Testing the Tyan Transport GT28 (B2935G28V4H)

Over the next few posts I'll be investigating the Tyan GT28, 1U, 2-socket, dual-node (4-socket total) barebones system. This cost effective system comes some impressive features built-in:

• 1U, Dual-node Chassis (shared 1000W supply)


• Dual AMD Opteron 2000-series processor (per node)


• Shanghai processor support, (AGESA v3.3.0.0 required, BIOS v1.03+)


• 16 DRAM slots (per node, DDR2/REG/ECC)


• 2 x Dual Gigabit Ethernet (per node, Intel 82571EB)


• 20Gbps Infiniband 4x port (per node, B2935G28VHI only, Mellanox MT25204)


• 2 x Hot-Swap SATA/SAS bays (per node)


• 1 x Low-profile PCI Express x 8 slot (per node)


• XGI Volari Z9S Graphics Controller


• nVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 (NFP 3600)


• IPMI/SMDC slot (per node, Tyan M3295-2/M3296)

I am testing mine with the M3296 SMDC card with IP/KVM support (Raritan KIRA100, firmware version 1.00, build 5772, GT28 r01). WARNING: The units I received did not come with AGESA v3.3.0.0 updated BIOS and would not boot with a Shanghai processor - requiring a BIOS update with an older 2000-series chip.

After BIOS update on both the SMDC and motherboard, system boots without issue in my test configuration (per node):

• 4 x Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) ECC Registered Server Memory Model KVR667D2D4P5/4G


• 1 x AMD Opteron 2376 Shanghai 2.3GHz 45nm Socket F 75W Quad-Core Server Processor


• 1 x LSI LSI00110 8-lane, 2.5Gb/s PCI Express SATA / SAS SAS3442E-R 3Gb/s 8-port


• 1 x Tyan M3296 IP/KVM SMDC Card (IPMI 2.0)

I'll have some screen shots of BIOS settings and configurations (courtesy of the M3296's) soon. Since the Gigabit Ethernet controllers support both "jumbo frame" and TCP off-load, we'll try to squeeze-in a few performance comparisons of these features as well.