Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/286



When Intel announced that they would be exploring a new Socket interface for all future Celeron processors, there wasn't a single tweaker out there that couldn't help but laugh at the thought that anyone would buy a Socketed Celeron.  Why would someone even dream of buying a CPU whose interface was surely a dead end road in a couple of months?  At last years Comdex, while talking to motherboard manufacturers about what products they'd like to see reviewed on AnandTech in the upcoming year, the most popularly requested item was, of course, their new Socket-370 based motherboards.  While I was gawking at the MVP4s and the upcoming PC99 boards, there wasn't a single public relations official that didn't try and get AnandTech's address for a sample of their upcoming Socket-370 board.  At the time, it seemed as if motherboard manufacturers had completely lost their minds...who would've thought that the PPGA (Socket-370) Celeron would grow be this popular.

As soon as the Socket-370 Celeron processors hit the market, the supply of overclockable Slot-1 300A's seemed to diminish.  Then came the 366/400MHz Socket-370 Celerons along with their Slot-1 counterparts, and while the availability of higher speed Slot-1 Celerons didn't drop, the price of their Socket-370 counterparts did.   Tomorrow Intel will release the Intel Celeron 466, and the first true Socket-370 Chipset, the Intel 810 (the 440ZX was nothing more than a scaled down version of the 440BX).  Intel is doing their best to push the Socket-370 market, and since the beginning of this year, they have done so tremendously. 

Also with the increase in popularity of the Socket-370 standard came the increase in popularity of alternative chipset solutions, such as VIA's Apollo Pro Plus, providing cheaper and more "feature filled" alternatives to the standard Intel LX/BX/ZX options for Socket-370 motherboards.  One of the first to implement SiS' Slot-1/Socket-370 chipset, the 620, is the well known FIC.  AnandTech was shown FIC's 620 board at last year's Comdex, and now it's finally time to see how well the chipset performs on FIC's CE31-A.


New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
82/C

Motherboard Specifications

CPU Interface Socket-370
Chipset SiS 620/5595
L2 Cache N/A (on-chip)
Form Factor microATX
Bus Speeds 66 / 68 / 75 / 83 / 95 / 100
Clock Multipliers 1.5x - 6.5x
Voltages Supported 2.8v / 2.0v (Auto-Detect)
Memory Slots 2 168pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots 0 AGP Slot
3 PCI Slots (3 Full Length)
1 ISA Slots (0 Shared / 0 Full Length)
BIOS AMI BIOS

The Good

No AGP slot?!?!  No, the CE31-A isn't a step back into 1997, instead it is taking what many analysts call the path of the future, integrated video.  Integrating video into the motherboard is something that has been around for quite some time, and it definitely helps cut down on the cost of a system.  With Intel pushing for a sub-$600 PC platform in 1999, it's going to take much more than integrated video to push PC's down to that price point.  This is where SiS comes in.  

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge

The SiS 620 chipset was a prominent player on the motherboard scene last year in Vegas, primarily because it integrates the normal functions of a North Bridge controller (PCI interface, etc...) with a 2D/3D graphics accelerator.  The 620, combined with its South Bridge, the 5595 (PCI IDE controller, etc...) make up a highly integrated and low-cost solution that seemed ideal for FIC's Socket-370 CE31-A.  Because of the integrated video, the 620 allows for the AGP slot to be physically removed from the motherboard's PCB, cutting costs there too.

With the absence of the AGP slot, the microATX CE31-A features 3 PCI slots, and a single ISA slot.  The beauty of this unique 3/1/0 (PCI/ISA/AGP) expansion slot configuration is that none of the slots are shared, meaning they can all be occupied at the same time.  The three PCI slots are capable of accepting full length cards, unfortunately the front panel connectors prevent the sole ISA slot from doing the same. 

The right hand side of the motherboard provides home to the HDD/FDD connectors, as well as the two SDRAM DIMM slots.  The board worked fine with up to 256MB of SDRAM, however it failed AnandTech's 256MB module test using Corsair's 256MB registered DIMMs.  Chances are that if you're going to be buying a board like the CE31-A you probably won't be looking to shell out $600 on a 256MB SDRAM stick just for kicks.  The ATX power supply connector is wedged between the Socket-370 interface and the first DIMM slot, fortunately it does not interfere with the installation of the heatsink/fan combo on your CPU (although it does make things quite tight for those of you with larger fingers).

