SUMMARY: We've been hearing rumors about a new SiS chipset hitting the streets. That's right, the SiS648 chipset is out prowling around in some of the newer motherboards. Come join Asher "Acid" Moses as he delves into the Abit SR7-8X Motherboard that uses this very chipset. After hearing all the stories about how good this new chipset is, its time to see if it can live up to the hype!
SiS has historically been known for their excellent OEM and budget products, however, they have recently entered the high-end enthusiast market as well and have since gained quite a positive reputation amongst the enthusiast community. Their SiS645/DX chipset was the first to bring DDR333 memory support to the Pentium 4 and at the time of its release, was the fastest P4 chipset available. Naturally, we were quite excited when we received the Abit SR7-8X motherboard, based on SiS's latest Pentium 4 chipset, the SiS648.
The SiS648 chipset is essentially the same as the SiS645DX, however, it adds a number of new features such as AGP 8x, a tweaked memory controller and USB 2.0. We have already discussed the SiS648 chipset in great detail in our 533FSB Pentium 4 Chipset Shootout, so we will not be going into too much detail here other than regarding the board itself.
Is the Abit SR78X worthy of your hard earn dollars? And more importantly, how does it compare against competing chipsets on the market? Read on to find out!
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