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Tyan plans on releasing a dual athlon motherboard, based on the AMD 770 chipset in the 4th quarter this year, codenamed "dolphin"

Arun

slotA.com's motherboard list has a dual Athlon motherboard listed. It's named "Tyan Dolphin" and should be released Q4 '00.
I don't know if this is based on information from Tyan though - I couldn't find any information on this on Tyans page.

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Do dual Athlons motherboard exits?, and at what cost?
I do not believe there is one out there yet, but here, near the bottom it says that tyan is making a board to be released Q4-2000 , Codename Dolphin, that is supposidly Dual-CPU capable.

Okay, okay I'm glad to see that AMD is starting to do well again and push Intel down for now and hopefully in the future. But, with all the articles on Slashdot I haven't yet heard someone tell it how it really is with the *current* Althon chips.

First, off yes I'm sure they're fast. I know because I've setup 3 in the past six months. But, each and everyone was a pain in the arse to get running *stable*. It amazes me that all the reviews of this chip don't mention any problems.

It's of course not AMD's fault. It's all the plagued motherboards out there. I've dealt with the Giga-Byte, MS-6167, and Asus K7M.

This is literally, a hell on earth process to get these things to work for more than 10 minutes of even light websurfing.

Despite, what some of you may have heard. Memory problems were existant on all the boards. And it's not just problems with cheap memory. It becomes a guessing game as to what will work with what. And even what will work in which banks on the boards. Tip: When you order the new memory ask whom ever you are buying it from to test it in an Athlon with the same MB as the one you are using.

Second, I don't think there is even one board for the Athlon out there currently that doesn't need a bios update right out of the box.

Third, installation of any version of windows locks at least once. This probably doesn't piss a lot of people off here as much as it did my boss.

Fourth, some AGP cards either don't work, or require older version drivers, or work only partially. The TNT2 has major problems and it was very much rumored on AMD's webboard (which they took down, because it became a bitch fest) that you could get the TNT to work if you killed a chicken over the keyboard while chanting 'I love AMD' 40 times. But other than that you won't find a straight answer.

Fifth, the least annoyance of them all was the power supply issues. These were easy to fix and much cheaper than what it cost my employer to fix the memory issues.

Bottom line is that these things are extremely fast and stable once that issues above have been taken resolved. But, if you don't have patience, or the money to ship parts back and forth, or possiblely up to $600 dollars of extra money to fix the problems above. Then you have two choices: 1) Wait for the Tyan motherboards which should according to www.slota.com come in this quarter. Hopefully, these will do much better. And it looks like Tyan will be the first to put out a dual Athlon MB 2) Get a cheap intel.

So what's the real point. No matter how good the chip is from AMD. It's not worth a damn if you can't get a proper motherboard. And I personally, won't be buying an Athlon (I'm actually sad about this) unless I start hearing miracles from the dual Tyan board.

Here's a link that has a good list of Athlon motherboards that have been announced, preannounced, or are available.
Slot A

you will never find an athalon motherboard, only athlon motherboads, tyan will have the first dual board, code named dolphin, probably in q2 of 00, here's the mother of all athlon motherboard lists

SlotA has a K7 motherboard list that tells you this. I think the first dual Athlon boards will appear in January or February.

If you go checkout www.slota.com it will show in the motherboards section all the different kinds of motherboards for the Althon. In there you will find a mention of Tyan producing a dual Althon motherboard by the first quarter of next year. I'm waiting for the same thing. :)

Actually, the website as a whole is pretty good. But, double check AMD's website. They should have information and especially warnings about the motherboards, power supplys, and memory types.

I ended up making the mistake of grabbing a MSI motherboard and a 700 Althon for my father. MSI's website (www.slota.com has links to the manufactor's sites if available, you won't find them otherwise) advertises the motherboard for Althon's 650 and higher. This isn't the case. Currently, only the Biostar and the Gigabyte board take a 700. Just double check and everything should be ok.

BTW, if you need a place to order the motherboards. Try, www.thechipmerchant.com they are pretty reliable, have four types of Althon MBs, and they have some great support.

If you go checkout www.slota.com it will show in the motherboards section all the different kinds of motherboards for the Althon. In there you will find a mention of Tyan producing a dual Althon motherboard by the first quarter of next year. I'm waiting for the same thing. :)

Actually, the website as a whole is pretty good. But, double check AMD's website. They should have information and especially warnings about the motherboards, power supplys, and memory types.

I ended up making the mistake of grabbing a MSI motherboard and a 700 Althon for my father. MSI's website (www.slota.com has links to the manufactor's sites if available, you won't find them otherwise) advertises the motherboard for Althon's 650 and higher. This isn't the case. Currently, only the Biostar and the Gigabyte board take a 700. Just double check and everything should be ok.

BTW, if you need a place to order the motherboards. Try, www.thechipmerchant.com they are pretty reliable, have four types of Althon MBs, and they have some great support.

AMD is important from an idealogical standpoint. I have two Linux boxes at home that have zero Intel or Microsoft components in them. And I like that very much. Every time I use those machines, I'm reminded that I voted for choice with my dollars, and that keeps me voting (like the $3500 ballot I cast when I bought the parts for my K7/600 system a couple weeks ago).

I don't like serialized CPUs. I don't like strong-arm, quasi-legal, neo-soviet business tactics. I don't like to be told what I want. I don't like paying a mint for CPUs just so I can fund some mindless "Our CPU makes the Internet better" campaign.

You like giving Micros~1 the finger? Well Intel ain't much better than them. So give them the finger too and get AMD and Via and Linux all together. If you do, you're casting your vote for freedom, choice, quality, advancing technology and lower prices.

P.S. The "major motherboard manufacturer" the Ars article mentioned is Asus and the mobo in question is called the K7M. Gamer's Depot has a review, as do many other sites. See AMD Zone for more news about all things AMD. And slota.com has a complete list of all the Slot A motherboards. Which makes it an interesting comparision to AMD's list.

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