2CPU.com » News » June 2001 » Tyan Thunder/Tiger LE Motherboard Review

What does it take to get a perfect five out of five from me? Well... How about a board that doesn't do anything the best, but does everything very well. That is exactly what the Thunder LE from Tyan did, and that is exactly what I gave it. Read the full review right here.

06/20/2001 09:53 PM: Another Tyan Thunder K7 BIOS Update (v2.06)! by Jim
I noticed this by way of Anandtech. Electic Tech has an updated BIOS for the Thunder K7 available, version 2.06. Fix Random cold boot failure problem. Soooo, there you have it. You can grab it over he...

06/14/2001 10:48 PM: Tyan Thunder K7 'lite' showing up on Pricewatch? by Jim
I know the moment the Thunder K7 became available, readers everywhere wanted the power of two Athlon processors under the proverbial hood. What a lot of you didn't want was of course the onboard SCSI....

06/05/2001 04:59 AM: Tyan Thunder K7 in the house! by Hooz
The long awaited day is upon us. The NDA has lifted. Is it worth it? What's all the fuss about? I have attempted to answer those questions (and a few more) in my review of the first 760MP board to...

06/19/2000 03:38 AM: Tyan Thunder-X Review by Granite
Well, it took me long enough, but here's my review of the Tyan Thunder-X motherboard. This board is just a BIOS rev away from a perfect 5 out of 5. I recommend it highly to anyone who wants a Xeon s...

04/04/2000 12:29 AM: Tyan Thunderbolt Review by Hooz
As some of you sharper readers have noticed, I just finished posting SMP_Homer's review of the Tyan Thunderbolt motherboard. You'll have to read the review to see what he thought of that bad-boy, but...

ReMeDy Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9704 Posted on: 06/26/2001 05:15 AM I like the review, i liked it so much i printed it. But the Benchies are a bit funky to say the least. You would think the board would be atleast around VIA's ap133a dual bench:confused: . I think i will go take a look on ibuyer.net for the Tiger LE, fits the price range. K, jim your next up bro... Update: i just looked at pricewatch, and the Thunder is cheaper than the Tiger, its almost as confusing as the benchmarks as to why the THunder would be cheaper than the Tiger:confused: Is it possible Hooz, to get a Beta BIOS and rebench it? Or is it a done deal already? I just looked at the BIOS for both on the site and it is dated for 6/19/01, are you using that? [url=Tyan]http://www.tyan.com/support/html/b_th_le.html[/url] |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

allanmac Registered User Posts: 109 Joined: 2000-06-20

#9705 Posted on: 06/26/2001 05:32 AM Nice review.... There is one other difference between the Thunder and Tiger. The Thunder has 3.3V 64-bit PCI slots, the Tiger 5V. You can tell by the way the slots are keyed. Another great thing about the Serverworks LE and HE-SL boards is that they support up to 4GB of PC133. A 1GB ECC/Reg DIMM is down to $378. Wow... Tyan S1837UANG-L / 2x1000 / Matrox Parhelia / Ecrix U2W VXA-1 Supermicro P4DPE-G2 / 2x2200 / 8GB DDR200

allanmac Registered User Posts: 109 Joined: 2000-06-20

#9706 Posted on: 06/26/2001 05:34 AM > > Update: i just looked at pricewatch, and the Thunder is cheaper than the Tiger, > You're probably looking at the S2510NG -- no SCSI controller. It's the stripped version of this series. Tyan S1837UANG-L / 2x1000 / Matrox Parhelia / Ecrix U2W VXA-1 Supermicro P4DPE-G2 / 2x2200 / 8GB DDR200

ReMeDy Registered User Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9707 Posted on: 06/26/2001 05:35 AM I wanna see a DDR board from ServerWorks, that would be something to look at, they do have good devs working for them. |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9708 Posted on: 06/26/2001 05:41 AM No, apparently I was using an older BIOS on my board. I'll reflash it tonight and see if the numbers change any. [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

ReMeDy Administrator Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9709 Posted on: 06/26/2001 07:41 AM If you find that no scsi version let me know. Ok i even seen this SM too i dunno if it is the same LE that Tyan built around also. SM |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

timekills Satellite rider Posts: 526 Joined: 2000-08-17

#9710 Posted on: 06/26/2001 07:56 PM Classic Hooz - informative and to the point. Please remember to give "Reviews that are informative and not 99 pages long 101" to Anand et al... So you're going with the dually Intel over the dually AMD for a server, eh? Even with the marked performance hit, that does speak volumes about the board. What it says about the AMD board, I'm not so sure... I may not agree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it.

