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."

Re:$220 is a cheap motherboard these days?

[Brento]

Damn... $220 for a motherboard? what happened to sub $100 motherboards?

Read the article again. It's a dual-CPU motherboard, meaning you can plug in a pair of Athlons or Durons. Sub-$100 motherboards support a single CPU.

Don't get this one

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tiger MP is a sweet mobo. However, AMD will be coming out with a new MP chipset called the 760MPX. The MPX has two distinct improvements. First, registered DDR RAM will not be necessary. Any old DDR RAM will do. Secondly, the MPX will support 66Mhz 64-bit PCI slots.

ASUS and MSI first 760MPX motherboards

[geekwin]

We have photographs [metropoli2000.com] of the new Asus and MSI 760MPX mobos.

And this one uses a standard PS

[greenfly]

Nice thing about this board in comparison with Tyan's other AMD MP offerings is the fact that you can use a standard ATX power supply. Tyan's previous boards required that you purchase a proprietary 450W power supply. They recommend at least 300W, though. I'm running one of these right now with a single 1.2 Palomino on the 300W PS that came with my In-Win Q500N with no problems as of yet. While it can handle a standard power supply now, Tyan still recommends that you use Registered PC2100 RAM for it. I was able to find 256M for around $50 or so.

I recommend Einux Systems [einuxsys.com] if you are looking for a place to purchase a motherboard processor combo for this board.

Before this board came out I was going to go for a dual PIII 1Ghz system, but since that type of processor is always going to stay at 1Ghz, I figured it was worth the extra money to be able to upgrade this board to wherever the Palomino chipset ends up (from what I've heard it the chipset should be able to scale up to 2Ghz or so).

There are supposed to be other boards released by Abit, MSI, etc. in the next month or two that will be even cheaper, but if you are like me and couldn't wait (and aren't planning on overclocking your system) then this board is a good choice.

Tyan 2460, nice but picky

[MadCow42]

I ordered one of these a few weeks ago, and unfortunately it arrived "Dead On Arrival".

I've been talking to a lot of other 2460 owners, and everyone is impressed, but everyone agrees that it can also be a very picky board.

There's been many reports of memory related problems, specifically with some brands of memory. The consensus so far is that Corsair memory has been the most reliable.

Once it's up an running though, there's been nothing but raving reviews.

MadCow... anxiously awaiting my replacement mobo...

Whole article link

[[amorphis]]

Get the whole article in one shot with the Print Article [anandtech.com] link.

Registered DDR is not a handicap.

[Shivetya]

256Mb dimms are only $7.00 dollars more than their unregistered brethern. Checking crucial's site confirmed the cost really is not an issue

This looks the motherboard I was waiting for, as I don't need all the bells the previous offering had, let alone the price tag.

Granted a 64bit/66mhz bus chipset is coming out, but for those to whom this board appeals to most likely won't need the 66mhz PCI.

Re:RAM . . .

[greenfly]

Apparently you only need the registered RAM if you are going to use more than 2 Memory banks, the article says more about it. It apparently has to do with electrical load on the memory bus. The Anandtech review has this to say:

The Tiger MP keeps the 4 DIMM slots of the Thunder K7 which is a good thing since efficiency in higher end applications is not only governed by CPU and platform performance, but memory size as well. This also forces it to keep the registered DDR SDRAM requirement, but only if more than two banks are populated. If you only install two modules then you should be fine with regular DDR SDRAM (provided that it has no specific compatibility issues with the Tiger MP). During our tests we ran the board with Corsair Registered DDR SDRAM modules and the same Crucial unregistered DDR SDRAM we use in all of our other tests. As long as only two slots were filled, the stability was identical and the performance was roughly the same (the unregistered modules are theoretically faster but that doesn't translate into any tangible performance gains). When more than three unregistered DIMMs were installed the system would not POST; and adding a third registered DIMM to a set of two unregistered DIMMs would not boot either.

(Athlon-Heatsink) = Toast

[SexPig]

I've used AMD processors and would've bought AMD when I upgraded my machine 5 mos ago if the SMP capabilities were there but I'm not so certain now after the Tom's Hardware review. In the review (posted on /.) it demonstrated heatsinks being removed from the CPU while in operation. Both the PIII & PIV survived but the Athlons fried up with one taking the motherboard with it.

I think we all use Linux for it's across the board stability so why not apply those high expectations to the hardware we put in those boxes? I for one think that I may not be purchasing AMD until they address the fact that the heat monitoring system that works for a fan-failure should also work for aa heatsink begin dislodged. Else you may find yourself out the $$ for a processor as well as the cost of your kick-ass Tyan mobo.

Mounting Heatsinks

[doorbot.com]

Note that the Tiger MP has problems with larger heatsinks due to the layout of the PCB. Check the Anandtech article for more info.

