Introduction

Ever since the Pentium 4 was first conceived, Intel has maintained a multi-tiered strategy for chipsets based on the platform. Initially it was the 850 with Rambus RDRAM versus 845 and later 845E with DDR SDRAM. Then, around this time last year, Intel’s platform of choice for the high-end sector was the dual-channel E7205 (Granite Bay) chipset (alongside with 850E), while Intel’s 845PE/GE served the mainstream market.

ASUS P4S800D-E Deluxe motherboard

Clean layout

When Intel unveiled its 800MHz front-side bus, Intel attempted to continue this strategy, much to the chagrin of many hardware enthusiasts. 875P (Canterwood) was intended to be the platform of choice for the performance crowd, while 865PE/GE (Springdale) serviced the mainstream segment. Both chipsets featured dual-channel memory architectures, supported Intel’s 800MHz bus, Serial ATA, and many other cutting edge technologies, with the key differences being performance and price. Many Canterwood motherboards hovered in the $180 and up range, while Springdale boards could be found for $120-$150. Canterwood’s performance edge came from Intel’s Performance Acceleration Technology, commonly referred to as PAT.

PAT accelerated the memory timings within the North Bridge of the chipset, ultimately enhancing performance. Canterwood had it, but Springdale didn’t. Or so we were told by Intel.

Lower portion of the motherboard

Top of the board

It turns out that both chipsets were the same, only Canterwood had been verified by Intel to work with PAT while Springdale hadn’t. However, a handful of enterprising motherboard manufacturers (including ASUS) discovered that many Springdale boards were quite stable with the faster timings, and enabled the functionality on their boards only under a different name to avoid sanctioning by Intel. As a result, many gamers and enthusiasts flocked to the Springdale platform.

Since then things have been rather tame, many motherboard manufacturers have released their second generation of 865 and 875 products, but nothing’s really shook up the industry.

Until now that is, as SiS has prepped a dual-channel, Prescott Pentium 4 processor supporting equivalent to Intel’s 865 and 875 chipsets that’s been designed to offer similar levels of performance, well-rounded features, and most importantly for those of you on a budget, a more conservative price. The name of this chipset? SiS 655 TX!

SiS655TX North Bridge

From a features perspective, SiS’ 655TX chipset lays claim to all of the key highlights of Intel’s chipsets. It supports the latest 800MHz front-side bus processors (including Intel’s Extreme Edition CPUs), and can be outfitted with DDR400 memory in a dual-channel memory configuration, capable of feeding the Pentium 4 processor with up to 6.4GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth. (Single-channel operation is also supported if you’d like to save money now, and upgrade to dual channel later).

Many of the components are color coded

Another profile shot of the board

SiS was the first chipset manufacturer to bring AGP 8X to the Pentium 4 platform, so it’s no surprise to see that the SiS655TX natively supports this interface. Up to 4GB of memory is supported by the North Bridge, with up to 1GB per DIMM.