Computex: AMD Releases 760MP Chipset For Dual AthlonMP

The One And Only AMD760MP Motherboard

Different to usual chipset launches there is only one motherboard with AMD760MP chipset available right now. Tyan worked together with AMD on the board design and in return it will take other board makers at least another month until they will be able to supply their own AMD760MP solutions. Tyan's K7 Thunder motherboard is a real high-end monster with tons of nifty features, but it also carries a hefty price tag of $700-800, which makes it rather unaffordable for sane, but enthusiastic Athlon SMP fans.

Here's the long features list:

• 2 SocketA plus 2 VRMs
• 1 AGP Pro Slot
• 5 PCI64/32 Slots
• 4 DIMM Slots for PC1600/2100 registered DDR-SDRAM
• ECC-support
• 2 3Com 3C920 LAN controllers 100/10 Mbit with two WOL headers
• Adaptec AIC-7899 Dual Channel Ultra160 SCSI Controller
• Optional ATi Rage XL gGraphics Chip with 4 MB video memory

Of course it comes with the usual floppy adapter, serial and parallel port and ATA100 IDE controller as well.

The board showed stable operation with single and dual AthlonMP processors as well as with single/dual Athlon processors based on the Thunderbird core and single/dual Duron processors. It even supported the 'abuse' of two Thunderbird Athlons with different clock speeds. I tested the K7 Thunder with an Athlon 1200 plus an Athlon 1333 and it ran both processors at their respective speeds without major problems, even showing improved scores in SMP-capable benchmarks. However, neither 3Dmark2001 nor Sysmark2001 Office Productivity would run properly with this configuration. We should note that theoretically the point-to-point processor bus of Athlon actually allows the operation of two differently clocked Athlon processors.

The Tyan K7 Thunder requires a special 460W power supply, which comes with board connectors that are different to the common ATX power supplies.

Currently there is only one supplier of this power supply, Delta Electronics Inc . The K7 Thunder does not run with common ATX power supplies.