Tyan Continued

Thunder 2000 vs. 1800

In terms of onboard features, the Thunder 2000 is the same as the 1800: onboard sound (AC97 or Creative Labs PCI sound), onboard networking (Intel 559 10/100Mb), and onboard Ultra2 SCSI (Symbios 895). The main differences between the Thunder 2000 and 1800 are the 2000's Rambus support and the two 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots.

From what we saw, it looks like Tyan has a robust product line ready to supply businesses with dual processor motherboards in the new Coppermine and Rambus era, but also has a few solutions for those not ready to fork over the money for those pricey RIMMS. For those "price is no object; the company's paying for it" types, Tyan has the S2257 Thunder 2400 and S1867 Thunder S1867.

The big boys

The dual Slot-1 Pentium III Thunder 2400 Intel 840 extended ATX motherboard sports four DIMM slots with support for up to 4GB of PC100 SDRAM. There's one AGP slot (1X/2X/4X/Pro), four 32-bit/33MHz PCI slots, 2 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots, and ATA-33/66 support. Onboard features include sound (AC97 only), LAN (Intel 559 10/100Mb), and Dual Ultra2 SCSI (Symbios 896). The Thunder 2400 is Tyan's high-end 840/SDRAM option.

The last board Shaun showed us was the S1867 Thunder 2500. This board is a monster. It's a dual Pentium III Slot-1 extended ATX board with eight DIMM slots and support for up to 4GB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM. The board uses an RCC Champion III 4-chip system chipset, and the eight DIMM slots laugh in the face of Intel's Rambus related trace length problems. The Thunder 2500 has one AGP slot (1X/2X/4X/Pro), four 64-bit/33MHz PCI slots, two 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots, and one 16-bit ISA slot. ATA-33/66 support, onboard Creative Labs PCI sound, Intel 559 10/100 LAN, and Dual Ultra2 Symbios 896 round out the rest of the features.

Transportation? Yeah, right.

We left the Tyan meeting with about 20 minutes to spare to get to our 5PM appointment. Just enough time to catch a cab or shuttle to the Sands, right? We didn't take into account that everyone would be leaving at around this time. The lines for transportation were horrendous.

It's hard to believe people would wait in line for thirty minutes to pay a cab ten bucks for a ride to a hotel a couple of miles away. We weren't going to make it in time for our next meeting. We chose to go back to our hotel and get some much needed rest instead. We'll be able to squeeze in the meeting sometime the next day.