All year we've been waiting for a chipset manufacturer to
get into the Pentium 4 chipset arena with a Dual Channel DDR
capable offering that finally gave Intel something to sweat
over. We've seen offerings from VIA and SiS this year
but the P4X400 and SiS648, while they were decent low cost
solutions, were nothing to write home about performance
wise, when compared to an i865 Springdale or i875 Canterwood
based motherboard. Although these chipsets weren't
targeted at taking on Springdale or Canterwood directly,
since they were "value" oriented single channel solutions,
value is a relative term, when the benchmark numbers come up
short and you're competing against "Chipzilla" on the
platform they built around their processor.
However, Intel provides license rights to their architecture
for very specific reasons and it was only a matter of time
before one of the other major players stepped up with some
real heat.
Recently we showed you what
VIA has in store with
their PT880 chipset. There have been a number of
Motherboard OEMs that have reportedly signed up to deliver
solutions based on this chipset. Certainly the
performance of the PT880 speaks for itself, placing it
within a few percentage points of Canterwood boards and
right on top of Springdale performance. However,
although we've seen the reference board VIA sent our way, we
have yet to see a retail model arrive to our lab. SiS,
on the other hand has been busy priming the channel with
their new 655TX chipset, which is actually a speed bin
refinement of the already released SiS 655FX chipset.
As a result we have a full retail package we can show you
today, in the form of the Asus P4S800D-E, a SiS 655TX
motherboard decked out with all the trimmings and ready to
take on Canterwood.
Early indications were that
this new SiS chipset had enough memory bandwidth and low
latency to give the i865 and i875 a run for their money.
We'll try to show you what the SiS 655TX and Asus P4S800D-E
are made of, here in this showcase and let you be the judge
for yourself.
Features
of the
Asus
P4S800D-E
Features and Functionality
CPU - Socket
478 for Intel Pentium 4/Celeron - Intel Hyper-Threading Technology ready
- New power design supports Intel next generation
Prescott CPU Chipset SIS 655TX
SIS 964
FSB 800 / 533 / 400 MHz Memory 4 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 4GB
unbuffered non-ECC
PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAM memory
Dual-channel memory architecture Expansion Slots 1 x AGP 8X
5 x PCI
1 x ASUS Wi-Fi slot for optional wireless LAN
upgrade Storage 2 x UltraDMA 133/100
2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 function Audio ADI AD1980 SoundMAX 6-channel CODEC
S/PDIF out interface LAN Integrated 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN controller +
Marvell PHY Special Features ASUS EZ Flash
ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2
ASUS Instant Music Lite
ASUS MyLogo2
ASUS Multi-language BIOS
ASUS Q-Fan Overclock Features ASUS JumperFree
ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)CPU, Memory, and
AGP voltage
Adjustable SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) from
100MHz up to 300MHz at 1MHz increment
Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio, fixed AGP/PCI
frequencies
Back Panel
I/O Ports 1x Parallel
1x Serial
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Audio I/O
4 x USB 2.0
1 x RJ-45 Port
1 x S/PDIF output Internal I/O Connectors - CPU/Power/Chassis FAN
connectors
- 20-pin ATX power connector
- Chassis Intrusion
- GAME/MIDI connector
- CD/AUX audio in
- Front panel audio connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 connector supports additional 4 USB
2.0 ports
- 2 x SATA ports
- COM2 connector BIOS Feature
4Mb Flash ROM, ASUS JumperFree, AMI BIOS, PnP,
DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ASUS EZ Flash, ASUS
MyLogo2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2, ASUS C.P.R., ASUS
Multi-language BIOS, ASUS Q-Fan, ASUS Instant
Music Lite
Industry Standard PCI 2.2, USB 2.0
Manageability WfM2.0, DMI2.0, WOR, WOL, Chassis
Intrusion Support CD - Drivers
- ASUS PC Probe
- Trend Micro PC-cillin 2002 anti-virus software
(OEM version)
- ASUS LiveUpdate Utility Accessories User's manual
UltraDMA cable
FDD cableI/O shield
2-port USB2.0 cable
2 x Serial ATA cable
Form Factor ATX Form Factor 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x
24.5cm)
The heart of the
P4S800D-E is the SiS 655TX Northbridge and its companion 964
Southbridge. SiS has just about every checklist item
available in this chipset, with Dual Channel DDR400/333
support, version 3.5 compliant AGP8X, a native Serial ATA
controller and up to 8 channels of USB 2.0. Also,
although this diagram shows only 10/100 Ethernet, the Asus
P4S800D-E we tested came equipped with a Gigabit Ethernet
controller connected to the on board MII interface the SiS
964 Southbridge provides. Drop in an AC97 CODEC for 6
channel audio and you've got everything any competitive P4
chipset could bring to bear.
Finally, SiS is
touting the 655TX as having their "Advanced Hyperstreaming
Engine" on board. Although this is pretty much
marketing speak, this technology can be thought of as the
chipset's data Flow Control management and arbitration
capabilities, that reduce latency and provide more efficient
use of available bandwidth. You can be sure that
competitive chipsets have similar technology but SiS claims
to have beefed up or made "advancements" in the queuing and
data handling blocks of the 655TX architecture.
The Bundle:
Click to
Enlarge
The Asus P4S800D-E came well
equipped with extra gear in the bundle, for setting up
nearly every useful feature on this board. Asus
includes two IO brackets with extra USB and Firewire jacks
as well as a game port. They also include both SATA
and PATA IDE cables, a two connector SATA power cable, an IO
back-plate, user manual and driver CD-ROM. The user
manual was a bit sparse on detail in our opinion however.
Novice users don't get the typical BIOS walk-through in this
thin book, for example, as we've seen so many times before
in previous Asus manuals.
