Date:
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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SiS 648 Preview

A very quick look at what the new SiS chipset can do for the Pentium 4. Surprisingly, it can do a hell of a lot even compared to the i850E packing PC1066 Rambus.

continued...

Test Systems:

SiS 648 Reference Mainboard; Pentium 4 2.53B CPU; Stock HSF; VisionTek GF4 Ti4600 (29.42); 2x Corsair XMS3000 DDR; NetGear FA311 10/100 PCI; Maxtor 40GB ATA/133 7200RPM HD; Windows XP Professional; SiS IDE driver v1.01.13. SiS AGP driver v1.10.03. (133 CPU bus, 166 & 200MHz Memory Bus tested)

Intel Dual Channel DDR Granite Bay Mainboard; Pentium 4 2.53B; AVC HSF; VisionTek GF4 Ti 4600 128MB (29.42 Drivers); 2x Corsair XMS3000 DDR; NetGear FA311 10/100 PCI; Maxtor 40GB ATA/133 7200RPM HD; Windows XP Professional; Intel Chipset Driver v4.10 Alpha. (133MHz FSB)

Intel D850EMV2 / Intel i850E; Pentium 4 2.53B; Intel HSF; VisionTek GF4 Ti 4600 128MB (29.42 Drivers); 4x Kingston PC1066 128MB RDRAM; NetGear FA311 10/100 PCI; Maxtor 40GB ATA/133 7200RPM HD; Windows XP Professional; Intel Chipset Driver v3.20.1008. (133MHz FSB)

Intel D850EMV2 / Intel i850E; Pentium 4 2.53B; Intel HSF; Gainward Ultra 750/XP GF4 Ti 4600 128MB (28.32 Drivers); 4x Samsung PC800 128MB RDRAM; 3Com 905CX-TXNM 10/100 PCI; Western Digital 30GB ATA/100 7200RPM HD; Windows XP Professional; Intel Chipset Driver v3.20.1008, Official NVIDIA detonator driver 28.32. (133MHz FSB)

MSI 845G MAX, Pentium 4 2.4B, Intel Stock HSF, Gainward GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB (28.32 Drivers), 2x Corsair 256MB XMS3000 DDR SDRAM, 3Com 905cx-txnm 10/100 NIC, Maxtor 40GB ATA/133 7200RPM HDD, Windows XP Professional, DirectX 8.1, Intel Chipset Driver version 4.00.1009. (133MHz CPU bus, 166MHz Memory bus)

VIA P4X333 Reference; P4 2.53; Intel HSF; VisionTek GF4 Ti 4600 128MB (28.32 Drivers); 2x Corsair 256MB XMS3000 DDR SDRAM; Netgear FA311 10/100 NIC; Maxtor 40GB ATA/100 7200RPM HD; Windows XP Professional; Beta v4.38 4n1,VIA 4n1 4.38 Beta was used on the AMD platform. (133MHz CPU bus, 166MHz Memory bus)

Gigabyte GA-7VRXP (VIA KT333/8233), AMD Thoroughbred 2200+ clocked at stock (13.5 * 133FSB), Alpha PAL 8045, 256MB Corsair XMS PC3000, eVGA GeForce4 Ti 4600, 3Com 3c905cx-txnm, 40GB Maxtor ATA/133 hard drive, Enermax 500w PSU.

(Testbench Note: We used Corsair XMS3000 for our DDR400 setups and not "true" DDR444 supplied by TwinMos. We found the Corsair to be more stable and we also had enough Corsair to run 512MB so our test systems were apples to apples.)

Memory Bandwidth:

While we like synthetic memory bandwidth tests as much as the next tweaker, they're basically useless except for two things. First, the data can certainly tell you whether or not your memory bus is operating as expected and second, synthetic benchmarks are great for showing off your system across the Net.

SiSoft Sandra has been a staple around our workbench for many a year now. SiSoft's memory benchmark is valuable, especially for those of you that want to get the most bandwidth between your CPU and RAM. Quick, accurate, repeatable results you can rely on.

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While we all know that RDRam / DDR comparisons always show RDRam on top, we also all know that those numbers do not equate who wins when looking at the big picture. I think the most notable comparison here to make sure and look at where the SiS 648 comes in compared to the VIA P4X333 using DDR333. It looks as if SiS has certainly got a handle on their memory controller.

Content & Biz Benchmarks:

Business Winstone measures a PC's overall performance by running today's top-selling Windows-based 32-bit applications. Latest release: Business Winstone 2001 version 1.0 (11/07/2000). The Business Winstone tests are "market-centered" tests. Business applications are the popular applications employed by most users every day. Their final list of ten business productivity applications includes: Five Microsoft Office 2000 applications (Access, Excel, FrontPage, PowerPoint, and Word); Microsoft Project 98; Lotus Notes R5; NicoMak WinZip; Norton AntiVirus; and Netscape Communicator.

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This being the first application benchmark we ran I was very surprised at the results. The SiS 648 topped all other competitors even with DDR333 and widened the gap using DDR400.

Content Creation Winstone 2002 is a system-level, application-based benchmark that measures a PC's overall performance when running top, Windows-based, 32-bit, content creation applications on Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, or Windows XP. Content Creation Winstone 2002 uses the following applications: Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1, Adobe Premiere 6.0, Macromedia Director 8.5, Macromedia Dreamweaver UltraDev 4, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 7.01.00.3055, Netscape Navigator 6/6.01, Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 5.0c (build 184).

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Again we see the SiS 648 show great numbers although it was edged out by the PC1066 system. Still the SiS 648 dominates the other top end systems.

SysMark 2002 incorporates the following Internet Content Creation and Office Productivity applications.

Office Productivity: Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Microsoft Access 2002, Netscape Communicator® 6.0, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred v.5, WinZip 8.0, and McAfee VirusScan 5.13.

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While the BAPCo and Winstone Biz benchmarks can show two very different benchmark results the SiS 648 once again remains our victor utilizing the DDR400 setting and stays very competitive at our DDR333 setting.

Internet Content Generation: Adobe Photoshop® 6.01, Adobe Premiere® 6.0, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 7.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver 4, and Macromedia Flash 5.

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Another surprise for us as the SiS 648 reference board does a good job of winning the benchmark even at the "lowly" DDR333 setting.

Now on to the gaming benchmarks.