Tyan Thunder X Dual Xeon 440GX

Thanks to Intel's 440GX chipset (which is covered by a wide, but low profile black heatsink), the Thunder X supports up to 2GB of SDRAM using four 512MB DIMM's. This is one the biggest advantages of the 440GX over the 440BX and can be very useful in building a high powered server or workstation - a situation the Thunder X will likely find itself in quite often. To that end, dual Slot-2 connectors are also available for some dual Xeon action.

Simply adding a second processor is not a quick and dirty way to double performance however. As a web server, this can be extremely useful, but is much less so for a workstation. Also remember that you must have an operating system and applications that can take advantage of that second processor. As for the operating system, that means Windows NT, BeOS, or some variant of Unix (such as Linux). For more information on multiprocessing, check out Multiprocessor Systems: The More the Merrier? and Multiprocessor Systems: The Other Benefit.

Unlike the Supermicro S2DGU, a processor terminator card was not included in the package to plug into the second CPU slot when using just one processor. The terminator card is designed to enhance stability, something that is extremely important in a server situation. However, the Thunder X seemed to be rock solid without it. That stability is at least partially due to the excellent construction of the Thunder X. There are 25 (count 'em) beefy capacitors (plus some small ones), 6 voltage regulators, and 6 toroidal inductors to insure a stable voltage supply to the CPU for added stability. Rest assured, stability in non-overclocked situations was quite good.

Speaking of overclocking, Tyan has typically not supported overclocking to a great extent and since the board is intended for servers, and probably will be used as such, stability is key. Thus, overclocking probably will not be performed too often with the Thunder X. With that said, it is in fact possible to overclock this thing as alluded to above. Unfortunately, unlike the Supermicro S2DGU AnandTech tested, the 112MHz bus speed would not even POST with our 400MHz Xeon at 448MHz. So while the Supermicro board offered some overclocking options for high-end workstations, the Tyan fell a bit short here.

Six 3-pin fan connectors are included with five of those right around the CPU connectors. The sixth is found at the left, front of the board next to the built-in speaker and power LED. Note, however, that only two of those fan connectors can be monitored by the hardware monitoring features of the board. Although the original chips are not used, the hardware monitoring is supposedly LM79/LM75 compatible so you should be able to use your favorite utility for hardware monitoring or the included system management software. Unfortunately, that was not the case and only the included Intel Lan Desk Client Manager worked. Monitoring of the motherboard temperature, CPU temperature, two fan speeds, and system voltages are all possible.

The Tyan system management software is included on a CD along with bus master drivers, GX chipset patches for Windows 9x and a few other utilities. SCSI drivers are included on 3.5" floppy disks.

Power management consists of pretty much the standard stuff these days. A wake on-LAN header is available to allow the system to resume on network activity and the BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time. The CPU fan can be shut off when the system suspends to quiet things down a bit. ACPI support is built into the BIOS for added power management under an ACPI compliant OS like Windows 98.