dual mobo showdown...

[SteenkyBastage]

the contenders... Tyan Tiger MPX, and Asus A7M266D.

Got both ordered from newegg earlier today, along with a pair of xp1700's and a pair of xp1800's.

ahhh...nice timinig that I get to build one for work and one for home at the same time

anyhow... anyone care to place bets? the showdown starts at high noon (ehhh... I guess more like high noon in a few days).

 

[iconboy]

i dont know much about tyan but im placing my bet on it as the more stable of the two. Asus, has been kinda shoddy as of late

 

[Revx]

i'd say(from what i've read) the asus

 

[SteenkyBastage]

as of yesterday evening... fedex had them in texas. Looks like monday before they show up.

I personally would like to see the Tyan do better, but I think the Asus will pull it off, due to it being more oc friendly.

 

[Revx]

well i meant for ocing, hehe what else would one use a motherboard for? running at stock speed?

 

[toomnymods]

I've got both of these mobos and from my 4 week long expierence with both of the the tyan mobo smokes the asus a7m266d.. It is far far more stable, and in my opinion one of the best boards i have used even though it doesnt o/c i guarntee it will run just as fast as the asus a7m266d.. look down in my sig for the processors im running in both.. Pretty sad 2 1.2 mp's smoking 2 1800+ xp's Dunno if it's the mobo or the mpx chipset slowing the asus machine down, but it is definatly weird..
List your findings with these machines as well
Thanks

 

[SteenkyBastage]

will do...

Fedex now has them unloaded in KC (sunday), and since I'm in Topeka (1 hour away) I expect them sometime tomorrow (I think business Fedex has to deliver by 3?).

The tyan board will be the MPX one, however, so my results may vary slightly from yours. Also, I checked and the Tiger MPX is supposed to be able to be oc'ed using software (just no bios way). So, Asus may have lost their edge in that area.

Honestly, I dont like Asus at all... So if the TigerMPX can oc well, I'll be real happy.

 

[Cluster]

Which one is gonna be yours. I'd pick the Tyan if i had the choice.

 

[SteenkyBastage]

well, I paid for the asus, it was $4 more. I will probably keep the asus, because I would be much more concerned with stability at work than at home. I am going out on a limb and thinking that the tyan will be more stable. but, if the Asus is more stable I'll keep the tyan (provided the tyan does oc well).

The dual mobo that goes to work will be running our databases and also used for workstation stuff like photoshop, 3d, and other media/video related tasks. It wont be overclocked, just needs to be able to deal with the database for everyone else at the same time I'm using it as my workstation computer.

 

[SteenkyBastage]

well, unfortunately the (supposed) stable board is throwing me a curveball. I think I may have got a bum tyan mpx board. everything I do (switch cpu, ram, vid card, monitor, psu) doesn't seem to be helping anything.

The showdown will (hopefully) continue if I can somehow manage to get this to boot.

oh, btw... first look and opinion of the two boards:

I liked asus's manual better, Tyan was a bit skimpy.

I like Tyan's onboard 10/100 NIC better than the asus onboard 6 channel audio.

I like Asus's AGP Pro slot (wasn't expecting this!).

I like the board layout of the Asus much better. The HSF is easier to get to on the Asus board.

setting aside the problems I am having with the tyan board at the moment, I still think my first impressions lean toward Asus.

now I'm off to tyan-land to try and get some help... I'll report back later.

 

[Revx]

Hmmm, sounds like a bum board, i've always heard the dual tyan boards were great with stability, but worse with features.

 

[Rezman5]

With all those duel processors running around, you should give them something to occupy their time...say Folding@Home? I am very interested to hear the results of this showdown!

 

[SteenkyBastage]

update:

the tyan board didn't like my two 420w psu's (40a-5v). but I'm currently installing win2k on a 300w psu (even tho tyan wants 400w.

Now I'm having a problem that the board doesn't wanna recognize the HD. It also wasn't wanting to recognize the CD, but after I found out that the CD has to be a master (what is up with that?) I could start to install 2k (which 2k can see the HD, but not the BIOS).

So now, I'm trying to figure out how to get the BIOS to see the HD, so that I can continue the installation.

 

[Revx]

Did you check for a bios update?

 

[SteenkyBastage]

yeah, I updated the BIOS, didn't help tho...

kept swapping ribbon cables, to no effect... but lo and behold when I plugged in another hard drive, it worked. So I plugged back in the original hard drive, and it suddenly works...

I'm not complaining... I'm just happy it works now (altho it did waste a lot of my time.

I certainly hope the asus isn't so much of a hassle.

Tyan could sure use some better info on their website/manual for their products...

 

[SteenkyBastage]

Ok, Tyan lost a lot of respect from me with this computer...

The biggest thing I see that really peeves me (yes, I get peeved) is this statement on the driver CD:

All drivers listed on this CD are the current drivers for the onboard devices (yeah, we know CD's stay updated forever). Tyan will not notify the customer of any upgrades to these current drivers. If you wish for more updated drivers for your onboard devices please visit the device company's website and download them. Tyan will not post any links or drivers to our own site.

Fargen steeeeeenky bastages! I guess Abit spoiled me with their better support...

anyhow, Tyan is up and running, just gotta install the sound card and drivers and it's off for a night of p95 crunching to test the stability.

Up next, the asus...

 

[Revx]

sounds like the tyan burned you, the question is, was it a bum board or are they all such a hassel

 

[SteenkyBastage]

no, the board appears to be working fine now... I just dont like Tyan's lack of information. I let it crunch all night and had no problems... Right now I'm copying over via network all my data to the tyan (which I'm currently typing this on). Once I get a good backup of all my data, the Asus is getting put into action too...

I must admit: after the initial headaches getting the tyan up and running, it has performed perfectly. If it continues to perform this stable, It will have been worth the setup problems.

 

[diehrd]

LOL the Tyan is a picky board and if you are not persistant it will P I S S ya off lol.

Consistantly the IDE chaos exists on there boards I find that by using A Promise controller card allowing every device its own cable is the best solution..Also see pic here is a trick for ya that helps on cooling and neatness...

 

[SteenkyBastage]

nice diehard, much cleaner than I'll probably ever manage...

I found out my first problem wasn't tyan's fault, heh... both my 420w psu's were set to 230v intead of 115v. Stumbled across this today as I thought it was too suspicious that a 420w amd approved PSU couldn't handle my tbird at 1200.

so, flame retraction is in order (still doesn't mean they provide good info).

I have been so overwhelmingly busy today, and will be pretty stacked up at work Wed and Thurs. But I will try to get started on the Asus board when I can find free time, or if all else fails, on Friday.

I would have messed with it earlier, but my shipment from Dangerden was messed up...

on a side note, my evaporator for my waterchiller sprung a leak and now the room smells like freon (jeez, I think I just put a hole in the ozone layer on accident!). So, no waterchilling the dual asus system...