, but given its release timeframe, initially, it will work with ordinary Socket 478 processors, not Socket T chips. The second high-performance chipset from SiS – SiS656FX – is due to come in the fourth quarter of next year. Its general capabilities will not differ from the predecessor, with the exception of memory controller – the newcomer will only be able to work with dual-channel DDR-II SDRAM at up to 800MHz and without ECC support in contrast to DDR-II 667MHz support by SiS656.
To tell you the truth, I hardly understand the reason why SiS adds support for 667MHz and even 800MHz memory in its chipsets set to come next year. There will be no PC2-5300 memory at SiS656 launch in March, just like there will be no PC2-6400 DDR-II SDRAM in the fourth quarter. Neither SiS656 nor 656FX bring us PSBs higher than 800MHz, as far as I understand at the moment, and, keeping in mind that redundant memory bandwidth will not provide any significant benefits, superfluous memory controller is hardly needed.
It is interesting to note that SiS’ mainstream SiS662 also sports both PC3200 and DDR-II SDRAM memory at 667MHz in dual-channel modes without ECC support. Looks like SiS pins a lot of hopes on this type of DDR-II. The company claims that its SiS662 will implement a DirectX 9.0-compatible graphics core, just like competing integrated chipsets from Intel, ATI and possibly NVIDIA. Estimated release date for SiS662 is June 2004.
Roadmap for AMD processors is not so broad, as for Intel’s chips, but is still quite interesting. First of all, we should note that AMD will pump up the frequency of HyperTransport bus to 1000MHz from current 800MHz next year. This will result in 2000Mb/s transfer speed in each direction. SiS’ 756 and 761 PCI Express x16 tunnels will support AMD Athlon 64 processors for Socket 754/939 and Socket 754 respectively. The SiS761 will also sport that mysterious DirectX 9.0-compliant graphics core from SiS, it transpired.
In addition to its
As you see, SiS does not plan single-chip core-logic products at all.
It is interesting to note that roadmaps from SiS and VIA Technologies should be considered as very unstable indications of their actual plans. Both companies reconsider the specifications as well as release time-frames very often according to market demand as well as their own abilities to make certain products available. Since both firms concentrate mostly on cost-effective devices, their behavior in the higher-end market is understandable.
The information comes from an unofficial source and there are no guarantees that SiS will execute precisely as it is claimed herein. At least, now we know what exactly SiS intends to offer us next year.
