Motherboard Specifications

The Good

At a quick glance, the 5SIM looks like any normal baby AT based motherboard.  Upon closer inspection the large "LX-sized" SiS 5582 chip becomes a prominent marker of the 5SIM's glory.  Outfitted with 4 PCI and 3 ISA slots to accent the 2 SIMM and 2 DIMM slots, the Chaintech 5SIM manages to pack quite a punch for its size.  Don't let its colorful box and harmless appearance fool you, the 5SIM is a force to be reckoned with.  Based on the SiS 5582 chipset, Chaintech's 5SIM doesn't feature any low cost integrated video options, nor an AGP slot intended for a much more expensive motherboard.  Instead it boasts all the features we know and love from Intel's TX chipset such as Ultra DMA/33 and SDRAM support, while expanding the TX's 64MB Cacheable memory limit to include a more realistic 128MB cacheable memory area.  The 5582 was originally thought to be a successor to the SiS 5571 chipset, however the mysterious absence of Linear Burst Mode support by the chipset could lead one to believe otherwise.

Maintaining that manufacturer/user relationship, Chaintech bundled a handy SiS Busmastering driver diskette with the 5SIM, in spite of the fact that Windows 95 automatically detects and configures the onboard PCI IDE controller as a SiS 5513 PCI IDE Device controller by default.  Although many consider VIA's VP2 chipset (found in FIC's PA-2007 and 2011) to be the best competitor of Intel's TX chipset, the SiS 5582 can arguably be given the same title.   Not only is the Chaintech 5SIM a solid performer, producing excellent results with the Pentium MMX from 208MHz up to 291.5MHz and with the K6 from 208MHz up to 250MHz, but it is also a very stable motherboard.  The only time it crashed was during an attempt to run the K6 at 262.5MHz which unfortunately failed completely even after 5 tries.

Achieving overclocked CPU speeds with the 5SIM is a breeze in spite of the fact that the 5SIM doesn't feature Chaintech's trademarked SeePU jumperless Setup Utility (it doesn't seem as if any SiS based boards are jumperless).  The implantation of Dip Switches into the design of the 5SIM, combined with Chaintech's well written user manual ensures a pleasant and carefree experience with the 5SIM.   Chaintech's competitive nature would deem a competitive price almost necessary for the initial survival and eventual success of the 5SIM.  Courtesy of the low manufacturing cost of the SiS 5582 chipset the average price of the 5SIM should be very close to the $100 mark.  If Chaintech could only perfect their manufacturing process...

The Bad

The Chaintech 5SIM is only available in an AT form factor, meaning that all of you ATX advocates are out of luck.  You will find that the 5SIM's design is quite cramped compared to most, especially if you're installing it in a mini-tower case.  The positioning of the dip switches which correspond to the available Bus speeds and clock multipliers are placed directly underneath the drive cage in most standard AT cases, obstructing access to them.  Aside from the cramped design the voltage regulator setup and overall engineering quality of the motherboard does have room for improvement.  Taking the Pentium MMX up to 291.5MHz required by a 3.2v core voltage setting, and taking the K6 up to 250MHz required a core voltage of 3.4v!

• Auto-detects PnP Cards after HDD Detection

BIOS Settings

Recommended SDRAM

This little addition to my review layout was put in here just so you all can have an idea of what brand of SDRAM I recommend and have tested with the board, just to avoid problems in the future if you decide to purchase the board.

Recommended SDRAM: Advanced Megatrends SDRAM; Corsair SDRAM; SmarTech SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 2 x 32MB Advanced Megatrends SDRAM DIMMs; 2 x 32MB SmarTech SDRAM DIMMs; 2 x 32MB Corsair SDRAM DIMMs

Manufacturer: Advanced Megatrends
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.megacom.com

Manufacturer: Corsair Microsystems
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.nf-ny.com/nfny/comp.html

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.

How I Tested

• Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again.  All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.

• Business Winstone 97 / Business Graphics Winmark 97 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed.  If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed

• Business Winstone 98 / Business Graphics Winmark 98 was run on the Pentium MMX at 233MHz, and the AMD K6 at 233MHz, the averaging rules for these tests are the same as those used for the 97 test suites. 

• Chris Dial's VGA Bench & SVGA Bench were run in cases where 3D performance of a video accelerator/onboard video was tested.   Both benchmarks were run a total of 3 times on either an AMD K6 or Intel Pentium MMX clocked at 233MHz (66.6 bus x 3.5)

• Quake was run in cases where gaming performance of a video accelerator/onboard video was tested.  DOS Quake was run with the screen size set to maximum during which 'TIMEDEMO DEMO2' was run (Hit '~' then type TIMEDEMO DEMO2) and the frame rate recorded.

• After each motherboard was tested a complete format of the test hard drive was initiated and the OS/benchmarking software was re-installed afterwards a defragment was initiated using Windows 95's Disk Defragmentation Utility

• No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability

• All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results

• All tests were conducted at 800 x 600 x 256 colors

Test Configuration

The Final Decision

If you can get past the few bad qualities of the Chaintech 5SIM it is an excellent motherboard, an outstanding combination from Chaintech and SiS.