What DDR chipset are you waiting for?

[D F]

I am yet to upgrade, and am not happy with the markey as of yet. DDR prices have to come over to aus, we are still waiting for the sis735 and nForce to hit the shelves. Which chipset are you waiting for?

AMD 760 is expensive, ( US$40's each ) AMD do not intend to enter the chipset market anyway. It only officially supports 2 unbuffered (not regestered) dimms (yeah i know the kg7 has 4 slots, reviewers have had sucess in populating them all with unbuffered sticks of the same size and type crucial 128's I think But, as soon as mixed types were used, BSODs galore. Now I intend to mix memory types when I upgrade in the future, so I want this thing to work!) 2 Dims is not enough!

VIA KT266 looks interesting, reasonably priced, though I dont really trust them any more since they have produced that problematic kT133, and I didnt like this whole capping bs, where we overclockers could not use the upper busspeeds untill now. Even then, have already revised the KT266 already, to fix up the performance somewhat, and hopefully fix some bugs. Its to be called the 'KT266 PRO'. MB manufacturs are holding out for it. This chipset supports 3 unbuffered (not regestered) Sticks of memory, which is nice to note. Pricing is in the midrange for this, US$32 a piece, in large quantity ofcource.

ALi MAGiK 1 Well, I have never taken much interest in this one, its supposed to be cheap, (I could not find the price of this anywhere) the asus A7m266 has not sold very well at all, you can get one for little over 300$ at the computer markets. I dont know why I dont like them, acer perhaps? I dont know how many unbuffered (not regestered) DDR sticks this one supports (just says 3x184 pin DDR DIMMs up to 3GB ), it is not very well documented for some reason. If someone can tell me the price, we can get this unit in prospective.

Sis 735 last but not least, sis 735. It is by far the most interesting one of the lot, a most sucessfull launch, sis reference boards everywhere (though I must note, VIAHW got a kt266 reference some time ago) people look interested (didnt see any of this with ali, it just happened), low cost (us$27), build in south bridge, I like it. Supports 3 unbuffered (not regestered) sticks, every thing about it is attractive. Interesting to note that ABIT, Gigabyte, and ASUS (and a couple of other little people, like chaintech, ecs etc ) are getting into this chipset ( I cant wait to see the ABIT ks7, cheap, overclockable, fast, not via).

NVIDIA CRUSH Well this is some time off, thoug it looks interesting though, did I mention the onboard GF2mx graphics? There is 2 models of this chipset, the nForce 220 and 420. the 420 is supposed to have dual channel DDR (slots 1 and 3 = channel 1, slots 2 = channel 2) though you need to use 2 sticks of memory to use it. Not sure what happens when you use 3 sticks. The idea behind this is similar to the memory architecure used in the gf3. you have multiple controllers so requests can be executed more quickly. The gf3 has 4 of these controllers, the nforce has 2 (for dual channel). The 220 doesnt have this feature, but is is to be a hell of alot cheaper, about 50% cheaper, for mabee 50% less memory controllers. The chipset is also supposed to have some built in prefetch cache or something like that, where the chipset tries to predict what data the processor needs next and fetches it, then stores it into its onboard cache. Could called level 3 cache I suppose.
All this sounds good and well untill you hear the price. The nForece 420 is to cost US$90+ a piece, and for the 220, around $50. You may think this is a little expencive, and you may be right. BUT you think about the cost of a GF3, Nvidia would price the chip for that in a similar way dont you think? (you do have to pay for the memeory too).
I am not prepard to pay 180$ just for a chipset, I'd rather spend a bit more on a seperate vid card of similar specs. With that, I could take it out and use it in another board. You may think the memory bandwidth is kickass on boards with the nforce, though this is still classed as the dreaded Shared memory architecture . What if you break one of these boards? they'll cost around $400 me thinks - too much money to invest in 1 pcb. Smaller, cheaper components are better, one little thing dies, not as much of a deal then say having your mobbo + video die at once.


I have not deatailed the performance of these
chip too much here as there are many other aspects which you need to pay attention to. Price, and compadibility for example. Though basically sis beats them all most of the time by a small margin, kt266 likes to be down the bottom there as with all of its chipsets (remember the 'ol bx days when people were all excited about this 1/2 agp divider that the via apollo pro offered? then somebody discovered 4 way interleaving, which was half a solution, though it never really conquered bx, however it did have high fsb's up its sleave.)

