Tyan's Tiger MP: Affordable Multiprocessing

Two sockets and a heatsink

The layout of the Tiger MP isn't its strongpoint but Tyan did the best with what they were given.  The Tiger MP implements the same 760MP chipset that debuted on the Thunder K7 meaning that the architecture and performance behind the motherboard shouldn't have changed.  As we proved in the lab, the performance of the Tiger MP is indeed identical to that of the Thunder K7.  Because the same chipset is used, the Tiger MP shares the Thunder K7's shortcoming in its lack of support for 64-bit/66MHz PCI cards.  While the board features four 64-bit PCI slots, the slots only operate at 33MHz like the remaining two 32-bit slots. 

Tyan Thunder K7	Tyan Tiger MP
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The upcoming 760MPX chipset will differ from the current 760MP only in its South Bridge that will support 64-bit/66MHz PCI.  If this matters to you because one or more of your peripherals require 64-bit/66MHz slots then you're better off waiting.  The most likely candidates for a peripheral that would require 64-bit/66MHz slots are high-end PCI graphics cards and/or RAID adapters; the added bandwidth coming in handy with RAID adapters. 

The upper right quadrant of the motherboard is by far the most complicated portion of the motherboard.  The AMD 762 North Bridge is present with the same heat spreader we saw on the first Thunder K7 motherboards (this is provided by AMD), but on top of the heat spreader is a heatsink to help remove some of the heat from the North Bridge (this is a Tyan addition).  This is the same heatsink that appears on later revisions of the Thunder K7 (all shipping revisions should have it now), and helps cool the North Bridge tremendously. 

Heatsink Attached	Heatsink Removed
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Because of the complex nature of the chipset where each CPU gets a dedicated 64-bit EV6 bus and because of the sheer lack of space on the motherboard, the two CPU sockets are placed very close to the North Bridge.  The line of capacitors separating the two CPU sockets are very close in proximity to both sockets, making installing any of today's Socket-A heatsinks very difficult.  There is barely any room to work with, limiting the cooling options you have.  Heatsinks with large clips will be very difficult to attach; we used the older/smaller Taisol heatsinks with a single clip which worked just fine.