Storage and power
Though the Scorpion's array of PCI-X slots is perfect for a third-party RAID or SCSI card, the Thunder K8W has two and ATA/133 IDE channels and Serial ATA RAID support right onboard.

SATA RAID: cheaper than SCSI, and free on-board

With support for four-drive RAID 1, 0, 0+1, or JBOD arrays, the K8W's Sil3114 SATA RAID controller is pretty pimp, but it's not perfect. Unfortunately, the Sil3114 is hooked into the Thunder K8W's PCI bus, which is only 32 bits wide at 33MHz. I suspect a four-drive RAID 0 array of Western Digital's 10K Raptor SATA drives could saturate a PCI bus, which makes me wish Tyan had opted for an integrated PCI-X Serial ATA RAID solution.

Still, it's hard to complain too much about "free" Serial ATA RAID, especially when Appro has equipped the Scorpion with a slick removable hard drive rack.

Pulling drives is easy, maybe a little too easy for a striped array

Appro mounts the Scorpion's hard drives in removable enclosures that make swapping disks a snap. With a striped RAID 0 array, I don't expect many users will be pulling old drives and installing new ones. However, removable enclosures are great for mirrored arrays where failed disks can be replaced without even having to crack the system's case.

Packed with workstation-class Quadro goodness

Appro will sell you a Scorpion with just about any graphics card you want, and our review system came with PNY's Quadro 980 XGL. As far as graphics cards go, the 980 XGL is based on old technology, NVIDIA's GeForce4 GPU. However, the card has workstation-specific drivers and features that should help make up for its more dated graphics core.

If you've read any of my recent graphics reviews, you'll note that I have a penchant for cards with dual DVI outputs. I make a point to whine whenever a consumer-level graphics card doesn't integrate dual DVI output ports, so it's only fair that I praise PNY's Quadro for supporting dual DVI outputs.

The Scorpion's Thunder K8W motherboard is very picky about power supplies. The board will only work with EPS12V/SSE type power supplies. Use anything else, and you risk damaging the board. Appro uses a 450W power supply from NMB to keep the fickle K8W purring.