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Intel is currently putting pressure on the market as it hasn't for a long time: the Pentium 4 just acquired HyperThreading and passed the 3 GHz mark; and "Granite Bay" also has a chipset now that offers support for dual-channal DDR storage - like nVIDIA's nForce2 chipset for the Athlon. The result: high performance as far as the eye can see.

But let's face it: it's different in practice. Only a few of us can afford a 3 GHz Pentium 4 for a cool $600. Besides, HyperThreading is not even meant for the slower models. So the bulk of the users have to resort to searching for the components that offer good performance for the money.

In this context, we should also mention that costs had to be cut where the motherboard is concerned, because although boards based on Intel chipsets have the best reputation, they are also priced accordingly. For some time now, less expensive alternatives have been available from the Taiwanese manufacturers SiS and VIA Technologies. The latter, however, has been involved in a license dispute for months, so boards based on the P4X266, P4X333 and P4X400 chipsets are not even sold in many countries.

SiS has already scored big with the SiS 645DX , and now continues that tradition with the SiS648 , which offers practically every feature that is considered useful or necessary today.