First Look: Tyan Tempest 5000X/5000V

Zitat

We feel that of the two platforms, the Tempest i5000XL, based on the Intel 5000V chipset, will be a far better choice for the majority of users. Through the use of PCI Express and FB-DIMM technology, it’s now possible to have a standard ATX sized Xeon board with support for tons of memory, high-bandwidth graphics and high-bandwidth expansion slots. Support for six ports of SATA-II/300 RAID-5 and silent operation make this board undeniably great. The board lacks Firewire and solid audio outputs, but considering the amount of processing power which can be loaded on this board, we’ll let it slide.

The larger Tempest i5000XT goes all out, throwing Serial Attached SCSI, support for 32 GB of memory, Firewire and dual Gigabit LAN ports into the mix. For most workstation users, these will likely be overkill, but if you’re looking for a Xeon platform with all the bells and whistles, Tyan will have a board for you. If the board is in the sub-$500 range, it could make for a fairly decent value (considering 8-port SAS cards range in the $300+ range), however, we don’t really see that happening. We’re expecting $600+ for this beast of a platform, which is right in line with other high-end Xeon platforms. However, if you don’t need SAS or huge quantities of memory, the i5000XL will be a far better platform.