Tiger MP Dual-Processor Motherboard

CtrlPhreak writes: "Anandtech has posted a review of an affordable AMD 760 based motherboard, the Tyan Tiger MP. It's basically the Tyan Thunder K7 without all the integration. For $220, it's a great deal. It has the exact same performance as the Thunder, and it is tested to run fine with those cheap and fast 1ghz durons. They say Tyan is putting out this board to compete with other offerings of a cheap 760 platform, we can only hope."

Comments

Re:Tyan's Thunder K7 wasn't exactly overpriced....

[Arker]

Onboard stuff is... well... onboard. Come on. I mean, ok, maybe the NICs work fine, but honestly, I only needed one. Maybe the SCSI controller is great (hope it comes with provisions for external connect though) - but I already have a perfectly good SCSI card sitting here ready to pop in, so whatever the added cost of the onboard setup, it's too much. And onboard video always sucks, unless it's exactly what you need and that never changes. In this case it's not. I've never had a good experience trying to add a vidcard to a board with one built in - and again the added cost, low though it may be, is worse than 100% waste - not only paying for something not needed, but for something that will probably wind up causing problems.

Fan Recommendation? Crusoes an Interesting Alt.

[idonotexist]

Considering the heat Athlon puts out, what fan is recommended? It would be nice to have something quiet, but I guess that would contradict the desire to have a cool fan.

On a related note, I recently read of servers equiped with Transmeta Crusoes having no fans. While I am sure the performance of the Crusoe is not as great as Athlons, it is a trade-off to consider imo. Here is a bit from a recent press release of the Crusoes:

NEC CS56 NetBrain server has won a Nikkei Byte Best of World PC Expo 2001 Editors' Choice award. The small office/home office server, with a 600MHz Crusoe microprocessor, consumes less than 20 watts of power at full operating speed and does not require a cooling fan as a result of the microprocessor's unique, power-efficient design. If an interruption occurs in the main power supply, a built-in auxiliary battery supply kicks in and the server will continue to operate before shutting down in a safe manner. The NEC server runs Linux 6.5 Secure Server edition, comes with a built-in UPS and optional RAID, and can fit into a 19-inch wide rack in two- and three-unit wide configurations. It includes 192MB SO-DIMM memory, an ATI-mobility graphics chipset, 40GB (x2 for RAID) hard drives, optional CD-ROM, one serial, two USB, one parallel, two PCI, two PS/2, one VGA and dual RJ-45 ports. Internally, there are up to two PCI sockets and room for compact flash storage.

Re:Time to swap out the ole bp6

[Guns n' Roses Troll]

I dunno, my BP6 with 2 Celeron 400's running at 522(?)Mhz each still runs everything fine. I have a TNT2 Ultra 32MB card too. Q3A runs in 1024x768 at about 40fps. Unreal Tournament is the same. Kernel compiles are quick, about 4 minutes. RAM helps.. I have 768MB (board's max amt). I see no reason to upgrade yet. Maybe in another 2 or 3 years.

Nice Motherboards will not be here for a while.

[AnonymousCowheard]

In General, I can care less about the ATX form factor. Allowing the operating system advanced control over a switching power supply is something I regard as a conspiracy to thwart Linux's efforts for longest up-time. ACPI controllers have always been a waste of a perfectly-good IRQ. APM and "green-pc" was a thing of the past too. The powersupply should have interactivity with the operating system as to when it will shutoff and how many seconds power will remain "on", which is purely Unix-friendly in my POV. We don't need anying integrated on the motherboard: RS232 ports, Parallel Ports, USB, FloppyDisk Controller, IDE Controller.

This is legacy speeking to us on how we should have a generic system setup. We need a new device interface. Think of PCI, but without the bracket and IO connectors facing behind the computer, outside. Think of PCI in the middle of the board with IO riser-cables snaking to the front of the Computer Case to the actual user. Everyone enjoys easy access to their PCMCIA, CardBus, USB, Firewire, and RS232 ports on the front of the Computer; think of Compaq's idea. Or even think of a IO-Hub on a rotary arm that swivels from the computer case to wherever you want, without it touching your workspace.

Motherboard, we need them smaller. We need them more customizable. I want to see a Dual AMD AthlonMP Motherboard or Dual Pentium V Motherboard with a dependable number of 32bit PCI-slots, TWO AGP SLOTS, a nice array of 64bit PCI-slots, 4 168pin DIMM SLOTS, and DUAL CPU SLOTS that give courtesy to full-length PCI and AGP DEVICES. Frankly, I want a motherboard that is simply a BUS for the RAM, CPUs, and expansion cards. I want to add my own firewire and scsi interfaces and be able to remove them *with ease when they fail. I'm talking about a motherboard with the dimensions of 8 inches BY 8 inches. Can they do it? That's the challenge!

My comment on the Tyan is: "Those two remaining 32bit PCI slots will allove my Hercules Stingray 12MB Voodoo2 SLI-mode videocards some optimum motherboard usage. Too bad they stuck with ATX form factor and weren't able to integrate 7 PCI slots at their discretion."