Since the Taiwanese core logic developers cannot compete with Intel in terms of production volumes and pricing of their chipsets, they always try to be one step ahead of Intel with the innovations implemented in their products. As we have already told you before, after the launching of i845GE and i845PE this autumn, which will boast the support of faster DDR333 memory, the company will introduce a couple of chipsets supporting dual-channel DDR SDRAM. As a result, SiS and VIA Technologies will have to start offering solutions with PC3200 (DDR400) support, despite the fact that this standard hasn’t been yet approved by JEDEC. And in the beginning of 2003 both companies are going to start releasing Pentium 4 chipsets with DDR II SDRAM support already!

Digitimes claims that besides the current SiS645 (SiS645DX) families, SiS is planning to start shipping SiS648 featuring AGP 8x and DDR400 by the end of July already. Moreover, around the same time we should see SiS R658 supporting PC1066 RDRAM and AGP 8x. As you may have already heard, this chipset had been initially expected to come out only in Q4 2002, however, the Taiwanese company decided to speed up the release of SiS R658. The reasons that guided them are very simple: they are afraid that there won’t be enough RDRAM RIMM modules by Q4 already, because Intel will release a lot of DDR SDRAM chipsets by then.

Some time around the end of Q3 2002, SiS is planning to begin mass production of Xabre 660 solution featuring SiS330 graphics core (SiS Xabre). Bearing in mind that SiS660 will support AGP 8x and DDR SDRAM, we dare conclude that it will be the first integrated chipset with AGP 8x support and can probably be adapted for AMD Athlon processors later on.

Some time in Q2 2003 SiS will announce SiS649 North Bridge supporting DDR II SDRAM. We don’t have any more details on that so far, however, our unofficial sources claim that SiS649 will boast official support of only DDR II 400MHz. As for 533MHz, there was no mention about it.

Moreover, we should get ready to welcome a new South Bridge from SiS in Q3 2002. It will be SiS963B supporting USB 2.0, IEEE1394a, ADSL, 802.11b, etc. Note that a quarter later SiS will prepare a new SiS964 South Bridge version, which should also support SerialATA besides everything listed above.

As for VIA Technologies, they are offering their P4X266 chipsets for low-cost PCs, while P4X333 is positioned as a mainstream solution. By the end of Q3 2002, the new P4X600 supporting PC3200 (DDR400) will be targeted for the same market segment. In the integrated chipset market VIA will also offer a solution equipped with its own latest Zoetrope (SavageXP) graphics core. It will be P4M333. It is quite possible that a similar solution will be very soon released for AMD processors too.

By the end of the year, or maybe even a little bit earlier VIA will start shipping the samples of its DDR II solution aka P4X800. Just like in case of SiS, it seems to support only 400MHz memory.

Although we do not expect any significant performance increase compared with DDR400 analogues in both cases, it is a very important marketing move for VIA and SiS to launch something new every quarter.