ReMeDy Satellite rider Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9711 Posted on: 06/26/2001 08:05 PM I don't think he meant PowerFul server when he was talking about the LE class board, but he meant a decent home server for the dollar. The amd would be a bit overkil(imho) to just leave it on 24/7 for a home server. The cost of Registered DDR memory compared to SDram. I think it would be easier to max out the LE than the 760MP. Atleast from my view thats what it seems like. |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

Fr0st Registered User Posts: 493 Joined: 2001-01-05

#9712 Posted on: 06/26/2001 08:11 PM If you're looking at a server board for FreeBSD, don't discount the Tiger LE. Release 4.3 does have support for Promise FastTrak controllers Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9713 Posted on: 06/26/2001 08:36 PM It is all about what you actually need from your server. Our site here does a decent amount of traffic, but we are no AnandTech (we do in a month what he does in a day ). Most of our traffic is plain old static HTML pages currently, so we can get by with a lot less of a server. I am building the server with future growth in mind, but even (say) dual PIII 733's would last us a long time. I would rather invest the money in memory and disk space/speed as those two things will pay off more for our needs in the long run. As we move the site to a more dynamically driven design, the server will become more important, but things like memory and disk speed will have more of an impact than processor speed. Honestly though, a good server admin and FreeBSD can do wonders As far as not using the Thunder K7 for the server... We just don't need that kind of power. Maybe at some point in the future we will, but by then the AthlonMP will be long gone and something else bigger, better, and faster will have taken its place. [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9714 Posted on: 06/26/2001 08:45 PM Fr0st: Where are you finding that? Everything I see about FreeBSD and the FastTrak cards says that they work fine as standard IDE controllers, but you get no RAID functionality. If you could give me a link or something, I'd like to check it out! [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9715 Posted on: 06/26/2001 08:56 PM allanmac: You are correct sir! There are two different versions of the Thunder LE. One has 64bit/66mhz slots, and the other has 64bit/33mhz slots. The Tiger LE only comes in the 64bit/66mhz flavor. [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

Fr0st Registered User Posts: 493 Joined: 2001-01-05

#9716 Posted on: 06/26/2001 08:57 PM Hooz, Try this: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.2R/notes.html Look in the section under kernel changes, 4th paragraph down. This was for release 4.2, and they're at 4.3 now. You may very well be right about the lack of actual RAID functionality, but I didn't see a disclaimer to this effect. I'll look around some more and see if this can be clarified. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Fr0st Registered User Posts: 493 Joined: 2001-01-05

#9717 Posted on: 06/26/2001 09:15 PM More RAIDage... You're right Hooz, FreeBSD does not exactly support the Promise RAID controllers in full RAID. This is because RAID with the Promise cards is mostly done in software. So there is no Promise supplied driver to make this work. However... FreeBSD has a tool caled "vinum" which is FreeBSD's own software RAID, and will work with any drive controller supported by FreeBSD. According to this... http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=2674981+2677553+/usr/local/www/db/text/2001/freebsd-questions/20010429.freebsd-questions ...vinum should be just as fast, if not faster than anybody else's software solution. So, in theory you could use a non-RAID Promise card, and it would perform just like a FastTrak RAID under any other OS. Pretty cool if it's true Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9718 Posted on: 06/26/2001 09:51 PM But I fear that like any other software RAID solution you would not be able to boot to the array. That protects your data, but it doesn't save you from a failed boot drive [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

Fr0st Registered User Posts: 493 Joined: 2001-01-05

#9719 Posted on: 06/26/2001 10:11 PM heh heh, Low tech... It's quite possible to have a FreeBSD system that boots to a floppy, and loads vinum support in the kernel. Yeah, that's really cheesy, but how often would you be rebooting a server anyway, once it was configured. I agree though, true bootable hardware RAID is better. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

ReMeDy Registered User Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9720 Posted on: 06/27/2001 09:46 PM Let us know when you update the BIOS... |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

fractal SMP Guru Posts: 516 Joined: 2000-05-25

#9721 Posted on: 06/28/2001 06:01 AM Hmm. If you had your choice of a tiger 200 with its onboard video (for those rare times you need to see the error code) or the LE with its 64 bit pci cards you probably won't use in a 1u chassis, which would you choose for your web server? Performance seems a wash.. Hardware configuration can be found at [url="http://www.fractured.org/systems/"]Fractal's Fractured Systems[/url] page.

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9722 Posted on: 06/28/2001 06:28 PM Actually I would still use the Thunder LE. There are two things I like in my servers; RAID controllers and ECC memory. While the Thunder LE with ECC matches memory numbers with the Tiger 200 and unbuffered SDRam, throw some good quality ECC into the Tiger 200 and watch it fall behind. As far as the RAID controllers go, even the budget SCSI RAID cards take advantage of the wider 64bit PCI slots of the Thunder LE. Hell... Even the IDE RAID market is beginnning to see the benefits of stepping up to the 64bit PCI bus. 3ware and Promise both have new products that will leverage the technology. [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

ReMeDy Administrator Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9723 Posted on: 06/29/2001 07:18 AM I don't understand why the T200 fall behind with H Quality memory? |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2388 Joined: 2000-03-29

#9724 Posted on: 06/29/2001 08:25 AM Because ECC memory is by nature slower than unbuffered SDRam. The exact same machine will lose memory bandwidth just by enabling ECC. The Thunder LE matches (with ECC) what most VIA boards do with unbuffered SDRam making it a wash... But when you use ECC memory with the VIA chipset, the memory bandwidth will drop a bit, putting it behind the Serverworks chipset (which was using ECC to begin with). [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

ReMeDy Administrator Posts: 12389 Joined: 2001-02-10

#9725 Posted on: 06/29/2001 11:17 AM So where does the Tyan T200 fit, since its supposed to be a serverboard? of some sort? it has the profile of one but not the chipset right? |[size=1][url=http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=279831#post279831][color=yellow]FAQ's[/url][/color][/size]|Heatware-Remedy{WcS}|Dual760|Beerology|

2CPU.com » News » June 2001 » Tyan Thunder/Tiger LE Motherboard Review