i815 B-Step Tualatin Motherboard Roundup - July 2001

Tyan Tomcat i815T: A Match for the Pentium III-S?

Click to Enlarge

The final entry into this short roundup was the Tomcat i815T from Tyan.  Most recently Tyan has received quite a bit of positive press about their last motherboard launch, the world’s first 760MP board: the Tyan Thunder K7.

The Tomcat i815T shares virtually nothing in common with Tyan’s current flagship with the exception of one option.  The Thunder K7 made a perfect web/database server motherboard in part because of its dual on-board Ethernet controllers.  While our evaluation i815T didn’t have even one on-board Ethernet port, the space for two ports was silk screened on the motherboard as well as room for a second Ethernet controller to drive the second port.  Combined with a 512KB L2 Tualatin (Pentium III-S), an OEM version of the Tomcat i815T could make a decent 2U server.

Another thing we noticed about the i815T was that in the BIOS setup, a number of options relating to the 815’s integrated video were left in the setup.  The board we received did not feature integrated video but a combination of a dual Ethernet setup and integrated video could make this board the perfect standalone server motherboard for a single processor Pentium III server.  Again, that would make a Pentium III-S a good mate for this board. 

The only thing that would prevent this dream from becoming a reality is the fact that the board does not feature angled DIMM slots, meaning that the smallest case it can be put in is a 2U chassis.  That’s not too big of a deal, but a version with angled DIMMs as well as the aforementioned integrated video/dual Ethernet ports would be a good base for a 1U server.