Although last year SiS didn’t manage to introduce any chipsets, which could be available in mass quantities, the mainboard manufacturers were still very enthusiastic about the new products from this company, namely, SiS635 and SiS735. At first sight we thought that SiS is a perfect seducer, however, the real reason turned out much more down-to-earth. This company simply sells its products at a much lower price than its competitors. For instance, discrete chipsets supporting DDR SDRAM, SiS635 and SiS735, are sold for only $27 per unit, which is about $5-10 less than similar chipsets from other manufacturers cost. And the result of this pricing policy doesn’t keep waiting for long: a lot of mainboard manufacturers are planning to offer their new products based on these chipsets in late Q2 – early Q3 2001. Take for instance, Shuttle: they are planning two new products based on SiS chipsets:

• AS30. This mainboard is based on SiS635 and supports Socket370/FC-PGA processors. There will be 3 DIMM slots for DDR memory, 1 AGP 4x slot, 5 PCI and 1 ACR slot. Other features are quite standard: AC’97 sound, ATA/100, etc.
• AS40. This is a similar board, thought based on SiS735 and provided with a Socket A. there will be 4 DDR DIMM slots, 1 AGP 4x, 6 PCI and 1 CNR slot, AC97 sound, ATA/100 and an integrated LAN controller.

Well, we sincerely hope that this time SiS manages everything and the money spent on new mainboard designs will not be wasted.