Tyan's Tiger MP: Affordable Multiprocessing

Final Words

Tyan has historically stayed away from AMD solutions because of a lack of focus on the higher end markets that Tyan services.  With the introduction of the 760MP chipset, Tyan's interests have definitely been piqued. 

The Thunder K7 motherboard that debuted back in June quickly became our pick for the best overall server motherboard.  It's ability to be used in a 1U chassis combined with the highly integrated nature of the platform made it perfect for many database servers (AnandTech included) as well as nodes in distributed computing farms.

The Tiger MP picks up where the Thunder K7 left off in that it is the perfect motherboard for the workstation user.  It's rare that you find a workstation in need of dual 100Mbit Ethernet controllers or such a weak on-board PCI Video solution; the Tiger MP comes with none of that excess baggage to a workstation user.  What is preserved however is the performance and quality of the original Thunder K7, just in a cheaper (less than $250), more basic package.

Will there ever be competition to the Thunder K7 and Tiger MP?  Yes; we'll see the first 760MPX solutions debut towards the end of this year, but designing this type of a motherboard isn't easy at all.  There are more than a few motherboard manufacturers that are already finding out the hard way.  You'll see competition to the Tiger MP, there's no doubt about that; and you'll see improvements in overclocking/tweaking features but that'll be about it.

If you are a workstation user and were turned off by the expensive price tag of the Thunder K7, then the Tiger MP is the board for you.  If you're just a regular user looking for a boost in multitasking performance, wait until the next speed grade of CPUs comes out and then upgrade to another single processor system.