Who's going to be the first with this beast?

[agallag]

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thundern6650w.html

Dual Opteron 2000 series (Rev F)
SLI Support
Two extra PCI-E x16 slots with x8 signalling
Two PCI-X
One PCI
6 SATA II ports with RAID 0,1,5,JBOD
8 SAS ports with RAID 0,1,5,JBOD
Up to 32GB RAM

Hot damn!

[Jammrock]

Good gravy on mashed potatoes! That's one hell of a motherboard!

The only thing it's missing is a built in eSATA port and IEEE 1394b. I wonder how much that beast is going to cost.

[agallag]

You can get eSATA via a $5 adapter plugged into one of the internal ports. A dedicated port would be nice, but it's really not that big of a deal.

That will also negate the need for 1394b. 3Gb/s is a little quicker than 800Mb/s. I have an eSATA HD enclosure, it's stunning.

[Elie]

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thundern6650w.html

Dual Opteron 2000 series (Rev F)
SLI Support
Two extra PCI-E x16 slots with x8 signalling
Two PCI-X
One PCI
6 SATA II ports with RAID 0,1,5,JBOD
8 SAS ports with RAID 0,1,5,JBOD
Up to 32GB RAM

Hot damn!

Well that depends on whether the new Opteron 2000 series are faster than the new XEON 5x00 series.

A wait and see here.

Oh and a question... what is SAS?

Thanks,

[agallag]

The final word isn't in yet, but they're rumored to be quite good competition for the woodcrest. I have a feeling that if you factor in $, performance, and power usage, the Opterons will maintain a very slight lead. The new Xeons use much less power, but the FB-DIMMs use a hell of a lot more, and that nearly balances out. Wait and see I guess.

SAS = Serial Attached SCSI. It's SCSI running over SATA cables. Very fancy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Attached_SCSI

[Jammrock]

@Elie: SAS is the SATA version of SCSI. SAS = Serial Attached SCSI. As implied it's designed for efficient RAID and data farms and the like, essentially eliminating the big fat SCSI cables and termination issues.

@agallag: I've always wanted to try eSTA. My dream HTPC would have a SSD for OS and whatnot and a 6 m xSATA cable going into a closet where I had a stand-alone eSATA RAID box for storing media. I suppose if you used eSATA most of IEEE 1394b's benefits go away, but I have a b enclosure so ... it would be nice, but if I could afford to outfit this board I could spring for an eSATA enclosure.

Jammrock

[agallag]

My eSATA enclosure was $45 canadian, so it definitely wouldn't be a factor. If you're going for a RAID enclosure, that would obviously increase the cost a fair bit. If you find one of those that's cost effective, let me know!

Also, you could always drop in a 1394b controller card if you need it.

[Elie]

Thanks Jammrock and Aqallaq for the info!

Cheers!

[rylan]

Ok, going to check on getting a system with that motherboard as a testbed for work.

[Jammrock]

My eSATA enclosure was $45 canadian, so it definitely wouldn't be a factor. If you're going for a RAID enclosure, that would obviously increase the cost a fair bit. If you find one of those that's cost effective, let me know!

Also, you could always drop in a 1394b controller card if you need it.

I have found barebone eSATA RAID enclosures for as low as $200 USD for 4 drives and drive multiplexing (meaning only a single SATA cable needed between enclosure and PC). 5-bay jobs jump to $400 USD. But a 5-bay with 5 x 320 GB HDDs (<$100 USD each) would run under a grand and give you 1.28 TB in a RAID 5 configuration, or 1.6 TB in a RAID 0. Not too shabby.

Or if you went with a 4-bay @ $200 + 4 x 320 GB in RAID 0 you could get 1.28 TB for roughly $600 USD.

And if you're really adventurous, there's this bad boy with 10 bays @ $720 USD:



So for a measely $2k you could get 3.2 TB of SATA RAID love'n.

My current mobo has 1394b built-in, so as long as that's up and running it's not a big deal.

[Greebe]

I knew I need a system upgrade after three years, but DAMN that has me drooling

[schmosef]

Looks like a good board and I want to build a dual socket F system at some point but I just can't get excited about Tyan.

I know they have a good rep these days, expecially for server boards, but I've had lots of trouble with them in the past (PIII days).

I don't like getting burned.

[Dr Mordrid]

I'll see that and up you 2 more CPU's; this time Opteron 8000's;

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thundern4250qe.html