SiS is a chipset manufacturer we haven’t heard much from lately and after its grand era during the NetBurst years they’ve become rather invisible lately. SiS seems to have some great things coming and according to new information it will launch several integrated chipsets with DirectX 10-capable graphics circuits anytime now. SiS will continue with its Mirage series and the already heavily updated Mirage 3 circuit will get a new update in the form of Mirage 3+. The new circuit works at a higher frequency has been certified for Windows Vista Premium. The circuit will only be used with the SiS 672/672FX IGP chipsets for Intel’s platform.
Those who want Windows Vista Premium support with AMD’s platform will have to wait for the Mirage 4 IGP which will offer full DirectX 10 support with both Shader Model 4 and hardware decoding of WMV9 and H.264 video.
It wouldn’t hurt with another stronger actor as both VIA and SiS have been losing more and more ground on the retail market the last few years. If SiS’ new solution will be for the OEM market or the retail market as well remains to be seen.
“The first Mirage 4 IGP will be adopted in 673, featuring 1066MHz FSB, and Dual Channel DDR2-800/DDR3-1066. The final sample is going to ship to main board manufacturing in June and put into production in Q3. SiS 673FX, 673’s sibling, is only different in 1333MHz FSB and Dual Channel DDR2-1066/DDR3-1333 support. It will be shipped in Q4. SiS 772 for AMD platform will also be shipped in Q4. Besides Mirage 4, the version of Hyper-Transport is upgraded to ver. 3.0, making it ready for AMD AM2+ processor.”