Edit: I got 'buffered' and 'regestered' confused ok. I wondered why you were all acting strange, Dammit, I can't change the poll!
Acording to the amd techdoc, unbuffered refers to DIMMs which are not regestered.

[statix]

I have KT266 mobo (8KHA) already and no probs with it so maybe nForce is my next upgrade if the performance is great ....

[seaQuest_AMD]

Ill be going for the nForce if I was going for a Uni-Processor computer, but I really have my heart set on a AMD 760MP or AMD 760MPX chipset...pitty about the price.

[The Beast]

If your poll wasn't such a blatent display of your lack of ojectivity then I might be bothered responding.

What is the point of this poll? It's clear you've already made up your mind to go with the SiS, and there is nothing wrong with that, but how can people be expected to answer your poll with your preconcieved ideas attached to each selection?

If you must know, I chose the Epox 8K7A+ with AMD 760 chipset, because it's a capable chipset, on a well priced, stable, feature packed board. Having more than two dimms doesn't mean jack to me. In fact I only use one stick (256mb) as it is. If I were to get another, 512mb would be MORE than enough, at least for the lifetime of this board. I don't give a crap about buffered memory, nor would a hell of lot of other people who chose AMD 760 boards.

Oh, and it's available NOW. No need to wait.

Good luck with your poll.

[D F]

I see. So you think that a paragraph full off my lack of objectivity should of been placed at the bottom?
Its just the AMD comment you disagree on right, I was trying to refer to one of the pro's/cons in each section.

Do you agree on these following facts?
Ali is a low cost solution.
The kt133a chipset had problems with the soundblaster live.
The nForce is a fast, but expencive solution.

[chainbolt]

may I ask, what has the AMD 760 chipset to do with "buffered" memory? I'm running now my 3rd AMD 760 board (A7M266, 8K7A, and 7DXR) and none of them needs "buffered" memory.

You need buffered memory only for the 7DXR if you populate all 3 sockets, or more than 2 (!) Gigabyte. In case of the new KG7 you do need any buffered RAM at all, even if you populate all 4 sockets. So the AMD category is grossly misleading.

Could you please explain why 2 DIMMS are not enough? Are you in CAD engeenering? In almost 10 years, I never populated more than 2 sockets, for overclocking anyway only 1

I also would be more careful with a statement like "SiS 735 is by far the most interesting chipset". How do you know this? Do you have such a board? Nobody has it, just some preview boards are around, and they show that the SiS735 is barely capable to defeat the much older AMD 760 chipset, and that is a proven solution, very stable, without any known "issue". SiS is not just famous for making high-end chipsets, it's there first try. Even VIA with much more experience screwed the KT266. Let's wait until the first SiS735 boards are out, how much they really cost, how good the perform, how stable they are, and how well they fit to other harware componets like vidcards, newer CPU's, etc. Long way to go! Maybe at the end of this year, we can make a statement.

Maybe you don't know, but DDR boards are around since quite a long time now, actually November 2000. And since that time the AMD 760 chipset has proven to be the best performing and most stable chipset, and that will stay for some time to come. Of course, there is always something better coming. We expected this already in April, when the KT266 chipset was announced as THE hit. And we all know what happened, despite glorious previews.

[D F]

Originally posted by chainbolt
In case of the new KG7 you do need any buffered RAM at all, even if you populate all 4 sockets.

I meant to say regestered, not buffered. If you populate more then 2 DIMMs on the kg7, you should use regestered DDR. Big mistake. This is from the abit website:
Memory
Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support up to 4 GB PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM module - Doesn't really say much there
This is from the AMD 760 techdoc:
- Supports the following DRAM
+ Up to two unbuffered DIMMs or four regestered DIMMs

Originally posted by chainbolt
Could you please explain why 2 DIMMS are not enough? Are you in CAD engeenering? In almost 10 years, I never populated more than 2 sockets, for overclocking anyway only 1

I'll tell you why 2 dimms is not enough, I intend to use this board for a long time, through about 2 cpu upgrades if I can. That involves upgading the memory 2 times. Since this will be the ONLY DDR board in my house, I cannot simply put higher density sitcks in by shuffleing all the memory around in my house.

Originally posted by chainbolt
I also would be more careful with a statement like "SiS 735 is by far the most interesting chipset". How do you know this?

