THG Looks at ClawHammer Mobo

An anonymous reader writes "Tom's Hardware Guide managed to get a first look at the new Socket 754 ClawHammer motherboard. While they don't provide the benchmarks that you might be looking for, they do an excellent job and providing pictures and an overview of the ClawHammer Platform."

tubes

[trollercoaster]

I love the old-timey tubes used for the sound. I wonder how reliable these will be. I'm old enough to remeber having to replace tubes in our old tv back in the day.

At least they're smart enough

[spyder913]

to have active cooling on the north bridge, too many new, high speed bus mobos are coming out right now with passive cooling that doesn't come close to making it easy to OC.

32 Bit PCI

[shoemakc]

What, still only 32-bit PCI slots? :::yawn:::

-Chris

Tube Board.

[Deathlizard]

Interesting that Aopen is showing off another Tube Audio Board. This one with a three tube design for even more powerful sound.

I wonder if this trend is going to continue on more of aopen's boards. There must be a demand for the original tube board if they play on making a more powerful 3 tube version in the future.

Vacum Tubes

[mojowantshappy]

I am just curoius, wouldn't the vacum tubes tend to shatter somewhat easily? I carry my PC around quite a bit for LAN games and the like and if I were to ever drop my computer, that would really screw them up. Damn these weak, nerdy arms! -

Unfortunately, maybe 2h/2003.

[WittyName]

During AMD's earnings conference call they delayed the rollout of clawhammer/opteron AGAIN. This assumes they are still in business.. (They have been losing money for a while)

Re:Interesting

[CrypticOutsider]

My co-worker was telling me about this earlier this morning. I especially like the vacuum tubes for the audio on the motherboard. Audiophiles will be drooling over that. Do they make mobos now with that on them?

I find it very interesting that they would put tubes on there for the center, satellite and stereo channels. From my experience rec.audio.* groups (sampling of the "high end" users that have computers), those that prefer the tube sound would probably not buy a mobo with that (preferring instead to waste $20k on an amp that would do it for them).

Of course, since a tube just distorts the sound anyway, and you already have a computer, why not just provide a setting for a tube EQ?

This is ignoring the marketing effects of having the tube there: maybe it will work for the novelty factor.

Why vacuum tubes?

[f97tosc]

Certainly the true audiophiles often use tubes for their systems, but this does not mean that these are superior for all situations.

What kind of sound will go through the system? A normal transistor has a 'snappier' sound to it, which is better for a lot of modern music, and I would imagine for sound effects in computer games.

I guess if you want the best for your classical LPs then maybe this is something for you, er, no, then you would be better of to get a real amplifier.

Tor

Re:Unfortunately, maybe 2h/2003.

[Jim Norton]

If we are talking about the same thing, I believe they have stated they are DE-EMPHASIZING the Clawhammer ... in other words, its still on track for release in the first half of 2003 (still way off compared to their roadmap, of course) with Opteron in the 2H03.

Right now AMD is working towards profitability, meaning going after markets which are stronger (which are, right now, the value microprocessor market) thus the de-emphasizing of the latest and greatest.

Too bad that's really a dumb move.

[Inoshiro]

For those of us who like having a motherboard we can place into a system and not have to worry about parts failing on it, the wonderfully solid-state nature of passive cooling is impossible to beat. If I want more performance, I'll either pay more or wait a little while longer, thanks. I want stability and a minimization of moving parts in my PC, because moving parts = failing parts. Failing parts are expensive!

How many active-cooling north bridge motherboards have you owned? I owned one. Its north bridge fan failed after only 3 months of constant use. Compared to every other motherboard I own, none of which require a fan (most don't even require a heatsink, and they power 1Ghz systems!), it was a terrible mistake purchase. I've since replaced it with a motherboard bought specifically because its north brigde used passive cooling. It's given no problems in the year+ of service it's given.

Re:Interesting

[Faggot]

I find it very interesting that they would put tubes on there for the center, satellite and stereo channels. From my experience rec.audio.* groups (sampling of the "high end" users that have computers), those that prefer the tube sound would probably not buy a mobo with that (preferring instead to waste $20k on an amp that would do it for them).

