Conclusion
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
It sure is great to see the dual-Athlon market picking up some steam again after a lackluster first many months on the scene. Tyan is back at the front of it all, with the first of what I expect to see a swarm of (finally, some competition) AMD-760 MPX motherboards. MSI, Epox, Iwill, Asus and Abit have all made it clear that they want to take over some of what Tyan has laid claim to.Can Tyan hold on to the market the S2466 MPX motherboard? Given the reputation Tyan has with being a stable solution, I think you can be assured they will keep the business market for a while, but the PC enthusiast market may be more difficult. Other boards, if they offer overclocking options, may be able to pull some of the DIYs away. Some of the problems with Quake III may scare some people, but I am reasonably sure this is a software issue that will be worked out soon.
Tyan was able to make some good enhancements to the board, the best of which was the varying ways in which to connect extra power to the motherboard to create a much more stable system. And though they only have 3 PCI slots (the broken USB, remember) they try to make up for it by including a 10/100 NIC on the headers of the motherboard for users.
So, there should be two questions for you. First, do you want/need dual-Athlons? Secondly, is Tyan the right choice? Well, if you use SMP capable programs often, like Adobe, Macromedia and 3D design and CAD development, I would say the chances of an SMP-setup helping are very good indeed. If you just type Word documents and play the occasional game, dually setups may not be up your alley quite yet. Next, is Tyan right for you? If you do any of those things I just mentioned, then yes. You need a stable system that is going to work for you day in and day out, without hiccups. Tyan is known for that. In fact, both of the Amdmb.com web servers are currently running Tyan dual-Athlon motherboards with uptimes going on 60 days. Gamers and tweakers craze tweaking more than stability, however.
If you are looking for a dual-Athlon setup now, the Tyan Tiger MPX is a great choice for you. Its price is very close to its older brothers, and I see no reason to consider the older Tiger MP over the MPX. Tyan has released another stable and reliable platform to build any kind of system on. Now we must simply wait for more boards to hit the street so we can see how they compare to the king of the dual-Athlon market.
