FIRST LOOK: SiS 755FX for Socket 939 Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on December 16, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
About a year ago, we were very impressed with the introduction of the SiS 755 chipset. In fact, we were so impressed that we awarded our Editor's Choice for Best Athlon 64 chipset to SiS in SiS755 Reference Board: Athlon64 from SiS. We fully expected that many of the major motherboard manufacturers would be producing boards based on the SiS 755, but that never happened. In the end, only 2 SiS 755 motherboards made it to the AnandTech labs - an ECS and a Foxconn. Both were capable budget motherboards, but neither packed the kind of enthusiast features we hoped that we would see with the 755 chipset.
Now, a year later, we are taking a first look at an update to the SiS chipset called the 755FX. The FX adds support for the latest Socket 939, dual-channel memory, and 1000 HyperTransport, but it is otherwise quite similar to the 755. This is mainly due to the fact that the Winfast 755FXK8AA uses the same 964 Southbridge that we reviewed late last year. Winfast is the brand name used by Foxconn for their Athlon 64 motherboards.
The focus with the Winfast board is really value. Foxconn tells us that the Winfast 755FX will sell for less than $100, which will be the first Socket 939 board to reach that price point. If the Winfast 755FXK8AA is a decent performer, this will open new price points for Socket 939 systems - particularly those built around the new 3000+ and 3200+ 90nm value Athlon 64s.
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ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
The SiS755FX adds 1000MHz HTT support. So it's a chipset for socket 939 processors.The SiS756 is a new chipset, supporting PCI-E graphics.
RAINFIRE - Sunday, December 26, 2004 - link
I wasn just wondering if the SiS 756 is replacing the 755FX chipset. This seems to be the case with me. Anyone know if this is what is happening?RAINFIRE - Sunday, December 26, 2004 - link
I was just wondering if the SiS 756 chip is better/replacing the 755FX. This seems to be the case as far as I can see. Any thoughts, conments on that? I've been keeping a Next Gen Motherboard list and want to get it right.Cygni - Sunday, December 19, 2004 - link
The 755 had solid performance and i was very surprised that more board makers didnt use it. The 755FX/756 seems to be another step in that direction. Realistically, because the Nforce4 and ATI Xpress 200 are STILL not on the market, it is still possible for the 756 to be the first PCI-Ex capable AMD chipset.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
Yes, the board is available here:http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
Price is $101. The Foxconn is $69, the ASRock is $77 but it has overclocking options (the Gigabyte doesn't).
Peter - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
I've seen that ... they did actually go ahead and made it available WITH the dedicated VGA RAM? Good then. But at $30 more than the same thing in shared-RAM configuration, they've missed the price point ... I mean, $30 buys me an entire Xabre graphics card.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
#20, that is great news! Are you going to test the K8Upgrade-760GX (SiS760GX, mATX) or the K8Upgrade-1689 (ULI M1689, ATX)?#22, Gigabyte makes a board with dedicated memory. It does improve performance but it's considerably more expensive too (at least $30).
There's a review:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2004/gigabyte/K8S760M/K...
Peter - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
Wesley, I wrote this _after_ reading the article ;) Head still on shoulders.SiS integrated video for the A64 platform looks particularly interesting because it can have dedicated (!) VGA RAM attached to the north bridge chip. This is because they left the RAM controller in there - exclusively for the integrated VGA this time, since the CPU brings its own.
Now if only the board makers adopted that feature ... all I've seen so far (ASRock, ECS, PC-Chips) run it in shared-RAM mode, and so does my shiny new Averatec 5500 notebook. History repeating - even back in the Pentium and early PII days, the integrated SiS chipsets (530, 620, 630) supported dedicated VGA RAM, but practically nobody made boards that used it.
As for clock synthesizer chips, well if this piece of hardware doesn't support what you want it to do, then no update of BIOS or other software will make it.
Calin - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
#17, I would like to have an Athlon64 board with integrated video... but not with SiS integrated video. I would wait until (hopefully) some ATI-based board appears here in Romania. (I know I might be wrong about not buying a SIS with integrated video, but I prefer not to take the chance)Calin
Wesley Fink - Thursday, December 16, 2004 - link
#17 - We have been talking with Asrock, and we will be reviewing a ASRock K8Upgrade, and the upgrade module, which is based on the SiS 760GX. We also requested a ULI chipset board but we have not received any info yet on when that board may be available for review.