Tyan Tomcat i7221A

Conclusion:

Overall, we were very pleased with the results from the performance of the Intel Copper River against that of the Intel Grantsdale. For a majority of the benchmarks, the Tyan Tomcat i7221A (Copper River) managed to stay in front of the Tyan Tomcat i915 (Grantsdale). However, this lead was very diminutive nevertheless. What is more important to note, is that Tyan has yet another great board layout, an incredibly jammed pack board of features, and yet again it met and in some aspects exceeded our high expectations. The only problematic part of this motherboard was the onboard video solution, due to Xorg incompatibility, however it is a problem that affects a majority of the Intel Copper River motherboards on the market. Even so, we hope Xorg developers will resolve this problem very soon. Other than that minor hiccup, everything worked great from a custom installation of FedoraCore4, including all three LAN controllers. As for the price of the motherboard, it looks like it will be selling in the range of $250-300, which is respectable considering all of the onboard components and server/workstation status. As usual, stay tuned to Phoronix for what Tyan has planned for future motherboards especially when it comes to their future Glenwood and Lakeport motherboards.

Pros:

· Improvements in thermo-mechanical design
· 1U Rackmount compatible
· Three LAN ports (2 x Gigabit)
· Serial ATA RAID Support
· Tyan TARO add-on support
· Five fan headers
· Great performance
· Board layout

Cons:

· Fan headers could be distributed across board
· Onboard VGA - Xorg conflict