Its the only one with that built in southbridge. Sis clam the effective bandiwth between the southbridge and the northbridge is 1.2GB/s. They call it a 'multi threaded io link' probebly cause they only have to go a couple of mm's, they can do it any way they like. The reviewer reported that during operation, the chip dissapated very little heat, I like a motherboard with low power overhead. And thirdly, it has built in ethernet, which just might be more effective than say a realtek card in terms of latency and cpu utilization. And thirdly, it is supposed to be CHEAP. ABIT is going to make a product out of it. Do you know if abit is going ot make a product featuring the ALi MagiK 1 chipset?

[xhadow]

i'm no fans of sblive so, no probs with via
currently have the AMD 761 chip (Epox 8k7a), next upgrade
probably the Sis 735

[Dr Kildare]

nForce does look pretty sweet but only time will tell... Biggest feature would be the dual DDR setup...

[chainbolt]

Originally posted by DF
Its the only one with that built in southbridge. Sis clam the effective bandiwth between the southbridge and the northbridge is 1.2GB/s. They call it a 'multi threaded io link' probebly cause they only have to go a couple of mm's, they can do it any way they like. The reviewer reported that during operation, the chip dissapated very little heat, I like a motherboard with low power overhead. And thirdly, it has built in ethernet, which just might be more effective than say a realtek card in terms of latency and cpu utilization. And thirdly, it is supposed to be CHEAP. ABIT is going to make a product out of it. Do you know if abit is going ot make a product featuring the ALi MagiK 1 chipset? [/B]

SiS can claim a lot, the first previews show they are not delivering: the SiS 735 preview board is just 1% to 3% faster than AMD 760 boards, that's well within the margin of error. That might change of course later. But it reminds me too much on the KT266 chipset, and what was said in all these glorious previews: V-link architecure between the bridges! Double transfer rate! Will smoke the AMD 760 chipset! As we all know, it never did.

I agree that the SiS735 is an interesting new offer on the horizon, and maybe cheap and affordable: but given all the hype
we had with the KT266 chipetset not long ago, I have become suspicious about these claims about double and triple transfer rates.

[xsive]

Originally posted by D*F
ALi MAGiK 1 Well, I have never taken much interest in this one, its supposed to be cheap, (I could not find the price of this anywhere) the asus A7m266 has not sold very well at all, you can get one for little over 300$ at the computer markets. I dont know why I dont like them, acer perhaps? I dont know how many unbuffered (not regestered) DDR sticks this one supports (just says 3x184 pin DDR DIMMs up to 3GB ), it is not very well documented for some reason. If someone can tell me the price, we can get this unit in prospective.

How can you judge a chipset without knowing anything about it?!?! You even misquoted board models! The A7M266 is based on 761, its the A7A266 which is based on the ALi.
Theres nothing actually wrong with this chipset, it offers more bandwidth than 761, with the only drawback being its horrible latencies.

Ali is a low cost solution.

The ALi was never intended as a budget DDR chipset - the reason theyre so much cheaper than 760 boards is ALi have the ability to better massproduce, being an actual chipset manufacturer, unlike AMD. Same deal with VIA.

The kt133a chipset had problems with the soundblaster live.

uhm, the SB Live problem wasnt specific to the KT133A, it was an issue with the 686B southbridge which affects alot of boards, including those based on 761 & KT266.

[D F]

Originally posted by xsive


How can you judge a chipset without knowing anything about it?!?! You even misquoted board models! The A7M266 is based on 761, its the A7A266 which is based on the ALi.
Theres nothing actually wrong with this chipset, it offers more bandwidth than 761, with the only drawback being its horrible latencies.

Well I find it mighty strange how there was little press release, I spent a good 20 mins looking for the price of the ALi, I had no luck all I kept seeing is 'low cost' so I thought , ok then. (Just type 'kt266 price' and you will get the pr from some news site in no time, most of the time, you won't even have to click on link)

Originally posted by xsive

The ALi was never intended as a budget DDR chipset - the reason theyre so much cheaper than 760 boards is ALi have the ability to better massproduce, being an actual chipset manufacturer, unlike AMD. Same deal with VIA.

