The 735 is super stable. I don't think its a mistake. I doubt via266a is as reliable and you can't beat the price of a 735 chipset.

AG 75.

I think they should have limited the Nforce to 2 mem slots, to force the memory in the right slots. 3 dimms give it grief anyway.

To make matters worse, apparently the slot to avoid changes between manufacturers (MSI avoid 2, ASUS avoid 3). UGh!

But the newest version of Sisoft apparently doesn't like Nforce:

http://www.bench-house.com/motherboard/asus/nforce/nforce_005.html

I am looking forward to more reviews of this 415 board.

Cheers

What I find weird is the result of the SiSoft Sandra Memory Benchmark. In other reviews I read, the nForce performed much better in that specific benchmark and even in the others it was actually on-par with VIA. It could be that the testers have misplaced the Dimms, since you have to put them in the correct slots. Misplacing them disables the TwinBank memory-bandwidth-doubling.

OEM Athlons...I can't say I've ever had any arrive and/or go bad...but then again, I don't sell a huge amounts of systems/processors. How would getting boxed processors help? I always thought they were made the same.

Unfortunately, I see two issues with this review. One, the nforce onboard video, while being inferior to the ti500, is nevertheless on the chipset and therefore might run faster than a card based video. Also the issue of stability was never addressed and is a very important issue with anything remotely associated with companies like AMD, VIA, and SIS. Being a computer repair tech at a distributor/OEM, I see what gets returned and complained about most, and it is definitely these guys. Lately I have seen a dramatic increase in the failure of AMD OEM processors. If a person were going to buy an AMD based system these days, I would stick with the nforce and definitely get a BOXED Athlon. The stability alone would make it worth the extra few bucks. I dislike the nVidia monopoly as much as the next guy, but to date I have seen no (0) returns or complaints of the nforce-based boards and systems we sell.

Thanks for all the work! I am ready to do a major upgrade and have been shopping the pricewatch boards for a while. I had settled on the Sis 735 chipset, and I see that would have been a mistake. Sharing the knowledge, and doing the work to get the knowledge, is what makes being a geek fun.

thanks damage, finally an answer! hehe

Whatever, I don't trust to VIA Technologies!!! Buy the nForce for working southbridge! (even I hate nVidia) :(

Originally Posted by LocalYokel
Wow, the server is quite gracefully handling a slashdotting from this article...

sativa:

VIA gave us two BIOSes for the reference board. One supports overclocking, and the other will boot in Windows. :) They tried, we tried, but OCing that board just didn't work out. Wait for the production mobos, and we'll OC those.

so no one has seen oc'ing of the kt333 board? whats going on? is there some kind of deal everyone has with via concerning that?

What's the point of KT333A or KT400?

They're still woefully underpowered, what with having only one CPU and all.

IntelMole:

I'm kind of contemplating what to do with the next CPU round-up. If I had to do it today, I'd probably compare the P4 on an SiS 645 board with the Athlon XP on a KT333 board, so they'd both have decent DDR333 implementations. But I dunno. I probably won't have to decide between current options by the time a new CPU hits, though.... I think.

Originally Posted by GiGNiC
#57

a 166Mhz FSB for Hammer, NO :p, there is no such thing (well, it\'s inside the core, so...)

they might have ment thoroughbred or barton (as inquirer mentioned aswell) as being next generation K7\'s ?? with generation being \"over\"stated :)

#61 -- Ahhhh MoSlo. I remember needing that to make Wing Commander 2 playable on a 486DX-50. Now it's hard to believe that a 486 was ever too fast for anything :)

Okay everyone, let's get real here...

You all knew from Damage's review that there wasn't going to be any REAL difference in speeds, so why mention it here? The point is, this isn't a chipset review... it's an investigation into DDR333 at the moment.

I WILL be getting a KT333 As soon as I buy my pc because there is no real point in not. Look at it from that POV and it becomes a worthwhile idea.

Oh yeah, and a possible explanation for the Sphinx 3.3 benchmark...

Speech recognition is very jumpy-about-all-over-the-place... If my theory is correct (and it might well not be :-) then the program listens to what you are saying and sends it from the sound card to the RAM. The processor lifts it from the RAM into its cache through prefetch if available (which if you are buying a new system will exist...) Sound files are HUGE btw... They aren't compressed on the fly into mp3 files, they are heard as wavs, recorded as wavs, and sent as wavs... 1411kbps is CD quality wav btw. Like I said, huge.... You all know this though.

Anyways, I doubt very much that the stream is constant, because the processor has to do so much work on the sound it has before getting more. If the stream were constant, it's pretty likely your RAM would slow the system to a crawl eventually.

So, it stops and starts again all over the place, this is where the lower latency helps. The KT333 has the lowest latency of the lot, and a little bit more throughput than the KT266A when using DDR333, so is it really that surprising that it wins that test easily?

