Introduction

Every computer you look at started from one particular part. That one part is the base as we call it. That one part is what puts everything together; the part that allows different peripherals to communicate with each other. What is that part? It's simple; it's what we call a motherboard.

Manufacturers are rolling out products for the end of the year and competition is steaming up. As '03 starts to show up on the horizon, a few situations start to heat up. Situations like nVidia vs. ATi, AMD vs. Intel etc. But isn't there one more "battle" that we are missing out on?

That one other battle is the motherboard chipset sector. Companies such as SiS, VIA and Intel have been shifting into high gear. With the recent release of the SiS 648 chipset, the VIA P4X400 chipset as well as the Intel i854PE chipset, things look quite hot. The question is, who is the king? Intel and VIA have been competing for a while with SiS trailing along. But over the past year or so, SiS has definitely made a big step forward in competing with the two biggest chipset manufactures in the world (VIA and Intel). With the release of the SiS 645DX series two quarters ago, things started to rumble.

Not to long ago, SiS announced their newest chipset, the SiS 648. With features like Serial ATA, AGP 8x and official DDR 333 support, this has to be a winner right? Well, we took a look at the Asus P4S8X based on the SiS 648 chipset. If you got a chance to read that review, you might of been put off by this chipset. But remember, to our point of view it seemed that it was a problem with the Asus board and not the chipset. Maybe the Shuttle AS45GTR can clear up our opinion on the SiS 648 chipset? Or will it finalize our conclusion that the SiS chipset is just another flop?