Well there is one thing I am not paying for when I buy this "never intended as a budget" chipset is cause I have never heard of them. But what an interesting name it has.
When you go down to the markets, and you see some 300 watt power supply, and you look at it, nice fan, plenty of wires and you decide that you liked it. Now you want to check the label to see what the ratings are, you start seriously considering buying the device. But when you check out the brand name, you go WTF are they? Soon as you see that, you look more closely for the price. You notice that it is similarly price as an Aopen power supply. Would you then, have any interst at all in purchasing that power supply? (Providing that there were some other brands, ones which you have heard of before)

I am not talking about fashon (like the nike bullshit thats around, the quality of all those brands is no better than some others) but brand names and their reputation. Now ALi have no repultation. Can you remember anyone here using any chipset from them? The only chipset I can remember they produced is that one which has built in TNT2 in the northbridge. Now the intersting thing about this is that it had its own dedicated memeory. The board which it was built on which I read the review of was made by PCCHIPS. The product was not all that hot. The picture at medium resolutions was blurry. (Now I would of thought that with a chipset with onboard TNT2 graphics, with its own dedicated memory would perform just like the real thing. It didnt. It 50% slower then a pci TNT card which was insterted in a pci slot. Now would you now consider purchasing this "never intended as a budget" chipset anymore?

Why I called them cheap, is that they have to be approapriately priced in order to get some people to buy the product based on that board. The A7A266 (I stand corrected) was selling at north rocks for little over 300. I find that to be a cheap DDR motherboard. Do you?

Another thing is that there is not enough DDR memory around yet in this country for the price to be right. We get all this extreemly cheap SDR, though DDR is nowhere as cheap.

PC-2100 256mb 184-pin DDR SDRAM (Apacer) for DDR motherboards only $176.00 (aus pc market)

256Mb 168pin Corsair DDR PC2100 SDRAM $199 (computer aliance)

Sure they are good prices, though I dont have a CC and I dont intend to pay shipping either, so I'll have to wait untill the markets have it aswell.

Originally posted by xsive

The ALi was never intended as a budget DDR chipset - the reason theyre so much cheaper than 760 boards is ALi have the ability to better massproduce, being an actual chipset manufacturer, unlike AMD. Same deal with VIA.

Does Nvidia have the ability to masproduce aswell? Though they are a little pricy dont you think? Oh yes, you are paying for the brand name of the company. Nvidia have a good reputation. You trust Nvidia to produce good quality Video (and now motherboard) chipsets free from bugs which are of top preformance (the nForce was codenamed 'CRUSH', to CRUSH the opposition perhaps?) though oviously that money is all (hopefully) going towards more R and D.

Originally posted by xsive

uhm, the SB Live problem wasnt specific to the KT133A, it was an issue with the 686B southbridge which affects alot of boards, including those based on 761 & KT266.

Yeah yeah, when you look on the front of your asus a7v133, does it say 'KT133 chipset' or 'includes 686B southbridge' ? Usually, the chipset is sold in a pair, the new southbridge was brought in at pretty much the same time as the new northbridge, so most of the MB manufacturers did the change over at the same time. Execpt for 1 of them wich was MSI.

Originally posted by chainbolt

Remember, the reference motherboard is always slower than the real thing. So in this graph, we have a reference 735 up against a Ga-7DXR (which is supposed to be FAST).

[chainbolt]

Originally posted by D*F


Remember, the reference motherboard is always slower than the real thing. So in this graph, we have a reference 735 up against a Ga-7DXR (which is supposed to be FAST). [/B]

That unfortunately is NOT at always true, we know cases, just recently with the MSI KT 266, where the review/preview boards were faster than the actual retail boards

And, yes, the graph I posted, shows that a good AMD 760 board is as fast as a SiS 735 board. And as explained already, the AMD 760 chipset is almost 1 year around, that's a proven, reliable solution without any issue, implemented by numerous board manufacturers. I haven head of any high-end SiS chipset recently

Again, nobody says the the SiS 735 will be BAD or does not look interesting, it coudl be a hit. I just would be more cautious: the first benchmarks see graph) are not very promising and as long as the reliabiltiy and compatibility of the chipset in actual business has not been proven, it should not be hyped. It's far too early to make statements like "looks like a winner"

[chainbolt]

despite the very "encouraging" wording, the SiS 735 does not look like a winner in this poll

[chainbolt]

Originally posted by DF


I'll tell you why 2 dimms is not enough, I intend to use this board for a long time, through about 2 cpu upgrades if I can. That involves upgading the memory 2 times. Since this will be the ONLY DDR board in my house, I cannot simply put higher density sitcks in by shuffleing all the memory around in my house.

Nobody wants to waste money, but I still do not understand why 2 DIMM sockets are not enough for you. If you buy now for example 1 stick 256 DDR PC2100 stick, that's enough for 99% of everything now, and later you can buy another 256 stick or a 512 stick or anything else.

Even for the most challenging spread sheet calculation or video editing I never need more than 512 MB (and that is already overkill, as our IT guy told me)