Tyan S5502 Server/Workstation System Board

Servers and Workstations:

The separation between a server and a workstation is much more fine than you might first think. Really the difference comes down to its use and implementation. If the system has a server operating system installed and is being used in the role of a server than it is such. If instead the system has a normal OS and is being used as an everyday PC then it is better classified as a workstation. Typically servers are not interfaced with as much as a standard desktop or workstation and are instead used to manage users,networks,  and infrastructure. In fact it is not uncommon for many small and even medium sized businesses to employ standard desktops in the role of servers. This is often cheaper for the business but can have multiple ramifications. Chief among these are the following:

• Lack of Expandability
• Lack of support for Server OS
• Less robust than a platform meant for a server role
• Typically less powerful
• One Power supply
• Less storage redundancy

Today we look at an offering from Tyan, a company which has been in the server and workstation business a long time and their newest Intel platform the S5502 which brings with it a host of power and support. The S5502 offers users and IT administrators all new levels of power and performance in a package which can be installed in a typical ATX desktop case. We do just that and then test this system in both roles to find out just how powerful the S5502 is and what if any its’ issues are.

The Board Up Close:

At first glance the S5502 looks to have everything and the kitchen sink in terms of support and expandability. What is easy to spot is the onboard 4 port SAS controller, a single CPU socket, a x16 PCI-E slot, and two onboard USB ports. For those not in the know the onboard USB ports come in very handy with VMWare ESXi as use as bootable devices inside the system case.  Additionally the S5502 has not one or two but a total of three LAN ports and onboard Aspeed VGA video. Conspicuously missing from the list of features for some is audio support, but remember this platform is intended as a server and typically servers have no use for audio. If this is an issues you only have to look at the extra onboard PCI and PCI-E slots to fulfill your expansion needs. Server and storage admins will be pleased with the 6 onboard SATA ports and additional 4 SAS ports controlled by the Marvell 6440 controller.  In fact a quick look at the number of SATA, SAS, PCI-E, and memory slots should give you the impression that this bad boy was meant for growth.

Specifications:

Processor Supported CPU Series Intel Xeon Processors 3400 Series Socket Type / Q’ty LGA 1156/ (1) Thermal Design Power (TDP) wattage Max up to 95W CPU list Coming soon Chipset PCH Intel 3420 Super I/O Winbond W83627 PCI-E Switch IDT 89HIO524G2PS Memory Supported DIMM Qty (6) DIMM slots DIMM Type / Speed DDR3 800/1066/1333* RDIMM/UDIMM / * limit 1 per channel for 1333MHz speed Capacity Up to 32GB RDIMM/ 16GB UDIMM Memory channel 2 Channels Memory voltage 1.5V Expansion Slots PCI-E (2) PCI-E Gen.2 x8 slots / (1) PCI-E Gen.2 x16 slot (w/ x8 link) / (1) PCI-E x4 slot (w/ x1 link) Recommended TYAN Riser Card M2083-RS, PCI-E x16 1U riser card (left) / M2091, PCI-E x16 1U riser card (left) PCI (1) PCI 32-bit slot Recommended Barebone / Chassis 1U Barebone GT20-B5502 LAN Port Q’ty (3) Controller Intel 82574L Storage SAS Connector (4) SAS Controller Marvell 6440 Speed 3.0 Gb/s RAID RAID 0/1/10 SATA Connector (6) SATA Controller Intel 3420 Speed 3.0 Gb/s RAID RAID 0/1/10/5 (Intel Matrix RAID) Graphic Connector type D-Sub 15-pin Resolution 1600×1200@60Hz Chipset Aspeed AST2050 TPM Chipset Infineon SLB9635 Version TPM v1.2 Input /Output USB (8) USB2.0 ports (2 at rear, 4 via cable, 2 type A – vertical onboard) COM (2) ports (1 at rear, 1 via cable) PS/2 (1) PS/2 connector SAS (4) SAS connectors RJ-45 (3) GbE ports Power EPS12V / SSI 24-pin + 8-pin power connectors Front Panel (1) 2×12-pin SSI front panel header SATA (6) SATA-II connectors System Monitoring Chipset Winbond W83793G Voltage Monitors voltage for CPU, memory, chipset & power supply Fan Total (5) 4-pin headers / Total (5) 8-pin headers Temperature Monitors temperature for CPU & system environment Others Chassis intrusion detection / Watchdog timer support Server Management Onboard Chipset Onboard Aspeed AST2050 AST2050 IPMI Feature IPMI 2.0 compliant baseboard management controller (BMC) / Supports storage over IP and remote platform-flash / USB 2.0 virtual hub AST2050 iKVM Feature 24-bit high quality video compression / Dual 10/100 Mb/s MAC interfaces BIOS Brand / ROM size AMI / 4MB Feature Plug and Play (PnP) /PCI2.3 /WfM2.0 /SMBIOS2.3 /PXE boot / ACPI 2.0 power management /Power on mode after power recovery / User-configurable H/W monitoring / Auto-configurable of hard disk types Physical Dimension Form Factor ATX Board Dimension 12″x9.6″ (305×243.8mm) Operating System OS supported list Coming soon Regulation FCC (DoC) Class B CE (DoC) Yes Operating Environment Operating Temp. 10° C ~ 35° C (50° F~ 95° F) Non-operating Temp. – 40° C ~ 70° C (-40° F ~ 158° F) In/Non-operating Humidity 90%, non-condensing at 35° C RoHS RoHS 6/6 Complaint Yes Package Contains Manual (1) User’s manual / (1) Quick Ref. Guide Installation CD (1) TYAN installation CD I/O Shield (1) I/O Shield Cable SATA (6) SATA signal cables Optional accessories Riser Card M2083-RS, PCI-E 1U riser card (left) / M2091, PCI-E x16 1U riser card (left)