One other problem that the Anandtech article didn't mention is that the board does not have the four mounting holes around the processor sockets (like the P4s all have, and many AMD have). So forget about the latest Swiftech and Alpha heatsinks which require those holes.

Perhaps Tyan decided to omit the holes because there wasn't room anyways... the heatsinks that mount via screws tend to be bigger and may not have fit properly anyways. At the same time, I do like the mounting holes as I feel a lot safer when my heatsink is screwed onto the motherboard -- I don't want it popping off and allowing my processor to burn itself up.

Where to buy / fan noise

[Danny Rathjens]

monarchcomputer [monarchcomputer.com]

These guys test out the board/cpu/ram for you. I haven't had any problems with mine which I have had for almost a month.

My only problem is noise. I got the ThermalTake Volcano II because it was listed as the lowest decibals.
But both those fans running are still horrendously loud.

Re:Inform me.

[greenfly]

The Palomino chipset has some MP optimizations, and is officially supported by AMD for MP use. The older processors will work, but don't perform as well in the benchmarks I've seen. The Anandtech review states that they were able to use the old Athlon chipset in this board too. I'm thinking that when they built their old chip they allowed SMP, but they didn't optimize for it (or perhaps there were other issues with the chip that we don't know about) and so they released a new chipset once the MP boards were ready that was optimized for it.

So, yeah, you can use the old Athlons in your Tyan 2460, but if you really want the performance, you'll want to go with their Palomino core. As a added benefit, the Palomino is supposed to run cooler too.

Re:Mounting Heatsinks

[Jeffrey Baker]

I dislike the "bigger + louder is better" notion in the do-it-yourself computer hardware community. I think this idea has been planted by the same people who drive Camaros and Mustangs :) Seriously, there is NO reason to get a huge brick of a heatsink for these new Athlons. What is needed is a heatsink and fan combination designed by actual engineers from an actual engineering company, like, for example, Hewlett Packard. Look, here's one:

Agilent ArctiCooler HACA-0002 [agilent.com]

The Agilent cooler is small so it presents no mounting problems. It is very light, so it won't shear the socket off your mainboard. It is quiet, so it won't drive your wife/husband/parents/kids/dog/cat/neighbors berserk. Best of all, it cools the 1.4 GHz Athlon better than any other cooler around, including those enormous bricks with 8500 RPM fans.

Re:And this one uses a standard PS

[ncc74656]

Yes, but the specs call for the 5V to be able to kick out at least 30A. I don't know if this can happen with a "standard" supply. Anyone who knows more about power supplies wish to comment on the current capability of the 5V node?

You'll need to check the specs for your particular power supply. For instance, the Enermax EG365P-VE [enermax.com.tw] that I'm currently using is rated for 32A on both +3.3 and +5. If you have one of the "name-brand" power supplies, tracking down specs for it shouldn't be too difficult.

Re:(Athlon-Heatsink) = Toast

[jerrytcow]

In the review (posted on /.) it demonstrated heatsinks being removed from the CPU while in operation. Both the PIII & PIV survived but the Athlons fried up with one taking the motherboard with it

Who would do this??? There's even a warning sticker on Athlons and Durons that specifically states not to operate without a heatsink.

As far as being dislodged, I've never heard of that in normal operation, but if you're overly paranoid, you could get a HSF that screws into the motherboard like the mc462 from swiftech [swiftnets.com]. It uses the four screw holes present on all socket A motherboards.

They show a "crash test" where they repeatedly dropped a case off the roof of a one story building. The HSF did not come off.

Re:damn, still no 66 pci

[AssFace]

although the MPX variant chipset "coming soon" will have it, so those RAID controllers get the larger memory chunk at a time.... mmmm yummy

Re:Is AMD in trouble?

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD chips don't scale, and there's nothing coming down the line.

On top of that, big business stays away from AMD like they were the plague, and with good reason - their total cost of ownership is through the roof due to flakey motherboards, overheating, and the like.

My experience with this board

[pben harris]

I plunked down my $250 and waited three weeks to get this board. IMHO it was worth the wait! The system has been entirely stable, dual booting both Red Hat 7.1 and Win2k. I use it for video processing and it's a workhorse. I can encode DVD quality MPEG-2's from DV source in practically real-time, with motion search filtering and a high bit rate for output.

However I tried to triple boot with Windows 98 so I can use a cheap video grabber card--my advice is DON'T EVEN TRY to install Win98 on this board. Mine installed fine but would not boot Win98.

Placing the heatsink/fans on the CPUs was kind of tricky. I had 2mm of clearance between my heatsink/fan of choice and the single row of capacitors on the board. If the caps didn't wiggle I wouldn't have been able to install the heatsink/fans.

I found humor on the inside cover of the manual. I was pleased to see in print that this motherboard is certified for *both* Win2k and RH 7.1. However that textual note was marked with an asterisk to the effect:

This Tyan board is fully supported by Red Hat 7.1; however Tyan is not responsible if Red Hat no longer continues to support Red Hat 7.1.

