It's worth it...I promise
Written: Aug 21 '02 (Updated Aug 21 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stable, cheap, fast
Cons: Pain to set up, power hog, needs good RAM, runs hot, misc. quarks
The Bottom Line: This is a really great board. It's stable, and I like the performance of the duallie. Once you get it up and running, it will serve you very well.
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| dirwin's Full Review: Tyan Tiger MP S2460 Motherboard |
I purchased the Tyan Tiger S2460 as a cheap multi-processor AMD Athlon solution that I can use for daily use as well as power-user functions. I looked at the cost of powerful single-processor based Athlon and Pentium 4 (mostly Athlon based Soltek, Asus, Abit, and Epox) solutions at the time of building my system (May 2002), and found that the dual processor setup would provide more bang for my computing buck. This is not to say that my powerful rig has not had roadblocks and hardships, but now that I’m over them, the board is highly stable. First, my setup is as follows:
Tyan Tiger MP 2460 motherboard
2 AMD Athlon MP 1800+ Processors
2 sticks 512 MB Mushkin ECC Registered DDR (mem slots 1 and 2)
120 GB Western Digital WD1200JB Special Edition hard drive (Primary Master)
VisionTek Xtasy Geforce4 MX 440 AGP Video card
Creative Audigy OEM Sound Card
Lite-On 32/12/40x CD-RW (Secondary Master)
Lite-On 16x DVD/48x CD (Secondary Slave)
Firewire PCI Card
USB2 PCI Card
PixelView TV Tuner PCI Card
Lucent v.92 Modem PCI
Lucent 10/100 NIC PCI
Robanton 600W PS (more on that, specifically later)
Windows XP Professional
I’ve found this setup to be stable, fast, and relatively cost effective. I got the board used on eBay for $153, and the whole setup cost around $2050. I have had some problems with this board (which I’ll detail), but in general, it’s been great, providing many very positive aspects (which I’ll also detail)
Warnings and Complaints:
1. Do not buy cheap RAM. This sounds obvious, but it’s very serious. I bought ECC non-registered, non-buffered the first time around from Mushkin. I had to RMA it. However, the customer-service representative was very helpful, and spoke plain English (always nice). I ended up paying over $430 for the gigabyte of RAM for this sucker…almost 25% of the entire cost of the system was RAM. I could’ve gone with 1 stick of 512 or 2 sticks of 256, but I’m glad I got the gigabyte right away. I had to deal with a 500 megabyte PowerPoint presentation (with a huge soundtrack in addition to that), and this system handled it very well. I also frequently work with videos in excess of 20 GB with Adobe Premiere, so the RAM is nice.
2. Do not buy a cheap power supply. Another obvious point, but cheap a cheap power supply can wreak havoc on your Tyan Tiger-based system. I did not follow this advice, and I will be upgrading to an Antec Tru-Power 550 as soon as possible. This board takes a lot of juice. Cheap power supplies will show sagging numbers on the 12V and 5V rails, and possible problems recognizing RAM. The only reason that my cheap power supply works is because it is a cheap 600W power supply, which is sort of overkill.
3. Buy a big case, have lots of fans. This board runs very hot. A bigger case allows for more airflow options, which is ultimately necessary to make this thing work for you. I’m using ThermalRight SK-6 heatsinks with Sunon 60mm fans. This works well for me, and I’d recommend just getting the top of ThermalRight’s line for your heatsink. Also, this board tends to act as a space heater. Your ambient temperatures will go up with this board running 24/7 (unless you water cool). This may or may not be a problem for you.
4. The motherboard manual and/or the printed board jumper instructions are alternately terrible. In my case, the motherboard manual had me set the jumpers in such a way that the board would not POST. However, the printed directions on the board allowed me to set the Front Side Bus to the proper speed. Some people have complained that the board is incorrect, but the manual works for them. In one case that I’ve read about, neither were correct, and trial-and-error was used to make the FSB reach the right speed.
So at this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Self, why on earth would I buy this board? It’s huge, a power hog, hot, loud, and needs a fancy power supply and expensive RAM.” Well, you’re right. However, this board has several advantages that I’ve seen.
1. So far, after getting it up and running, it’s been rock-solid stable. I have had no crashes or random re-boots with this machine. I run Folding@Home 24/7, so my processors will go for weeks on end without a break from the 100% usage mark. Stability is something that all boards should have, but unfortunately, some don’t. This board is very stable.
2. Temperature monitoring. Tyan has 6 thermometers implanted into the board. Using a free program called “Tyan System Monitor”, you can watch all of these temperatures, as well as your voltages and fan speeds. If any of these readings gets too low or too high, you can either have a beep automatically sound, or have the computer shut itself off. So, for example, if you leave your machine alone all day, but it runs 24/7, you could set it to power off if a fan fails, or if any given temperature rises too high for comfort.
3. I’ve had no problems with the AGP, PCI, or IDE on this board. In fact, I’ve found it to perform slightly better than computers I’ve used in the past (but that may just be due to this system’s speed.) However, the on board stuff works well. Also, the parallel, serial, USB, and PS/2 ports work as expected.
4. Board is easy to configure (relatively). None of the jumpers are too awkward to get to while the board is on the table. However, once it’s in your case, if you have a PCI card in the bottom slot, the CMOS Reset jumper is hard to reach. Both tweezers and a reasonable amount of skill with said tweezers will be necessary to get that jumper if it’s in your case. There's also the Phoenix BIOS, so you get all of those standards and good options, and no hassle of lesser-known BIOSes
5. Price vs. Benefit. Multi-processor support does not come cheaply. That said, the Tiger MP can be had for a very reasonable price. Having 2 processors around just makes the machine seem a lot snappier in most tasks. Dual-processor tasks really shine (Adobe Premiere, Quake III Arena), but even single processor tasks take advantage of having an entire processor to themselves (that is, Windows support is taken care of by the other one, etc.)
Overall, I’m very pleased with this board. You can find dozens of horror stories about 2460s eating RAM, processors, Power supplies, or other components. However, after the initial setup, I think you’ll find your Tiger to be a great asset to you. For the money, it really can’t be beat. Also (cheap plug)…if you get stuck with one of these, go to www.amdforums.com and check out the Tyan Motherboards forum. They’re a great bunch of people that can help almost any problem. Also, if you buy one, feel free to e-mail me with problems (as I’m sure something will go wrong with your setup…or we can just swap horror stories if you have one.)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 153--ebay
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Epinions.com ID:
dirwin
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Location: Latrobe, PA, USA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
21-year-old male college student. Computer guru. Geek/Gadget lover for life. Audiophile. AMD Fanatic.
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