The board comes outfitted with an on-board Ensoniq ESS Solo-1 PCI Audio controller, which provides excellent quality considering it is considered to be an "el-cheapo" on-board sound controller.  As mentioned before, the SiS 620 provides for a 2D/3D accelerator integrated into the North Bridge of the chipset, much like the Trident accelerator in VIA's MVP4.  As in the case of the MVP4, the integrated video, since it is on the North Bridge of the chipset, is capable of transferring data at speeds greater than AGP 2X transfer rates.  To be specific, the integrated video provides up to 800MB/s of bandwidth, greater than that of AGP 2X video accelerators.  While SiS provides the option of cutting costs even further by sharing system memory with the graphics accelerator, FIC chose to outfit the CE31-A with 8MB of on-board SDRAM. 

Another powerful feature of the SiS 620 chipset, thus a powerful feature of the CE31-A, is the 5595 South Bridge's Ultra ATA 66 support.  As you are already probably familiar with, Ultra ATA 66 is not supported by Intel and will not be until the release of the i820 chipset in Q3/Q4 '99.  Ultra ATA 66 is supported on newer releases of the VIA Apollo Pro Plus chipset with an updated South Bridge controller, however most boards do not feature the updated South Bridge just yet.   This leaves the SiS 620 as a powerful contender on the low-end, with integrated video, audio, and an Ultra ATA 66 controller.



FIC's AMI BIOS setup provides the sole configuration options for the CE31-A, meaning that the board itself is completely jumperless, a trend that was first started by ABIT/QDI during the late Socket-7 days.   The BIOS allows for FSB settings ranging from 66MHz to 100MHz.  FIC provides the 620 with the latest copy of their FIC CD-Pro drivers/utility CD-ROM, which contains just about every single driver you could possibly want, not only for the CE31-A but for all other motherboards.  It has even become a widely used tool in the AnandTech testing labs since it contains the latest AGP, IDE, and Sound drivers for the most popular motherboards. 

The pre-release CE31-A that was shipped to AnandTech did not come with a User's Manual, however upon its release it will ship with no less than the standard FIC user's manual, definitely above average in terms of content, however still shy of the same excellence carried by the ABIT/AOpen/Tyan manuals.

The performance of the SiS 620 based CE31-A is greater than you would expect from a non-Intel chipset based motherboard, and the absence of any AGP slot prevents any video compatibility issues that have been known to plague non-Intel AGP chipsets since the start.  The stability of the CE31-A isn't worthy of an award, however it's great enough to constitute an average recommendation.  Don't expect to be able to run a highly trafficked server off of the CE31-A anytime soon though...

The Bad

The main problems AnandTech encountered with the CE31-A deal with its design.  First of all, the 3 PCI slots begin to infringe on the expandability the CE31-A should have had.  The CE31-A continues the trend of making the words poor expansion and low-cost synonymous, something other motherboard manufacturers are fighting against. 

While the 100MHz FSB setting is optional on the CE31-A, the motherboard prevents access to any FSB settings greater than 95MHz unless you happen to be running a 100MHz FSB Celeron, something that won't be in existence for at least a few more months.  This prevents owners of overclockable 300A's from ever hitting 450MHz, although the 95MHz FSB setting does come in handy for those that can't seem to hit 450MHz reliably.

The driver support for the SiS 620 chipset is amazing, as SiS even has a Windows 2000 driver on their home page - www.sis.com.tw - unfortunately the lack of an OpenGL ICD will keep the CE31-A out of the hands of gamers.  So those gamers on a budget will have to continue to look to other solutions to have fun.


USB Compatibility

  • Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

  • Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

  • USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

  • USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes


Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 256MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM DIMM (for compatibility testing only)

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com



The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

AnandTech Motherboard Testing Methodology

Test Configuration

Processor(s): Intel Celeron 300
RAM: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM
1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA
Video Card(s): On-Board SiS 620 VGA
Bus Master Drivers: Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers
Video Drivers: SiS 620 1.01
Operation System(s): Windows 98
Motherboard Revision: FIC CE31-A Pre-Release

Windows 98 Performance

Winstone Quake 2
Business 99 Quake 2 demo1.dm2 crusher.dm2
Intel Celeron 300 16.1 12 8.2
Intel Celeron 427.5 20 17.3 12.2

The Final Decision

As a low cost board, the CE31-A proves to be a decent solution, however just as a mirror to the high-priced motherboard market, the perfect low-cost motherboard has yet to be found...


How it Rates

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

Business
Performance 80%
Price 92%
Ease of Use 85%
Overclocked Stability 80%
General Stability 80%
Quality 75%
Documentation 85%
Reliability 75%
Overall Rating 82%

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

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