Well, it seems that not so long ago we told you about SiS’ plans in great detail. However, a few days ago I found out that they were changed one more time. We have already got used to VIA’s constant releases of "pseudo-new" chipsets boasting some really trifling differences. SiS seems to be sticking to the same addictive practice from time to time, releasing "DX" solutions, which hardly have many differences from the predecessors. Nevertheless, I discovered that SiS is going to introduce one more suffix for the so called "pseudo-new" solutions very soon. This will be "FX" used to name a few new solutions for Pentium 4 and Athlon.

The first FX-chipset to come will be SiS746FX for Socket A systems. As you know, its forefather, SiS746, is a DDR333 solution for Athlon platforms supporting AGP 8x and MuTIOL bus to connect the North and South Bridges of the chipset at 1GB/sec. This chipset is already officially announced. Then in the nearest future SiS will launch SiS746DX, which is none other but a slightly updated SiS746 revision with enabled DDR400 SDRAM support, which existed in the predecessor only unofficially. The last SiS746FX solution added to the company’s promising roadmap should become the last one in the SiS746 clone family. Its will have minimal changes: this chipset will officially support 333MHz processor bus, which will be used by the upcoming Athlon XP processors (we don’t have any more doubts about these processors coming out soon). SiS746FX is due in Q4 2002. However, the company will definitely have to speed up its schedule, because the new Athlon XP with 333MHz bus should come out very soon now.

Similar changes will be made to the Pentium 4 SiS648 family. Following the already announced SiS648 supporting Pentium 4 with 400MHz and 533MHz bus, DDR333 SDRAM, AGP 8x and MuTIOL bus to connect the chipset bridges at 1GB/sec, SiS will launch SiS648DX, as we have already told you. Like SiS746DX, which newcomer will acquire the official support of DDR400 memory, which can also work in the regular SiS648, though unofficially. SiS648DX is due in September. Now you can also see another novelty in SiS’ plans: SiS648FX. Like SiS746FX with Athlon XP, SiS648FX will allow using Pentium 4 processors with 667MHz bus. In other words, SiS648FX is a chipset version designed to support Prescott based Pentium 4 processors due in H2 2003. Nevertheless, SiS is planning to release its SiS648FX a bit earlier, in Q1 2003.

In conclusion I would like to point out that SiS is doing its best to prolong the lifetime of its SiS746 and SiS648 chipset families by making a few cosmetic changes to them every now and then. This indicates that the company hopes these ones will be the most popular and successful. Hopefully they are right.