Tyan Thunder K8WE (S2895A2NRF) Motherboard
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- Storage Controller Type(s): DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra) x 1, SCSI Ultra320 x 2, Serial ATA x 4
- Form Factor: SSI EEB 3.0
- Chipset: AMD-8111 / AMD-8131
- Compatibility: PC
- Compatible Processors: AMD Opteron
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Exactly what a Workstation / Server Motherboard should be!
Pros
Fully featured, support for Linux, extremely flexible.
Cons
Requires 2 s940 200 Series Opterons for full functionality.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Purchase this motherboard, you'll like it. It's the BEST option for a s940 based Opteron!
Well,
This is the mother of all motherboards.
It's based on the nForce Pro 2200 and 2050 chipsets, and also includes an AMD PCI-X 8131 bridge as well. (So it's basically got 3 chipsets attached to the processor bus via hypertransport.)
The board has:
1 v2.3 PCI Slot
2 16x PCIe Slots
2 PCI-X 66/100 Slots
1 PCI-X 133 slot
1 Floppy connector
2 Serial Ports
8 USB 2.0 EHCI ports
1 set PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors
2 FireWire 400 [1394a] ports
2 1000BaseT ports (using a Marvell PHY)
6 4pin fan headers
Integrated AC97 Audio w/ surround sound 5.1
8 DDR DIMM Slots (Total of 16GB of RAM)
1 PATA header
4 SATA headers
Support of all 200 Series s940 Opteron Processors
(Single and Dual Core)
The two x16 PCIe slots are given a full 16 lanes each.
Two processors are required to be installed for the board to completely work, and you should have at least 4 DDR DIMMS installed across both processors for the best operation. CPU0 and CPU1 each control one of the chipsets on the motherboard. So the nForce Pro 2200 is attached to CPU0 along with 50% of the RAM for the board. That leaves the nForce 2050 attached to CPU1 with the other 50% of the RAM slots. The AMD PCI-X bridge is attached to CPU0, resulting in the ability to use PCI-X cards with only 1 processor.
In addition, this board is a true EPS 12v otherboard, so you need to make certain you have a decent power supply. I'm using that most recent version (and that's important) of the Antec Neo HE 550. This is able to drive two - Opteron 285SE's, 4 hard drives, 1 PCI-X card, 1 3Ware RAID controller, and a GeForce 7800GTX PCIe card.
This is a BIG motherboard. It uses the extended ATX (eATX) form factor, and you'll want to make sure that your case it a good size. I'm using a full height Thermaltake Armour case to insure good airflow...
The best thing is the decent BIOS support from Tyan. They've been keeping things up to date, unlike the FoxConn NFPIK8AA board I replaced with this Tyan S2895 Thunder. (FoxConn NEVER updated their BIOS and refused to support newer compatible Opterons.)
Lastly, Tyan give you a series of tools for managing this motherboard:
- PXE booting support, with Wake On LAN (WOL).
- USB device booting (such as a USB floppy)
- Remote console support directly in the BIOS
- LAN enabled hardware monitoring tools.
There is another version of this board that comes with a higher end SCSI controller. Should you purchase that one you'll need to ensure you have a rebust power supply.
PCMark05 benchmarks with this system loaded with:
16GB of DDR PC2100 ECC Registered Server RAM
1.2 TB of RAID 5 Storage using a 3Ware 9650SE controller
2 - Opteron 285SE processors (for a total of 4 cores)
and a nForce 7800GTX video card
...gave a result of just over 7000 PCMarks.
The same setup with single core Opteron 856 (3Ghz) processors, 10k Raptor HD drives [striped], and an nForce 8800GTS card yeiled a result of just over 8000 PCMarks.
This is the mother of all motherboards.
It's based on the nForce Pro 2200 and 2050 chipsets, and also includes an AMD PCI-X 8131 bridge as well. (So it's basically got 3 chipsets attached to the processor bus via hypertransport.)
The board has:
1 v2.3 PCI Slot
2 16x PCIe Slots
2 PCI-X 66/100 Slots
1 PCI-X 133 slot
1 Floppy connector
2 Serial Ports
8 USB 2.0 EHCI ports
1 set PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors
2 FireWire 400 [1394a] ports
2 1000BaseT ports (using a Marvell PHY)
6 4pin fan headers
Integrated AC97 Audio w/ surround sound 5.1
8 DDR DIMM Slots (Total of 16GB of RAM)
1 PATA header
4 SATA headers
Support of all 200 Series s940 Opteron Processors
(Single and Dual Core)
The two x16 PCIe slots are given a full 16 lanes each.
Two processors are required to be installed for the board to completely work, and you should have at least 4 DDR DIMMS installed across both processors for the best operation. CPU0 and CPU1 each control one of the chipsets on the motherboard. So the nForce Pro 2200 is attached to CPU0 along with 50% of the RAM for the board. That leaves the nForce 2050 attached to CPU1 with the other 50% of the RAM slots. The AMD PCI-X bridge is attached to CPU0, resulting in the ability to use PCI-X cards with only 1 processor.
In addition, this board is a true EPS 12v otherboard, so you need to make certain you have a decent power supply. I'm using that most recent version (and that's important) of the Antec Neo HE 550. This is able to drive two - Opteron 285SE's, 4 hard drives, 1 PCI-X card, 1 3Ware RAID controller, and a GeForce 7800GTX PCIe card.
This is a BIG motherboard. It uses the extended ATX (eATX) form factor, and you'll want to make sure that your case it a good size. I'm using a full height Thermaltake Armour case to insure good airflow...
The best thing is the decent BIOS support from Tyan. They've been keeping things up to date, unlike the FoxConn NFPIK8AA board I replaced with this Tyan S2895 Thunder. (FoxConn NEVER updated their BIOS and refused to support newer compatible Opterons.)
Lastly, Tyan give you a series of tools for managing this motherboard:
- PXE booting support, with Wake On LAN (WOL).
- USB device booting (such as a USB floppy)
- Remote console support directly in the BIOS
- LAN enabled hardware monitoring tools.
There is another version of this board that comes with a higher end SCSI controller. Should you purchase that one you'll need to ensure you have a rebust power supply.
PCMark05 benchmarks with this system loaded with:
16GB of DDR PC2100 ECC Registered Server RAM
1.2 TB of RAID 5 Storage using a 3Ware 9650SE controller
2 - Opteron 285SE processors (for a total of 4 cores)
and a nForce 7800GTX video card
...gave a result of just over 7000 PCMarks.
The same setup with single core Opteron 856 (3Ghz) processors, 10k Raptor HD drives [striped], and an nForce 8800GTS card yeiled a result of just over 8000 PCMarks.
