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Many of you were impressed by the performance of Intel's 7205 "Granite Bay" chipset when we reviewed the MSI GNB Max-FIR - and rightly so, since the GNB combined high performance with a wealth of features. Unfortunately, the GNB, and the 7205 in general, is limited because it really only supports up to DDR266 in Dual Channel Mode. This is why when Sis announced their Sis655 chipset, with full Dual Channel AND DDR400 support, our eyebrows rose up a knotch.

Now we've already seen how much greater performance Intel's 7205 chipset can leverage with Dual Channel mode, compared to the AMD/Nvidia Nforce2 platform, in terms of percentage boost in performance, and conventional wisdom would suggest that higher speed memory in Dual Channel mode would yield even more impressive results. Afterall, those fancy memory speed ratings are all about theoretical bandwidth, and if you double the bandwidth of PC2100 memory for 4.2GB/sec bandwidth on the GNB and get PC1066 RDRAM-like performance, what would happen on an Intel platform Dual Channel board capable of using PC3200 memory?

Without giving away too many details, suffice it to say that the SINXP1394, with a pair of Corsair PC3200 in our benchmarks, churned out some really impressive numbers. But before we go into those details, let's look at some of the other features that make up what could potentially be a killer board.

Specs and Features

What's not as apparent from the specs is the marketing aspect of much of what Gigabyte has added to the board. One addition which is likely to spark some initial interest is the DPS or "Dual Power System" (shown below):

In Gigabyte's own words:

In a Dual Power System (DPS) designed motherboard, an additional 3-phase power circuit DPVRM daughter card is added on the motherboard. This effectively provides a more durable and stable power circuit for intensifying the stability of current system and for future processors.

Now you will see the DPS as an added card with a "magic light" cooler. Aside from looking pretty and having a fancy description, DPS has absolutely nothing to do with performance, additional features, or any other tangible perks for the user. Some users might be lead to believe that this DPS system will enable the board to be more "future safe" because it will provide additional power necessary by future Intel CPU's, but this is clearly not possible. If and when Intel's CPUs have significant architectural differences and power requirements, something like the DPS simply will not fit the bill... whole motherboard architectures and chipsets will be required for those CPUs. The DPS system itself cannot offer "more" stability than SIS655 motherboards without this "technology". The merit of a board's stability can only be judged by hands-on evalution by websites and users... you can't count on the DPS to provide better stability in the face of ever more powerful chips.