Anand Tech Report Card Rating
94/A

The Good

Giving you the impression that you're getting much more than you expected out of this monster of a motherboard, the Thunder 100 DLUAN comes in an oversized ATX layout which is quite reminiscent of older Tyan Pentium II motherboards and some of the larger Supermicro motherboards.  This layout is accommodating for the extremely unusual and one of a kind 6/1/1/1 Expansion Slot (PCI/ISA/AGP/RAID) configuration as well as the 4 DIMM slots for memory expansion.  Taking expansion to a new level, Tyan made sure that all of this power could be properly harnessed by the Intel Pentium II CPU...or CPU's if you will as the Thunder 100 DLUAN supports a total of 2 processors using the second Slot present on the enormous motherboard.  Be sure you have at least a full tower ATX case if you plan on using this motherboard.

As if the 6 PCI slots weren't enough to take care of all of your needs, the Thunder 100 DLUAN features a variety of components built directly on to the motherboard.  For starters, the Thunder 100 features an on-board Intel 82558 10/100 Ethernet controller with a RJ-45 ATX connector on the backplate of the motherboard.  This eliminates the need for a PCI Ethernet card saving one of the already plentiful PCI slots.  Accenting the already well equipped motherboard is the Adaptec AIC-7895 Dual Channel SCSI controller chip which powers the 2 - 68-pin UltraWide and 1 - 50-pin SCSI connectors on board.  With on-board SCSI and on-board Ethernet, what could possibly make this motherboard more complete other than integrated sound?   Creative Labs makes their presence known on the Thunder 100 with the Vibra 16XV which takes care of your basic sound needs, the ports on the ATX backplate include the Joystick, Audio in, Speaker out and mic-in connectors for your basic sound operation.   Of course, if you don't wish to use any of the three on-board devices in favor of your own peripheral card (i.e. sound) you can easily disable them using a combination of jumper and BIOS settings. 

The AMI WinBIOS, classic of most Tyan Pentium II motherboards, makes its entrance once again with the Thunder 100 allowing for a wide variety of settings to be controlled and manipulated.  Like the newer Supermicro BX and GX motherboards, the Thunder 100 allows for the manual selection of your CPU's FSB from within the BIOS' Chipset Setup window.  While the 2.5x - 5.0x clock multipliers (the Thunder 100 DLUAN does support the Pentium II - 450) are selected via the easy to reach jumpers on the motherboard, the FSB speed can be selected from a list provided for in the BIOS.  The list includes the standard 66/100MHz settings as well as the overclocked, 68/75/83/103/112MHz FSB settings for those that are interested in pushing the limits. 

Unlike the Tsunami AT which lacked the high quality electrolytic capacitors designed to reduce electromagnetic interference, the Thunder 100 removes the shame from the Tyan logo by achieving a great level of stability even at overclocked speeds.  Considering that the Thunder 100 is a motherboard intended for server or high end workstation situations, where a failure is unacceptable, the stability of the board is critical and definitely well accounted for by the excellent design of the board.  Even using the 112MHz FSB setting on the Thunder 100 proved to be quite reliable as the Pentium II - 400 test CPU ran at 448 without a single hiccup during the reliability testing AnandTech conducted. 

Tyan's well written User's Manual is back again with the Thunder 100, and in spite of the immense amount of data it must cover the manual addresses all features of the board to the usual levels of excellence we've come to expect from a company like Tyan.  All drivers for the on-board devices are included on Tyan's standard supplementary CD-ROM which was found comfortably tucked in between two pages of the manual.  Windows 98 had no problems installing the drivers and configuring the board for optimal usage.  The performance of the on-board Ethernet and SCSI controller was high enough to consider this board a viable alternative to grabbing a board with 5 PCI slots and no on-board Ethernet and SCSI.

The performance of the Thunder 100 is about on par with the other Tyan BX motherboards, the Tsunami-ATX and AT both have an equally performing brother which happens to boast a few more features that it can take home to mom at the end of the day.  Overall, a very well designed motherboard...with its own set of flaws of course...

The Bad

The size of the motherboard may be the discouraging factor of the Thunder 100 as it will only fit in the largest of ATX cases.   While most users don't have the money to buy the $650 Supermicro SC-801A Monster Tower case that can easily handle the Thunder 100, a $200 investment in the SC-750A should prove to be worth while as the Thunder 100 will fit quite nicely into a case of that size.  

The price of the motherboard is also a discouraging factor as the board retails for around $600, however once you subtract the price of the on-board Dual Channel Adaptec SCSI and the on-board 10/100 Ethernet, the Thunder 100 becomes much more appealing of a motherboard. 

• Number of Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

• USB Legacy Keyboard Emulation: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin CAS-2 PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin CAS-2 PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM

Manufacturer: Mushkin Memory
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

How I Tested

• Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again.  All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.

• Business Winstone 98 & 3D Winbench 98 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed.  If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed

• All video tests were conducted using an AGP video accelerator

• No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability

• All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results

• All tests were conducted at 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color

• 3D Winbench 98 tests were double buffered and conducted at 800 x 600 x 16-bit color

The Final Decision

If you find yourself looking to build a new system that doesn't have to be the world's best overclocker, yet you happen to need an Ethernet card and at least a SCSI controller (forget about using the on-board sound, just shell out the extra cash and buy a real sound card, it's not like you don't have the PCI slots for one) then the Tyan S1836DLUAN Thunder 100 is probably the motherboard you've been looking for.  Geared towards future expansion this board does it all, and with the Thunder 100 Pro boasting Ultra2 SCSI support it looks like Tyan may have just addressed a market very few manufacturers thought existed.