click to enlarge (big - 152KB) or (huge - 370KB (link removed for the sake of the server!))
"Athlon SMP!" has been the daily mantra chanted by many overclockers and hardware enthusiasts for quite some time now. Hints of reference AMD 760MP chipset boards have been frequent but fleeting and the occasional dubious screenshot or text-only description from someone who claims to have access to such a beast have been met with dwindling enthusiasm and growing skepticism for some time now. Therefore I can probably forgive my fellow chatters who, while we were all sitting around in the #overclockers IRC channel a couple of days ago, responded with "healthy skepticism" when a user (let's call him Bob) wandered in and casually announced something along the lines of "I've got a dual SocketA board and 2 Palomino's and yeah, it's pretty good."
A few /msg's and a couple of days later and I found myself face-to-face with the board. I took lots of photos, ran a few benchmarks, took screenshots and got system reports. I only had a couple of hours with the board and it's pretty clearly a server-oriented product with almost no overclocking features - so this is in no way a comprehensive review. Simply take this as proof that yes, they do exist, and an indicator of the kind of performance we can hope to see in the future. Bear in mind that we were using an AMD reference BIOS - the Tyan beta BIOS originally on the board had some issues - so the results here should be treated as beta, pre-release results.
First up I guess, an overview shot of the board:
This unit was provided to Bob by AMD as a promotional package complete with 2x AMD Palomino (soon to be known as AthlonMP) 1.2GHz processors, 1x 256MB Samsung DDR memory, 2x Taisol coolers with fans and 1x Delta 465W power supply with special connectors - we'll get to that in a minute. The board itself is massive - it's actually wider than it is tall - but that's not too surprising when you factor in the dual onboard SCSI controllers, the dual onboard ethernet, the dual onboard IDE, the ability to take up to 4GB of ECC (or non-ECC!) DDR-RAM, the 64-bit PCI slots, onboard ATI video etc etc. It's designed to be used in a 2RU rackmount chassis, hence the angled memory banks and huge number - 8 in total - of fan connectors. In a rackmount case you would not have heatsink/fan units as we see here, you'd have hefty copper-bottomed passive heatsinks and rely on forced through-case airflow to keep the CPU's cool.
This board, while having been made by Tyan, is apparently an almost pure AMD reference design. This possibly explains why Tyan are first to market with this platform - it would make sense that AMD would partner with them as they are strong in the server market where AMD is obviously hoping to gain ground with this product. Being a reference board means it boasts virtually no overclocking features whatsoever. With the AMD reference BIOS I saw, there's no place to set CPU type, FSB speed, multiplier, voltage, RAM speed or anything remotely tweakable. Apparently with the Tyan beta BIOS the situation was no better. Of course, you can still set the multiplier by selectively opening/closing bridges on your SocketA CPU (I'd imagine that'd work, but you'd have to be brave to test it on a Palomino or on a motherboard this expensive). The only remotely overclocking-like feature is this set of jumpers:
This is for telling the board if the CPU's are based on a 100MHz or 133MHz FSB. I've no idea why 90MHz is a third option and neither does Bob. Everything else about the CPU's and RAM is detected by the board and cannot be changed in BIOS.
Anyway, here's a few more pics of interesting features of the board - all pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them:
Note 2x power connectors, AMD762 Northbridge,.2x Socket462. In the huge version you can clearly read "Socket462" on both. Where's the other CPU? Being cleaned for the photos on the next page, of course. That pink goo takes ages to get off.
The AMD766 Southbridge apparently marks this pretty clearly as an AMD reference board. There is a VIA part which is interchangeable with the AMD766 and substantially cheaper so it's expected most boards will have that on it.
Apparently a 460W PSU is recommended/required and of course you need one with the special plugs pictured above. There are 2 models currently, this Delta one is slightly larger than the ATX standard and doesn't fit some cases. The other model (unsure of details) apparently fits fine.
Ok, ok. So, it's a fancy-schmancy motherboard. But what can you DO with it..?
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