Ok that’s a lot to look at I know but the S5502 is a very robust platform. Our model, the S5502WGM3NR integrates the Marvel 6440 SAS controller onboard. A staggering 32GB of registered DIMMs can be installed in the S5502 and with current hard drives topping out at 2TB you can have a maximum of 12TB of storage using just the standard SATA ports. The bios features iKVM and IPMI technology tied to an IP address, a technology we will go into a bit later which really adds a lot of usability to the S5502.

Lets talk about installation. . .

Installing the S5502:

As we mentioned earlier we actually installed this server board inside a standard ATX chassis, in this case it was a Thermaltake chassis that plays host to our budding beast.  Installation went smoothly with no issues at all. The included hardware worked to secure the chassis and we used a standard socket 1156 heatsink for our Xeon X3470 CPU.   We would like to mention that it seems habit that Intel likes to shake up its CPU tree on a regular basis and changes sockets and specifications at the drop of a hat, that being said those with a keen eye might notice the socket 1156 looks very much like the socket for 775. You would be sorely mistaken, while the holes are a near match, as is the CPU socket height, the holes do not line up. Weather by design or for marketing purposes Intel has chosen to make the holes only a few fractions of an inch off from the standard 775. Thats right, you can’t use your existing hardware unless its specifically designed for socket 1156. Thanks Intel.

Once the platform was secure in the case we immediately installed 8 GB of Kingston DDR3 ECC ram (Big thanks to Kingston for the assist) and 4 Seagate 73GB SAS hard drives to fill out this system in true server fashion.  The moment of truth came and we pushed the button and the system without missing a beat posted perfectly. Installation of our Windows server 2008 OS would  have gone just fine except for a slight overight on the part of Tyan. In order to install your OS onto a SAS drive connected to a SAS controller you are required to load a special driver during the installation sequence. Now in the past Microsoft required you to use a floppy drive to do this but nowadays you can use a CD, a USB, another hard drive, or an old style floppy to get the job done. It seems however that unlike the rest of the S5502 this part has not kept up with the times. To sucessfully install your OS you must first booth the system from the included Tyan CD and create your system disk with an included utility, easy right? Wrong! The utility will only write to a floppy drive and if you take a close look at the system board picture above . . . there is no floppy controller. Now for those among us that Think Outside the Cube this is not really a problem, just boot another system with the CD and create your floppy that way. Oh a quick show of hands among you for those that still have a floppy drive handy, and even fewer for those that currently have one installed in a system. Its for purposes like this that I even continue to save the 1.44 floppy disks as it is. Wake up call anyone?

