Tiger MP Dual-Processor Motherboard 232
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:Tyan's Thunder K7 wasn't exactly overpriced.... (Score:3, Interesting)
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. (Score:4, Interesting)
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:
Re:Time to swap out the ole bp6 (Score:1, Interesting)
Nice Motherboards will not be here for a while. (Score:2, Interesting)
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."