Oh and Damage, when there's enough KT333 chipsets available, will you satisfy the AMD fanboys by including it in your AMD-Intel comparisons? I'm guessing that if you put an equal speed P4-Athlon (I mean model number for the Athlon) then it might run neck-and-neck on Sphinx :-)

Strike another mark on the board for the AMD fanboys,
IntelMole

"If a Winchip and a Pentium 1 can both run it, it'd be sinful to put on an Athlon...

Just my .01$ "

That the beauty of x86 systems (and the only virtue - AFAIK). Backward compatibility! ability to run any program from 1981 through today. Yes I still have read DOS-6.22 underneath windoze98SE, so I can and do run stuff like the old 1982 8088-based DigDug on my Athlon (and around 500 other XT games I "found") Just run MoSlo before some of them and they run at the right speed too. I also run alot of Apple-2 vintage games via the AppleWin emulator (and I run VICE alot too).

"#53 why not spend $50 to get a compatible sound card rather than $100+ for an entirely new board? "

Because FM-synthesis sound which those old XT games use will only run on a real SB-16 under real DOS.

There is NOT sound support with any other card (including "clones" -which are not compatible when you go back this far in time).

"or try patching to new bios, new pci latency patch, new sound card drivers "

I did all that months ago -------- no difference ;-/

::smacks you with a via board::

AG58, hey np! Google is quite a help with a quick search huh?

Originally Posted by st. babu
[q]OT I know, but AG57, I\'ve been lookng for a Jap-Eng translator for ages now - you\'ve answered my prayers :)
[/q]

No doubt! NOW I can figure out what\'s REALLY on those freaky pizzas!

OT I know, but AG57, I've been lookng for a Jap-Eng translator for ages now - you've answered my prayers :)

AG16 here Damage, I'm kinda late I know. Guess what I just scooped up? PC Watch Japan says they were at the VIA DDR333 Summit and the KT333A has been removed from the roadmap and replaced with the KT400(coming during the 2nd quarter), which has the same features I mentioned, with support for DDR400. Also when questioned about the 333mhz fsb, AMD Taiwan said not in the current 7th generation processors, but there is a possibility in the next generation(hammer of course, right?) being considered, not decided yet when it will be implemented.

here's the linkage in japanese http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/2002/0221/via.htm

and translated into english, though a little disjointed I used this online translator at http://www.cafeglobe.com/cafe/wotg/index_en.html

If a Winchip and a Pentium 1 can both run it, it'd be sinful to put on an Athlon...

Just my .01$

#53 why not spend $50 to get a compatible sound card rather than $100+ for an entirely new board?

or try patching to new bios, new pci latency patch, new sound card drivers

::smacks you with a via board::

#49: "I will never buy VIA - regardless of their 'reformation'"

I used to say that about AMD back when the Pentium II/BX 440 were king. I always said that I'd "never use AMD" because of their inferior floating point and crappy chipsets. My, how times have changed...

I currently own two Athlon systems and both are using VIA chipsets. I haven't had any "issues" with either system and both are running stable. The KT333 looks promising when using PC2700 RAM, but I just upgraded to a KT266A motherboard, so, I'll be happy with it for another six to twelve months.

#50 yes I was "around" when SiS made crap. i 've "been around" for 10-years WRT PC's now.

I've never owned a SiS baord before, so I'm ok with buying a SiS.

I've sufferd with SB-16 "sputter-shudder-and cracle on TWO via boarnds now (and two years later still). Via can GTH in my book.

I want anyone OTHER than Via. SiS looks good, the 635, the 735, and the 745 all look fine and fast.

I can keep your Via.

Hell Maelstrum is totally unplayable with sound on my system due to soundblaster incompatibility.

My winchip system has no proble using the SB-16 and runs Maelstrum with sound -- cleanly. My mothers Intel pentium runs it SB-16 and Maestrum just fine and dandy - nuff said.

I'll tellya why! 'Cause SiS has an effeminate name and the big boys don't think girls can do a good job!

____________

We don't think, we know.

I want SiS, but not an ECS................So why is't SiS getting more support from makers....... I know I'm not the only one who wishes for a non-ECS SiS board.
----------

I'll tellya why! 'Cause SiS has an effeminate name and the big boys don't think girls can do a good job!

Originally Posted by adisor
#49 err, were u around the hardware world when SiS was making the crappyest chipsets on earth ???

They have \"reformated\" now and you don\'t seem to mind their past...

I would reconsider your thinking if i were you... I for one, buy the best bang for the money whether it be Intell/AMD/Via/etc...

Adi

So Leadtech has a better Sis-735 board??

Who offers the SiS-635 - just ECS?

Why the hell aren't there more brands to choose from in the SiS camp!! I've been looking for more offers since Sep., and yet all I see is ECS.

Why?????

I will never buy VIA - regardless of their "reformation" - and ALi has been slowish for some time now.........

I want SiS, but not an ECS................So why is't SiS getting more support from makers....... I know I'm not the only one who wishes for a non-ECS SiS board.

Will somebody please offer a SiS-based motherboard which has FSB overclocking ability - please ;-/