SiS 745 Chipset Results

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 2:05 am

Hi All,

I was wondering if there is anybody who is using a Pulsar setup with a SiS 745 based motherboard. This chipset seems to be better with PCI performance than VIA based motherboards. As far as I know there are three motherboards with this chipset at the moment: an Elitegroup, a MSI and a Chaintech. Asus is also about to release a SiS 745 based motherboard (A7S333).

If there's nobody on this forum who has any experiences with this chipset, I might take the risc and try one myself (probably the MSI one), but any comments from existing users would be highly appriciated.

cheers!
vincent

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 2:50 am

I tried the ECS k7s5a with the SiS735 chipset. This chipset is also supposed to have great PCI-bandwith. It was however mediocore with Pulsar. I remember Subhuman once noted something about, that maybe the actual problem was timing rather than bandwith.

Immanuel

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 4:19 am

Thanks for the info Immanuel, although I'm not completely sure what you mean with this 'timing' . Is this chipset, or motherboard dependant? So could it be that it has something to do with Elitegroup motherboards and that it could be fine with the for example MSI 745 Ultra?

cheers!
vincent

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 6:06 am

Is it really worth all your pain and suffering just to keep using AMD

they are not "the little guys" they are a large and unscrupulous company just like intel

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 6:44 am

Unfortunately, that's a valid point you've got there, defex

I have to admit that this SiS chipset investigation will be my last attempt to find a Pulsar suitable AMD chipset.

So is there anybody who can give me a reason to go the heroic, but troublesome AMD way, before I'll take the step to follow the evil & mean, but troublefree Intel way?

cheers!
vincent

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 7:14 am

Intel seems to work better according to what we see in various audio forums. Go AMD if you want to play russian roulette! I should know as it took me almost a year to get a smooth running DAW using a7v133 mobo.. lately paired with an athlon 1800+

Post by **garyb** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 7:51 pm

the mobo i got for my p4 (intel d850mvl) has the world's shittiest bios.it allows few tweaks.i only deleted all the system and mobo devices from 98se and then let windows install the new mobo when i changed from amd and a via chipset instead of doing a proper clean install.i did the minimum of tweaks (over two evenings including the initial construction).

boy, does that thing run smooth..............

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 7:53 am

[OT] garyb, the whole point of Intel-brand motherboards (as opposed to say, an ASUS board with an Intel chipset), is that the Intel-brand motherboards work out of the box, no tweaks required. They are optimized for maximum stability rather than tweakability. There is less to go wrong with them. Less stuff to worry about tweaking. Sometimes, because Intel is using their own chipsets, they are actually able to get a little extra performance even in 'stock' state than other mfgs.

So if you want to tweak, get an ASUS with Intel chipset, if you want to get a board and forget about it, with maximum stability (and onboard LAN!) get the Intel boards, they are good. But you are right, they lack "overclocking" features, etc.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 8:17 am

yes, sub! (i) confirm that!

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 12:46 pm

A big thanks to everybody who responded so far!

I think you have convinced me now, so I'll go for the Intel solution. I've checked some online stores in the Netherlands (because that's where I'm coming from) and I'm supprised that the price difference isn't that much between comparable performing AMD and Intel systems anymore(about 200 euro for the kind of system I'm looking for).

I think my system will be a P4 2GHz A, with an Asus P4B266. One last question though. Is there a big difference in memory performance between DDR solutions (Asus P4B266) and Rambus solutions (Asus P4T-E)? I use a lot of sampling (Pulsar and native), so if there is a big difference, I might go for the P4T-E, despite of its lack of OC features

.

Thanks in advance,
vincent

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 1:03 pm

For normal usage and at 2.0ghz, RDRAM won't quite begin to flex it's muscle (at least for your needs with sampling, etc). The extra bandwidth is QUITE helpful as the clock speeds scale, however...

P4T-E clocks really well - but there are a few versions - to clock you need the version with the "ICS" chips near the RDRAM slots. Atacom.com was selling gauranteed "ICS" P4T-Es for awhile, but you're right, difficult to find one of these. I was lucky enough to get one with the ICS chips when I bought mine back in Oct01.

I think the P4B266 (or P4B266-C) are pretty nice boards though. You should do good with one of those.