SIS IS one nice little company
that has some really interesting plans for future. We learned that they
have been promising P4 chipset with DDR 2700 memory on sight but we were
really surprised about their graphic chip plans.
For some time the INQUIRER has
known that SIS has plans and even manufactures its DX 7 256 bit solutions
called SIS 315. The interest for this chip is there, since we've even seen
some more roadmaps from some graphic cards vendors with SIS 315 as their
high performance card.
From roadmaps we received from
SIS and in a little chat we had with them, we learned a few more details
about these cards.
There will be two versions.
The SIS 315 is capable of working with SDR and SIS 315 DDR card. Iy will
have support for - AGP 4X @ 266 MHz - AGP 2.0 Compliant.
The chip will feature a built-in
high performance 256-bit 3D T&L engine with frequencies up to 166 MHz for
chip. It will have support for both Z-test, and Z-buffer memory saving options.
The T&L engine is second generation like, you might find on Geforce 2 cards.
The chip is made to meet the
standards of DirectX 7.x and to be compatible with DirectX 8 but we can
say that it should be a fully capable DX 7 chip.
It is capable of rendering 2
multi bi-linear textures within one single cycle and its texture size is
limited to 2048x2048
Vertex fogging and fog table
and T&L based vertex fog range will be supported in the 3D chip which will
also carry an integrated 3D eyeglass circuit, viewable with 3D glasses and
monitor support.
The SIS 315 has support for
SDR SDRAM/SGRAM, DDR SDRAM/SGRAM memory types with support for 16/24/32/48/64/96
and 128 MB memory configuration.
The chip and memory seem to
be synchronised on magical 166 MHz which offers 2.9GB/s bandwidth for SDR
memory and 5.8GB/s bandwidth for the DDR version. In terms of bandwidth,
this puts it head to head with Geforce 2 or Radeon DDR. Both 64 and 128
bit DDR and SDR memory are supported.
One of the essential features
for 3D chip now, hardware FSAA support is here but our little SiS now calls
it Hyper FSAA. We will see a 375MHz RAMDAC capable of good refresh rate
and nice resolutions.
From Video features chip features
MPEG 2/1 Video Decoder with built-in motion compensation logic, VCD , DVD
and HDTV ( all ATSC modes ) decoding, Direct DVD to TV playback
The chip will use 0.15 µ 1.8V
CMOS technology and it will be packed in a 529-pin 35mmx35mm BGA package.
On a not-so-detailed block diagram
we saw interesting solution that SiS 315 will have an elder brother, the
SiS 301 [Shouldn't that be the Bro 301, Ed?] card as an add in chip on PCB
of the card, responsible for dual display features.
Dual feature lets you use a
second monitor -- CRT, LCD or TV just like all other possible solutions
offered by Matrox, ATI and Nvidia.
According to a presentation
we saw, the card has decent performance in 3D mark 2000 and 2001 as well
as in OpenGL based MDK2 or Direct 3D based Unreal tournament but we won't
jump to conclusions and will hopefully try it ourselves later.
SIS 315 DDR will find its niche
in performance cards competing with the Geforce 2 MX 400 and ATI Radeon
256 card with price tags from $100 to $200, while the more fragile and fragrant
SiS 315 with SDR should compete with the slower Radeon VE and MX200 cards.
SiS marchitecture spinners reckon
that for the price of a normal 3D chip based card you will get TV out, LCD
support, second VGA and 3D VR chip. This sounds promising and we will see
what happens when products are out of dry dock.
The final stage samples will
be finished on the 10th of August, we learned.
Seems to me that there's a newcomer
in the 3D arena, unknown as yet, but potentially dangerous, just like Kyro.
