Tyan S2915 n6650W & S2927 n3600B

Over the years at Phoronix there have been reviews on many Tyan motherboards for desktops, servers, and workstations. The build quality of these motherboards have always been very good; after all, Tyan has been around for two decades and their workstation/server products must be very dependable if they wish to maintain their premiere position within the industry. The Linux compatibility with the motherboards has also been generally quite good due to its dominant use on their operating systems. As our first Tyan review for 2010 we are looking at the S2915 n6650W and S2927 n3600B motherboards. Both motherboards are designed for AMD's Opteron 2000 series processors and have a similar feature set, but there are a few key differences between these two high-end workstation motherboards.

Below is the specification list for the Tyan Thunder n3600B (S2927) motherboard.

Processor
- Dual 1207-pin ZIF sockets
- Supports up to 2 AMD Socket F Opteron 2000 series processors
- Up to 1.0GHz Hyper-Transport link support

Chipset
- nVIDIA NFP3600
- SMSC SCH5017

Memory
- 128-bit Dual channel memory bus
- (8x) 240-pin DDR2 DIMM slots
- Supports memory speeds of 400/533/677/800 MHz
- Supports up to 32GB of Reg/ECC DDR2 memory
- Supports Single, Dual and Quad Rank memory

Expansion Slots
- One x16 PCI Express (PCI-E 1)
- One x 16 PCI-E slot w/ x8 bandwidth (PCI-E 2)
- Three 32-bit, 33MHz PCI v2.3 slots (PCI1~PCI3)
- Total five usable expansion slots

Integrated 2D/3D PCI Graphics (S2927G2NR only)
- XGI Volari Z7 (XG20)
- 16MB frame buffer memory

Integrated Audio (S2927A2NRF only)
- Realtek ALC262 audio CODEC
- HD Audio 1.0 supported.
- 2 x 5 pin header for front panel audio connector
- CD-in connector

Integrated PCI IDE
- Single channel master mode support up to two IDE devices
- Support for ATA- 133/ 100/66/33 IDE drives and ATAPI compliant devices

Integrated Serial ATA II
- Three serial ATA II Host controllers embedded
- Supports up to 6 Serial ports running at 3.0Gb/s per direction per channel
- Serial ATA II specification compliant
- nVidia MediaShield TM supports for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, JBOD
- HDD LED connector

System Management
- SMSC SCH5017 w/ 2x EMC6D103
- 2x CPU FAN & 2 x 4 -pin system Fan headers, w/ tachometer input and w/ auto fan control)
- Temperature and voltage monitoring
- Watchdog timer
- Port 80 code display LED

Integrated LAN Controllers
- Two NFP3600 integrated MAC with Two Marvell 88E11 16 single port Gigabit Ethernet PHY

Integrated PCI 1394 (S2927A2NRF only)
- VIA VT6307/6308 PCI FireWire (1394) controller
- Two 1394 ports (via cable)

Form Factor
- ATX footprint, 10.2" x 12.0 " (259 mm x 305mm)

Now here is the specification list for the Tyan Thunder n6650W (S2915) motherboard.

Processor
- Dual 1207-pin sockets support AMD Opteron (Rev. F) 2000 series processors
- Uses the standard 3 1/2"/ 89mm socket connector
- Two onboard 5-phase digital VRMs

Chipset
- nVIDIA NFP3600 + NPF3050
- NEC nPD720404 PCI-X tunnel
- SMSC 5307 Super I/O controller

Memory
- Dual channel memory bus
- (8) 240-pin DDR2 DIMM sockets (four per CPU)
- Supports registered, ECC DIMMs
- 32GB maximum of DDR2 667/533/400 memory

Expansion Slots
- (4) PCI-E x16 slots
- (2) PCI-X 100MHz slots from NEC nPD720404 or (1) PCI-X 133MHz slot if 133MHz card is used
- (1) PCI v2.3 32-bit 33MHz slot
- (7) Expansion slots total

Integrated I/O Interfaces
- (1) 9-pin 16550 UART serial port
- (10) USB 2.0 ports (6 rear, 3 front, 1 via header)
- (1) Stacked PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports
- (1) Stacked Serial connector
- (6) SATA-II connectors
- (1) IDE and (1) floppy connectors

Integrated Audio
- HD Audio (High-Definition Audio) supported
- Realtek ALC262 controller (High Definition Audio)
- Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in rear ports
- SPDIF-out in rear
- Front panel audio header (2 x 5 pin)
- CD-in, Aux headers (4-pin configuration)

Integrated SAS Controller
- LSI 1068E SAS controller

Integrated Serial ATA Controller
- (6) SATA-II ports at 3.0Gb/s per direction per ch.
- Serial ATA II specification compliant
- nVIDIA MediaShield supports for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, JBOD
- HDD LED connector

System Management
- CPU thermal & voltage monitor support
- (6) 4-pin fan header (PWM & tachometer support)
- (1) 2-pin chassis intrusion header
- Watchdog timer support

Integrated LAN Controllers
- (2) GbE via Marvell 88E1121
- (2) RJ-45 ports with LEDs
- Supports WOL and PXE

Integrated FireWire (1394a) Controller
- TI TSB43AB22A 1394a PCI controller
- 1394a channel for rear (connector)
- 1394a channel for front (header)

Form Factor
- SSI/Extended ATX footprint (12" x 13")

Both motherboards arrived in the standard Tyan motherboard boxes that we have been used to seeing their products housed in for years. Along with each motherboard was the usual assortment of Serial ATA data cables, an IDE ribbon cable, FDD ribbon cable, USB 2.0 expansion slot connectors, 4-pin molex to Serial ATA power adapters, the user's manual, and other accessories.