Motherboard

Motherboard

We went with an Intel i875 platform for the server because not only is it competitively priced, but we feel it is a more mature platform with most of the bugs worked out. Moreover, we only need 1GB of RAM for our use and so we don’t have to worry about our previous benchmarks on 8 banks of RAM.

There isn’t much of a performance differential between the top motherboards since we aren’t going to be overclocking in our server, but the feature sets do differ. Here are the most important features that we need in our server:

CSA GigE

CSA Gigabit interface – The i875 supports the CSA gigabit interface which bypasses the PCI bus. This allows for a full gigabit of Ethernet bandwidth without taking away from PCI bandwidth, with a maximum rate of 266 MB/s which is over 2000 megabits/sec, enough for full-duplex gigabit. We see this as an essential feature for a storage server. If we were going with a non-Intel solution, we’d want something with similarly dedicated 1GBps bandwidth such as the nForce3 with integrated GigE coming soon, or something like the K8W we reviewed earlier with a PCI-X network card.

Dual Ethernet

Secondary Ethernet port – For maximal performance we will use the CSA gigabit ports to connect to the LAN, while the secondary Ethernet port will connect to a firewalled Internet. Having an extra Ethernet port is essential to being a server.

Additional ATA Ports

Additional ATA ports – We can always add in an extra PCI ATA-133 card to drive additional hard drives, but if a system has extra ports then we are a little closer to our final system configuration and can do it at a lower cost.

USB 2.0 / Firewire

USB 2.0 and Firewire connectivity – So once we fill up our hard drives we can still get access to the data with our external drives.

With these requirements we chose the Tyan Trinity i875 motherboard. Tyan has a positive track record in building server class systems. This is a reputation that is built over time and one which is extremely valuable to any manufacturer. This also makes them a little more conservative, which is good for reliability. The Trinity has dual gigabit ports on board, which is unique among the i875 offerings, only one NIC uses the CSA interface, however. It has 4 total SATA ports and the capacity for 6 ATA drives, with RAID capability for 2 SATA and 2 PATA drives.

Tyan 875P motherboard w/ CSA

Tyan offers a great combination of features with a good track record of reliability. It does offer some overclocking capability with software voltage and clock speed adjustments, but they don’t make a big deal about this.

The layout of the board is nothing fancy, but it has been well thought out as nothing gets in the way. It uses a standard 12”x9.6” ATX form factor so it should fit in just about any case. The DIMM slots operate with good clearance from the AGP slot and the power connector is placed near the front of the board. Also differentiating the Trinity from other i875 boards is 6 PCI slots. Very few boards offer this level of expansion. We also like the two-digit LED module on the motherboard that can provide system error codes. Some boards require you to purchase an additional module to get this type of error reporting. No fancy software bundle is included with the board, but you get your standard USB and firewire headers, SATA interface and power cables, and ATA cables.

No board is perfect though. We would have liked to have additional fan headers instead of only three. The heatsink on the i875 chipset is a little crooked on the Trinity, but still securely attached. Interestingly, the picture of the board in the manual also shows a slightly rotated heatsink. We also don’t have active cooling of the chipset or power modules, but this shouldn’t be a problem if we don’t overclock. There is a SPDIF header on board, but the cable is not included. In addition, more and more manufacturers are providing comprehensive software bundles and high performance accessories, such as rounded hard drive cables. These are all accessories that we would need to buy anyways.

Cost: $200