Comdex 2002 Motherboard Coverage - Part I

ECS

ECS is yet another motherboard manufacturer that that was showing off their Hammer solutions.

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The first Hammer board pictured above is ECS's K8VTM (mATX) motherboard based on VIA's K8T400M chipset.

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The second Hammer board is dubbed the ECS K8VTA (ATX) and is based on the VIA K8T400 chipset.

The third and final Hammer motherboard is based on SiS' 755 Hammer chipset and is dubbed the ECS K8S5A.

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Moving on, we see that ECS has developed some fairly interesting integrated solutions that lots of system integrators should love. The motherboard pictured above is called the P4S8AG, and is based on the SiS 648 chipset.

What makes this board special is the on-board SiS Xabre 200 graphics (which comes with 64MB of Samsung memory). We'd be very interested in seeing how the 845GE stacks up against the Xabre 200 in 2D and 3D performance once we can get our hands on a sample.

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The second motherboard pictured is ECS's K7S7AG (ATX) motherboard based on the K7 SiS 746 chipset. While we're sure nForce2 IGP boards will outperform Xabre 200 boards, it still doesn't rule out ECS's board as a low-cost solution, which is what ECS is famous for to begin with.

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The final and most interesting board on display in the ECS showroom was their L4S55A based on the SiS 655 chipset. Granite Bay has already launched, but SiS still plans to have stiff competition for Intel's latest dual DDR chipset. Dubbed the SiS 655, this chipset supports dual DDR333 memory, meaning motherboards based on the 655 chipset will have a 4:5 divider in the BIOS that enables 333MHz memory speed assuming you're using a 533MHz FSB processor. However, having dual DDR333 may not be beneficial, as this would offer well over 1GB/s more than the P4's FSB can handle and could result in latency penalties which would lower performance versus dual DDR266 mode.

ECS is already selling limited numbers of SiS 655 boards on the market today. Their SiS 655 boards aren't selling in the U.S. yet, but they're definitely in Asia, though in limited quantities at the moment. ECS tells us that their 655 board will be ready for the U.S. this month, although we have our doubts, despite the close relationship between SiS and ECS. It is interesting to note that MSI cites a January timeframe for shipping their SiS 655 boards.