Tube power amps sound just a little bit better than their solid-state counterparts. The place where tubes really shine is in Class A (non-push-pull) amplification, which is generally used in the preamp phase. It's here where tubes' famous even-order harmonics are produced -- it's these octave harmonics which make tube sound so sweet and agreeable to human ears. Taking audio from a regular computer sound card, audio which has been produced with a solid-state preamp, and pumping it through a $20k tube power amp is just what you called -- a waste. However, when tubes are intimately involved in the sound production within the computer and are used for preamplification, you can hook it up to a $150 solid-state power amp and it will sound better than sound from a regular soundcard.

Re:Interesting

[p3d0]

Tubes do not theoretically provide for a cleaner sound. Theoretically, transistors can do a better job, but audiophiles have been drooling over tubes for decades now anyway. My theory is that they produce a kind of distortion that sounds good to the human ear.

Re:Which tubes are these??

[kevinank]

When I saw the first picture of the motherboard with vacuum tubes I was a bit surprised; hey, those look like vacuum tubes. At first I thought the entire article might be a joke, but after reading the article for a bit it certainly seems serious enough.

I suppose they are playing to the home theater market, but I couldn't give a damn personally whether they are using double triodes or anything else. The Altec Lansing speakers I have hooked to my computer are sufficient for basic sound, but they aren't going to come close to filling a room like a real stereo system would. Besides, since when do you need a full amp instead of just a preamp in your computer.

Re:Interesting

[Zathrus]

Tubes have far worse SNR's than discrete amps do.

People who prefer tube amps do it because of the different sound they lend to the music - not because of SNR or THD, both of which are higher than modern discrete amps.

Um... HEAT!

[ackthpt]

Here's another shot of the tubes [planet3dnow.de]. My immediate beef, besides the fact I thought this was an early April Fool, is that mounting this board vertically places the tubes below most of the electronics, including CPU. Tubes typically run hot, because heat from the filament is what makes them work and three of them are going to create quite some heat.

Looking at the sockets, I'm also a bit concerned about the heat cooking the board itself, since I've seen any number of PCB electronics over the years with tubes, where the board is blackish sometimes separating foil from board. Think about that with a 7 layer PCB.

Lastly, high voltage. Scary around all these low voltage things. I wonder why they didn't consider making a daughterboard and keeping things well isolated.

Re:What are Vacuum tubes?

[Animats]

The whole tube audio thing is a joke. First, the whole business of tube audio revolves around how clipping distortion occurs at saturation. If you're getting any measureable distortion from a low-power amplifier that follows a D/A, your circuit design is all wrong.

Second, if you want some specific transfer function under overload, you can get it by design. There's a famous story about this. Some years back, Bob Carver, the well-known amplifier designer, took a tube amplifier that was well-regarded by the "high-end" audio nuts, and characterized its response with the usual test gear. He then designed a transistor amp with the same transfer function. In listening tests, listeners couldn't tell the difference.

But his transistor amp didn't sell. He then, as a joke, designed the Carver Silver 7, the most overdesigned tube amp of all time. Three chassis per channel, chrome-plated everything, insane price of about $25,000. It got great reviews. "Amp of the Decade" from The Absolute Sound.

Re:What are Vacuum tubes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have to disagree on two points.

1. Although tubes are not readily seen in use, and have been widely replaced by semiconductors, they are still very much used. The main applications are for higher power radio transmission in the microwave range. In a search radar there are klystrons, tubes that modulate using electrostatic fields causing "electron bunching" There are also magnetrons, a tube that uses a magnetic field to produce steady, variable, oscillations. And good, old-fashioned, tube diodes, for a quick cutover between transmit and recieve. The tube will not go away any time soon.

2. A good tube amplifier will always sound better than a solid state amp. Tubes are, by design, less noisy. Transistors, have significant amounts of spurious, out of phase, electron drift. The signal gets degraded in random spots. Because tubes are controlled by voltage, there is less drift of electrons at unwanted times. JFETs and MOSFETs attempt to emulate this but still fall short.

This only applies to a good tube amp. A good tube amp will out perform a good semiconductor one. A bad tube amp can easily be shot down by good semiconductor amp.