Tyan Tomcat i945GM S3095 Preview

Board Layout:

The Tyan Tomcat i945GM motherboard complies with FlexATX specifications, but for being so compact the motherboard's components are well laid out. Along the upper edge of the i945GM PCB is the 24-pin and 8-pin ATX power supply connectors, while running horizontal along the motherboard are two DDR2 slots. These two slots support up to 2GB of DDR2-667/533/400 memory. Below the system memory slots on the motherboard is the Northbridge as well as the CPU socket. The Tomcat i945GM motherboard supports Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core Duo, Core Solo, and Celeron M processors.

The Chipset used by the Tyan S3095 motherboard is the Intel 945GM Express Chipset. Supported by this Chipset is Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 onboard graphics, adaptive de-interlacing, along with Serial ATA 2.0 and USB 2.0. Cooling the chip is an aluminum heatsink with pushpins in opposing corners. Working our way down the motherboard, below the CPU socket area is the Intel ICH7M-DH Southbridge. Also on this area of the PCB are the two Serial ATA 2.0 connectors, Compact Flash connector, and other system headers. No IDE interface is supported by this motherboard.

At the expansion slot area is a single PCI slot along with one PCI-E x4. With the i945GM being a mobile Chipset, a Mini-PCI slot is also offered. Powering the LAN ASICs on this motherboard is Intel's Gigabit 82573V and 82551QM 10/100 controllers. At the rear of the motherboard are two USB 2.0 ports, three LAN ports, VGA and DVI graphics interfaces provided by the onboard GMA950, Serial, and two PS/2 ports.

Unfortunately, we do not have the Linux compatibility and performance results to share today. However, we hope to be able to share the results soon. Our original Tyan Tomcat i945GM sample was dead upon arrival, and now Tyan's new marketing manager has told us that the i945GM is being replaced by the S5191 and S5197. As it stands right now, the Tyan Tomcat i945GM motherboard is a well-designed solution for use in a variety of embedded environments. If you have any questions about this motherboard, stop by the Phoronix Forums.