Hello Tyan! I believe Microsoft will stop meaningful support of Win2k long before that RH would stop meaningful support of RH 7.1. More info about that assertion here [microsoft.com], here [gartner.com] and here [cnet.com].

Also, a warning. If you choose to install 1 Gb or so of ECC, registered memory, then booting takes a long time. There's some kind of POST that occurs for this kind of memory that delays my boot by like 30 seconds.

Finally, I just want to say that SMP is no magic bullet. For my purposes this board is fabulous. But in fact, some applications run more slowly on a dual CPU system. For example, any given single threaded program (read: first person shooter) will take a hit, say 2-5% of its speed. Your application has to use multiple threads to take advantage of this environment. Of course you can run more processes, that's nice.

You can judge for yourself if this is a good board for you. Look at the reviews for the Tyan Thunder K7, I feel they apply to the Tiger when it comes to processor performance. You can find review for that board here [amdmb.com] and here [2cpu.com]

Noisecontrol Silverado quiet fan might fit

[leighklotz]

I use a Noisecontrol [noisecontrol.de] Silverado [noisecontrol.de]. It's really quiet and was the winner [tomshardware.com] in a Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com] roundup, and the quietest at 38db [tomshardware.com].

It cools my 1.2Ghz Athlon running at 1.35GHz just fine, and I can't hear it at all over the Antec case fans (which are quiet as well).

Price is an issue though -- it was $88 shipped to the US from Germany, but it arrived quickly.

It's 80mmx56mm, but it's 133mm tall because it uses twin squirrel-cage fans, so it's certainly not going to fit in a rack-mount, but it fits in a tower just fine.

AMD stock.

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD is the 2nd largest maker of [PC] CPUs. As a result, it is most commonly compared to Intel, which honestly, is a different industry, but I won't harp on that here.

"Bad" news for AMD result in a boost to Intel's share price, since anything eliminating competition results in monopoly profits for Intel. The reverse is not true however. Any "bad" news from Intel is seen as industry wide, which results in AMD taking a hit. This applies even when the "bad" news is Intel screwing up a FAB and having to delay a launch by six months as a result.

The layoffs (2300 total) AMD announced are at a 20 year old FAB in Austin. They don't make CPUs OR flash memory there. Those FABs were hold overs from when they made network chips as well. AMD is focused on CPU production, with Flash memory staying in the mix since its a big fat cash cow. The recession has halted the cash cow aspect of flash, but that will pick up in 6-18 months. It's a cyclical business after all.

Incidentally, AMD's stock has "dropped" back to what it was in July'99, but it's not lower. AMD was at $14.5 at its low, but it SPLIT in Aug99, so even at its 12 year low today of $8.xx its still up 10%.

In short, AMD is a far better buy than Intel if you want to play the CPU/PC market - IF you think the market will improve. Five years from now no one knows what will be going on. We could all be running Apple OS XXX on MS/AOL/TWC/ATT/IBM's crusoe chips on our Palm Pilot MIM green "because green is faster" (Mac Addict injoke) deluxe editions.

Yes I bought AMD stock this week. Yes I'll buy more.

Yo KarmaWhore

[mosch]

Go look in your BIOS at the temperature monitoring stuff. You'll see a section where you can choose a temperature at which you want the machine to automatically shutdown, in case say, the heatsink falls off.

Oh yeah, and it's set to something reasonable my default. You actually have to disable that if you want to fry your processor.

Next time you're going to whine, whine about something legitimate.

More fps in DroneZ with Dual CPUs

[Anonymous Coward]

Dual processors can increase your gaming pleasure. DroneZ gets 20%-78% more fps with dual athlons.

These results came from a review of the Tyan Thunder K7
http://www.amdworld.co.uk/ty.htm

The bottom of this page has the benchmarks.
http://www.amdworld.co.uk/ty8.htm

Comparing 1 CPU vs 2 CPU (Athlon 1.2GHz MP)

1 CPU 2 CPUs Improvement
Highest Quality: 44.37 54 21.7%
High Quality: 61.2 98.9 61.4%
Medium Quality: 62.32 102.11 63.8%
Low Quality: 83.91 149.8 78.5%

Already got one

[Anonymous Coward]

I already bought one and built a system around it. Dual 2.1Ghz Palaminos, 2x 256 PC2100 DDR RAM. Sweet!

I have been impressed. Very stable, I've only locked up the machine once under RedHat 7.1 (SMP Kernel) while using Mozilla... I threw an old 3GB drive with BeOS 4 and it took off right away. I didn't have to change anything. BeOS saw that it was a dual.

I bought a USB keyboard for it... I had to hook a PS/2 to it first so I could turn on the USB support. Otherwise you can never get into the BIOS.

Scottgfx... too lazy to sign in. The password is somewhere on my G4/733 at home. :)