SUMMARY: With the SiS 648 chipset taking the enthusiast market by storm, how is a person to know which manufacturer to choose? Come join Cameron "Sov" Johnson as he takes a look at the EPoX 4SDA5+ Motherboard which uses this very chipset. It has a few surprises in store for us and may be just what the doctor ordered for your next Pentium 4 rig!
The Intel Pentium 4 platform over the last year has seen more changes than any other platform. AMD have stuck to their Socket 462 connector for nearly three years now and are continuing to do so with their latest processors. Intel Pentium 4 however, has seen socket, memory and core changes that really have pushed it up in price and along the market. We have seen RDRAM being replaced by SDRAM and DDR SDRAM. Sockets changed from 423 pin to 478 pin and the core changed from Willamette to Northwood, all in the space of around one year.
Chipset designs for this new platform have been coming along quite nicely too. Intel has finally seen that RDRAM isn't the only option, VIA has attempted to convince its platform supporters to use P4X line of chipsets, but the most prominent chipset market for Pentium 4 today is SiS.
It wasn't all that long ago that SiS grabbed everyone’s attention with the SiS 735 for the AMD Athlon platform. This chipset never got the recognition it deserved but this led SiS along the new and improved track record they have now earned. SiS has recently given us the ultimate in P4 performance, the SiS 648 and who better than EPoX to put this chipset to good use. Today we have the EPoX 4SDA5+ motherboard based on this very chipset.
