If all the mainboard manufacturers are very happy with SiS645 chipset, we wouldn’t say the same about its integrated SiS650 brother: there has been only one single mainboard on it announced since its launching. It was a solution from SiS’ closest partner – Elitegroup (see this news story).
On the one hand, it is all very understandable. The chipsets like i815/E have always looked like some marketing freaks unlike their discrete counterparts (i815P/EP), as their integrated graphics always left much to be desired. but on the other hand, the opportunity to launch the first integrated solutions for Pentium4 processors at a considerably low price (SiS650 costs large mainboard manufacturers only $25) looks quite attractive. Especially, since its integrated SiS315 graphics core is not that weak.
However, time passes and the major mainboard makers keep silent. At first, we supposed that it is again the traditional SiS’ inability to supply chipsets in sufficient quantities, however, we were mistaken: today a new SiS650 based solution was announced by the Taiwanese JET WAY Company, which production capacity makes 180 thousand pieces a month, not more (it is not even the second-tier, but the third-tier rate). It means that SiS doesn’t have any problems with the chipset supplies, because they usually provide their large customers with the chipsets first (such as ASUS and ECS). Then why are the mainboard manufacturers so slow with the launching of their SiS650 based products?
Oh, we have nearly forgot to mention the specs of the freshly announced SiS650 based S450/S450L solutions. The boards are designed in MicroATX form-factor, support Socket478 Pentium 4 CPUs, feature 2 DIMM slots for the maximum of 2GB PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 DDR SDRAM. They have an AGP 4x slot, an integrated SiS315 graphics core, 3 PCI and 1 CNR slot, ATA/100 support implemented in SiS961 South Bridge, 10/100 BaseT LAN (by S450L only), AC’97 sound, 2 USB ports, Jumperless technology, etc. All in all, these are good solutions for a relatively cheap office PC built on Pentium 4 processor.