Ok aside form that little hitch our installation proceeded just fine once we created the floppy and loaded the driver. It should be noted that while our installation worked fine for Windows Server 2003 and 2008 the included driver does not work for Windows 7 as our test system simply hung repeatedly when we tried to install the Marvell 6440 driver provided by Tyan. Our efforts to locate a suitable driver on the Marvell site were unsucessful.

Testing the Marvell 6440:

Outside of Windows 7 the Marvell 6440 performed flawlessly. Creation of our array in any configuration went smoothly and without any issues. Installment of the drivers for OS install was also not an issue with all server OS’s, XP, and Vista. We would like to note that booting the Marvell 6440 in the bios took significantly longer than does the Highpoint controller.  this could be due tot he on-board nature of the controller or just an aspect of this controller. It does , however, do its job without any lag when in the system. Since Windows 7 is the prevalent OS all of our testing was done with the Highpoint controller.

Workstation OS:

As a part of our testing we did install Windows 7 using both a standard SATA drive and an add on Highpoint 2640 x4 add in SAS controller card which does have Windows 7 drivers. this installation went without issue and allowed us to present results in a RAID configuration. We thank Highpoint for sending us the 2640 x4 controller card.

Benchmarks:

As part of our testing we ran a suite of benchmarks on the S5502. These include:

• Sisoft Sandra
• Crystal Disk Mark
• Crystal Mark
• Super Pi
• PCMark

Our Test System:

• Tyan S5502WGM3NR
• Thermaltake Chassis
• Thermaltake TR2 RX-850 Power Supply
• Nvidia Geforce GTX 280
• (4) Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 SAS Drives (RAID 0)
• Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
• Kingston 8GB DDR3 ECC Ram

Sisoft Sandra

We use Sisoft Sandra as an overall system and component benchmark to provide you with a relative score against which your performance can be measured. Most importantly in this benchmark are the scores related to the CPU which are the Arithmetic and Multimedia benchmarks.

As you can see the Tyan S5502 excels at CPU intensive tasks, this in addition to hard drive access is what servers are targeted towards. We would say the S5502 easily hits the marks here with the CPU scores surpassing those of the i7 940, 950, 860, and 860s in some areas. Similar results, but more impressive, are seen in the multimedia benchmark with the X3470 topping nearly everything in the lineup.   Our HD testing shows very low access times with relatively good transfer rates for a RAID setup. Once again we would have liked to be able to test with the onboard Marvell controller but were unable to due to technical difficulties and driver support. This may mean for some interested parties that you either wait for Tyan to fully support Windows 7 or if you are deploying any of the MS server OS’s you can go forward with confidence now. Alternatively the S5502 is available without the onboard Marvell controller at a reduced price leaving you the option to purchase your selection of an add on card of your choice.

CrystalDisk Mark

As we mentioned one of the primary functions of a server is quick access to storage media in order to serve information and files on a network. To this end we have equipped the S5502 with four Seagate drives in a RAID 0 array.  What kind of bandwidth can you expect from such a setup. . . Take a look:

From left to right these are the results of the 50, 100, and 500MB tests.

CrystalMark

As you can see this benchmark gives us scores for several of the subsystems similar to Sisoft Sandra. We include this benchmark as it is a free software you can run on your own systems for comparison. We should note that the OGL, D3D, and GDI scores were obtained with the Geforce 280 GTX installed in the system. The onboard Aspeed video card proved to have stuttering issues with Windows 7 due to the highly graphic nature of the OS.

Super PI/Mod 1.5 XS

So here we get to see the S5502 flex some of its considerable number crunching muscle as it absolutely powers through this benchmark. It achieves the 32M calculation in just over 12 minutes which places it in the category of an i7 965EE clocked in turbo mode at 3.88GHz and utilizing triple channel ram. As a reminder our CPU clocks in at 2.93GHz.

PCMark Vantage

Another reference benchmark for those who would like to compare their systems and servers against the results of our test system here.

While certainly not setting any land speed records our system does quite well and without any tweaking of the system settings. These systems meant for server and workstation roles are typically not setup for speed and rather instead for stability.

