Aside from the different color scheme and the massive heat spreader on the Tachyon, both boards are remarkably similar. Click images for detailed view.
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| Tyan Tachyon G9700 Pro Roses are red, violets are blue .. | |
| (Review by MS, Jan 28, 2003) |
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue..
.....and if we substitute ATi for roses and Tyan for violets, we end up with Radeons and Tachyons. It is not the scent, though, but the royal-blue color scheme that is the most distinguishing feature of the Tyan Tachyon. There is simply no way to mix up a Tachyon with any Crucial or similar card, some of which only differ by courtesy of a sticker from the original ATi cards. The second distinguishing factor of the Tachyon is the heat spreader, a massive two piece assembly in the front and back of the card. The two pieces fit together so snugly that they appear to be a monolithic design and it takes some very careful inspection to find the "seam". The good aspect of this design is that the close contact of the two hemi-shells warrants excellent thermal conductance between the two halves.
Aside from the different color scheme and the massive heat spreader on the Tachyon, both boards are remarkably similar. Click images for detailed view.
There are some minor differences between the two cards nonetheless, mostly in the power regulation circuitry that feature two additional Fairchild microcontrollers next to the main VRM. Update: These microcontrollers are part of the standard revision changes of the PCB and found on most new cards.
Unfortunately, the parts are not listed in any search engine so we don't know what exactly they are doing.
Features
For clarity on the features and what Tyan claims for the card, we have compiled a short list of technical specs:
| Core Clock [MHz] | Pixel Pipelines | Texture Units/Pixel Pipeline | Fill Rate (Single) [MPixels/sec] | Fill Rate (Multi) [MTexels/sec] | Memory Clock [Mbps] | Memory Bus Width | Memory Bandwidth [GB/s] | |
| RADEON 9700 | 325 | 8 | 1 | 2600 | 2600 | 620 | 256 | 19.84 |
| TACHYON G9700 | 325 | 8 | 1 | 2600 | 2600 | 620 | 256 | 19.84 |
| TACHYON G9700 OC | 400 | 8 | 1 | 3200 | 3200 | 700 | 256 | 21.87 |
Note that the default speed of the TACHYON G9700 is no different from the standard RADEON 9700 Pro, however, Tyan, claims that the core can be overclocked up to 400 MHz. We also found that there were relatively few problems with overclocking the memory to 350 MHz (700 MHz data rate). The resulting values for the increased fill rate and the memory bandwidth approaching 22GB/s if the Tachyon is overclocked to 400 / 350 MHz (core/memory) are shown in the bottom row.
Chicken?
The one question that has surfaced over and again is why doesn't Tyan clock their cards higher to begin with? The answer is straightforward, it is a liability issue. That is, as long as the manufacturer encourages overclocking, there is no real liability, after all, results may vary, isn't that one of the most common phrases in product advertising? On the other hand, if the manufacturer officially changes the specs and runs the cards at higher frequencies, that is a liability since every single card would need to be tested to function under the specked conditions on every system out there. It is the latter point mostly that dooms such undertaking.
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