Tyan Thunder K7 System Review and OC'n

Software-

Before we get into benchmarks and such, lets look at how the system sees the every thing and get the  system specs.

This was all as expected, except the lack of Fast Writes, and Sideband Addressing. This could explain the fairly poor performance in some games that other websites have listed.

This is a edited Device Manager list in Windows 2000 pro.  The Disabled Nic is cause I disabled it on purpose.

You can see clearly the make/mfg of the onboard hardware. The only drivers that are needed to be loaded are the AGP driver, and the Ethernet Driver, besides that its all supported in Windows 2000 by default.

A Few Basic Benchmarks-

(Sorry Modem'rs Lotsa Graphics)

When evaluating the benchmarks recognize I am using Thunderbird cores and NOT Athlon MP cores. I cannot tell you if there is a speed increase with the MP's but there should be.  This can give you an idea where you will stand running with Tbirds.  Eventually I will buy some MP's for the machine, but I am not really into begging for them from companies just to test with.

2 x 1.05Ghz - @ 200FSB DDR

MM marks are about where I expected. The Mem was higher then I thought it would be though.  At PC1600 the Ram is moving pretty fast.

2 x 1.33Ghz - @ 266FSB DDR

MM Marks have jumped nicely with the 266 Bus, now it WHOOPS the P3 1Ghz dually by about as much as it should.  The Mem takes a nice jump to about 100Mb/sec above where it was before.

2 x 1.40Ghz - @ 266FSB DDR

Only a slight jump in the MM Marks, and a Decline in the Mem marks.  This caused me to do a lot of repeat testing and I found they jumped between 875MB/s for FPU to 920MB/s. The Same variance can be said for the ALU.

Benchmark Conclusion -

Well they all suck.  Just plain and simple.  Which is real un fortunate as the machine MOVES.  I mean Its about the most responsive, and powerful machine I have used. I am guessing as BIOS, Drivers, and the boards evolve performance will increase with it. AMD is new to the SMP gig, and soon enough we will see the MPX chipset which should be the "next build" of the MP core and should give some more performance.

Very Interesting Discovery! -

You can run 2 different speed CPU's in the Thunder K7 ( 2 different Multipliers.)  I noticed that in my custom OC'n on the cores, I left one at 1.33 while the other was a 1.4.  The bench marks I ran with it like that were lower then the 1.4 but higher then the 1.3 Which makes great sense.

I plan on doing some testing with a 1Ghz/1.4Ghz and see what happens.  This seems to ONLY work between the same Thunderbird CPU's ( no Duron/Tbird setups), and ONLY works for different Multipliers. Both FSB's need to be the same.

So if you have 1 1Ghz Tbird, and get a 1.3Ghz just throw em in and use the max of both CPU's :) best thing is, in the BIOS it lists 2x 1.4Ghz when I had 1 1.3Ghz and 1 1.4Ghz CPU in.  In System Info and in CPU ID it clearly lists the 2 different multipliers and speeds.

I lost my screen shots to back this up and don't have time to re- take them or retest as I don't want to go and re-etch the chips.

If you try this with any success or failure please let me know and if you have SS's email them to me ( ask me first If I want them) so I can add them to this review/article.

Conclusions

The Thunder K7, a First of its kind, and a board that will change how the industry views AMD and Tyan. Truly a ground breaking achievement for this industry and a marvel of engineering itself.  Tyan spared little expense on this board, but in turn that expense is passed off to its buyers with its price.  Talking about price for a board like this may be a lil misleading as MOST high end server boards cost more.  But in comparison to lower end consumer grade Dually boards like Abit and MSI make the Tyan is very expensive.  You can now get the Thunder K7 without the Onboard SCSI will will save you 100$ or more.

The board is such a different beast compared to most other boards that have passed through here, both in its features, and in its lack of features. The Features on the motherboard itself are almost un matched in the industry.  But in the BIOS the total lack of any useful features that may alleviate the performance issues ( Memory CL timing changes, FSB, Caching, and enhancement features such as Fast Decode, and 4way Interleave etc...)  I know this BIOS is made for a environment that will not need that kind of tweaking, but since the price point of the CPU's and the type of audience the board is indirectly aimed at (just look at Dualathlon.com), it would make sense to offer these advanced features.

Besides for the few issues, the board is great.  I will be using it as my main machine for years to come I have a feeling.  The ChenBro Case and the NMB PSU are a great match for this board.  While the machine will not be a fire breather in games much more then a single 1.x Ghz Tbird,  ( with tbirds in the board), the true SMP related apps will eat up this power and will thank you ;)

If you need High speed SMP now, get it while its hot.  If you can wait, then the 762 MPX will be out soon enough ( Q3/Q4 2001).

Pros & Cons:

Pros-
Included onboard hardware is incredible
Works with Durons and Thunderbirds as well as Athlon MP's
AGP Pro, and 64Bit 33Mhz PCI
Works out of the box with Windows 2000 Pro
Dual Onboard LAN LED headers
4 PC2100 DDR Dimm slots 3.5GB Max
Able to scale to 1.5Ghz per CPU with the MP's and Tbird cores.
Possible to use 2 different speed CPU's.

Cons-
Proprietary Power supply needed, costing an extra 140+$
No room around CPU sockets to work with, Caps are really close to the socket
Less then Spectacular Performance with Tbird cores
No Onboard IDE or SCSI RAID
You Cant use the Onboard video with an AGP card  in use at the same time ( Multi Monitor)
No BIOS Options to Tweak any settings.
 

Thanks to ENPC for the lil deals on the Case, PSU , Mobo and the speedy turn around on the RMA'd Mobo.  KDComputers needs props for the HSF's and Fans.  I also bought my CPU, and HD from them.  And Case Etc for the Case Badge for now, but in the future I will be getting the fan grills and such from them for when I cut up this case.  Also - I have the domain names DualAMD.com and DualAMD.net Up for Sale, make me an offer Via email if you want them.

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