Not All Servers are Created Equal

Some of the most useful features of the S5502 platform are to be found at the bios level outside of the OS. As mentioned earlier the S5502 is meant for server deployment so consider the following scenario:

You are a small/medium business owner with 50 employees. Your network consists of a domain server, an MS Exchange server, and a file server. For reasons unknown to you none of your employees can sign into the domain, get internet access, etc. You do not have a dedicated IT administrator, instead you contract that service out to an on call company to save on cash. Every minute your employees are down costs time, which in the case of a down server usually means hours or longer to wait for the IT service personnel to arrive on site and find out why the server is not working correctly.

This scenario happens many times a day all over the country and the world. Businesses lose thousands of Dollars, Yen, and Euros waiting for servers to be restored to full functionality. Many times the server hardware is just fine and all that is needed are a few clicks of a mouse or a reset of the server and things are back up and operational. The business ,however, is at a loss for the time that the server was down. A technology known as iKVM, which Tyan has implemented into the S5502 can eliminate much of that lost time.

As many in the IT industry are aware many service calls and maintenance can be done remotely. This requires RDP, RCP, and that the computer be up, operational, and connected to the internet to function. iKVM only requires an internet connection for it to work. iKVM allows your IT company or administrator to VPN into your network and have direct access to what is happening within the S5502 at a bios and hardware level. If the server in question has “Blue Screened” (BSOD), locked up, or experienced any number of problems, then the moment the IT admin plugs in the IP Addressof the iKVM machine he/she will see exactly what is on the screen at that moment regardless of the OS. This level of access allows for unprecedented troubleshooting and much quicker recovery from issues.  your IT administrator can for example reset the server and watch the bios post, enter the bios remotely and make changes real time, and restart the system. They would have access to RAID arrays, all attached hardware, and more. iKVM allows you to virtually be on site with diagnosis and repair much more quickly.

iKVM in conjunction with IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) provide the backbone of support for IT administrators and are wonderful additions to the S5502. Essentially IPMI allows remote monitoring of system health parameters including:

• Fan Speed
• Hard Drive Health
• CPU Temperature
• Remotely Control Power
• System Event Logs
• Access to console interfaces

These features and others show the dynamic flexibility and power that the S5502 grants to its users.

Dynamic Growth Capability:

When we started this review we mentioned that many businesses make the decision to implement standard desktops as servers. We also mentioned some of the trade offs of that sort of arrangement. Lets take a look at the S5502 and its expandability and accessibility options and compare them to a standard desktop system that has been setup as a server.

Specific Functionality	Desktop Server	S5502 Based Server System
RAM Expandable to 32GB	NO	YES
Expandable Storage Capability	Limited	YES
Onboard SAS	NO	YES
iKVM	NO	YES
IPMI	NO	YES
Multiple PCI-e Slots	YES	YES
Storage over IP	NO	YES
3 Gigabit Ethernet Ports	Limited	YES
RAID Hard Drive Support	Limited	YES (SATA 0/1/10/5)YES (SAS 0/1/10)

In terms of expansion and future growth the S5502 as expected easily outperforms nearly any standard desktop configuration with its already built in support. In order for any standard desktop to reach the level of functionality and expandability of the S5502 a business owner would have to purchase several add on cards. The downfall to this approach is of course that such add on cards do not always play nicely together.  In the case of the S5502 you are purchasing a solution that works well out of the box. Our testing of each of these features went without any issues. iKVM for example meets a specific need and does so outside of any OS, there is little if any lag when viewing bios screens and making changes and allows an amazing amount of added control over a system that RDP by its nature cannot hope for.

Conclusion:

The S5502 is an excellent server and workstation platform that brings an awesome amount of power to both fronts. Its expansion and accessibility options place it above most other options among similar choices by Dell, HP and other OEMS and at a significantly reduced price. Our testing found that the S5502 was extremely stable, had high performance, and was extremely configurable. Our single issue with the on-board SAS controller was limited to Windows 7 support which nearly any server platform will have considering how new Windows 7 is. We were particularly pleased with the inclusion of iKVM and the expandability of our storage options with the S5502. Considering all of the features, support, and level of performance of the S5502 we award it Editors Choice for enterprise hardware.