SIS 730, where art thou?

[Athlex]

Anyone know when these boards are supposed to hit the market? I've been dying for an AMD solution with video...

edit- Apologies if this is off-topic. I wrote this with crackracks in mind.

 

[Wellcky]

Well according to SiS's web site they were going to be released 3rd Quarter of 2000.

SiS 730s Specs.

 

[vss1980]

Usually the easiest way to find these things is to go to the chipset makers web-site and see who makes what board with that chipset, and then visit the mobo makers web-site and see their official stockists. They should have it or be able to get it for you.

 

[ElFenix]

<a target=new href="http://www.asus.com.tw/products/Motherboard/socketa/a7vi-vm/index.html
">asus km133</a>

 

[vss1980]

Hmmm, found this while looking, not SiS based (which can only be a good thing) but using the VIA KM133 chipset. The Asus A7VI-VM (I would personally prefer the KM133 over the SIS 730 myself).

 

[Athlex]

It's true the KM133 does look like a faster and more well-rounded chipset. My thought is that since the SIS has the northbridge and southbridge integrated into one package it might make for an overall cheaper board. Also from the reviews, it appears that even though AGP performance took a hit with the SIS, the CPU still matched the KM133 which is cool for KLinux.

 

[ElFenix]

msi and asus are both on sis' vendor list, but neither have boards based on it. you could get a pc chips... but those are just terrible

 

[Athlex]

I was seriously considering one of those PCChips boards for a while there. If for no other reason than that they're small and many models have an integrated NIC. KLinux also seems pretty bulletproof for flaky hardware once it boots. I've got an old Orchid video card that wouldn't work with Windows (I broke off two caps, oops), but has been working perfectly with KLinux in text mode for over a week now.

I assume those PCChips boards don't have any frequency or multiplier adjustment?

 

[vss1980]

I have nothing against SiS, for the money, the chipsets are ok. But you could do better in terms of reliability, performance, etc. by going with VIA.

At least the KM133 uses a few tried and tested ideas. No matter how much people complain about the S3 Savage4 line-up of cards, they did a decent job and even though the technology is heading towards 2 years old, it still is better than what SiS can offer.

I also have more faith in VIA's other motherboard components such as the IDE controller, etc.

Let me put it like this. How many updates have the VIA 4in1 drivers seen lately? Quite a few in the last few months alone.

 

[vss1980]

Some of the PC Chips motherboards do have a selection of Multiplier, but as the CPU's are locked in most cases, its only for compatibility with old chips. These motherboards hardly form the base of an overclocking system.

As for FSB's I have no idea. Probably they have a few options but I dont think you should be expecting 1MHz FSB steps or something.

 

[Athlex]

Bummer, didn't think so. Well considering a &quot;good&quot; board like the K7T Pro2A is only about $30 more, that $30 goes a looong way.

 

[Wellcky]

ElFenix

<< you could get a pc chips... but those are just terrible >>



I beg to differ there, I have a PC Mainboard and it works great no flaws and runs smoothly the only thing I don't like about is its upgrade compatability! My little Calf, mooo.

 

[vss1980]

Haha, Wellcky, played around with that exact same model motherboard a couple of months ago. Definitely an office computer or crack rack motherboard component. As I said, for the money they are ok.

If you bother to 3DMark it (which I dont recommend) you will find it is so lacking in performance. Fill-rate is something like 20 Mtexels/sec (1/13th of the speed of a TNT2) and has so many glithces in its graphics.

 

[ElFenix]

thats a pimped out pc chips system you've got there. can't figure out which chipset it is though. i see plenty of these boards, along with other mobo makers like jetway, etc, with manuals full of broken english, at first saturday every couple of months. usually shy away from getting anything new there, though. all whitebox.

 

[TOOCOOL]

Athlex are you lookingFor me

I think this is what you want, comes with modem!
but can it be o/c who knows?

 

[Athlex]

Ooh! It even comes with an AMR!
Chipset: T Bird Chipset D'oh
Looks like a very decent board, tho.

I don't work far from that store, so maybe I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads-up.