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The Report of My Thermal Death Have Been...
A reader writes "Not too long ago, Tom's Hardware posted a video of the grisly events that take place when the heatsink is removed on an AMD Athlon MP 1.2GHz in an attempt to show that the chip has inadequate thermal protection unlike the Pentium 4. Apparently, this is not the case. This new video, which looks like was done by AMD, shows the system continuing to work when the heatsink is removed. Even 9 minutes of Quake3 without the fan operating wasn't enough to destroy the processor. So who is right? It's in AMD's best interest to show that their product doesn't disintigrate under extreme conditions. " Update: 10/30 14:11 GMT by H : Note that it was Terry 'quad3d' Wang that actually did the video - not AMDZone.
Tom's Hardware hasn't always been completely objective... they usually lean towards AMD's side.
Tom has always been outspoken on the whole Intel/Rambus shenanigans, and he was the one who found whatever flaw it was that gave the original P3 1.1Ghz chip to falter.
I think it's safe to say that he wouldn't be badmouthing AMD's product if he hasn't found a decent reason for doing so.
I mean, isn't that what you want a system that's malfunctioning to do, shut down? If it didn't shut down, then it would continue to heat up and roast your cat which was using your tower as a space heater.
Maybe I'm missing the point...
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
If you read the toms hardware review, it said the athlon MP/XP thermal diode were capable of detecting no more then a 1 degree/celcius per second change and no more ... they've carefully engineered this "test" so the rate of change is below that threshold... toms test was worst-case and thats what you have to plan for.
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I watched this video and found it quite interesting. One difference between this video and tom's video was the motherboard and chipset that was used, that could have something to do with the different outcomes. Tom used some motherboard I've never even seen before, I had to hunt the net to find info about it. The new amd video uses a motherboard with the amd 760 chipset.
My other issues against tom are the benchmarks that he uses now, compared to what he used to do. Last review I just remember seeing the bapco and quake3 tests. Which is interesting because of all the rumors that bapco and intel are the same company. Read here. Then the quake3 benchmarks... umm, wasn't that what the P4 was optimized for? I remember back when the K7's first came out and tom threw a barrage of tests at it... a good FPU one was the 3DStudio one (which I didn't see in the last test).
Lastly, I remember the massive intel ad banners on the site when Tom did the 2Ghz P4 review...
So in my eyes, Tom sold out and I don't trust his reviews anymore.
Question everything that you've accepted without thinking.
I've been following Tom's Hardware for years now, since the days of truly atrocious english translations. I still check Tom's once a week or so for news and updates, and I find it a valuable resource.
However, to me at least, he seems far too emotionally attached to his subject matter to deliver unbiased opinions. Over the past few years, I've seen him be zealously anti-Intel, anti-AMD, anti-Intel, and now fairly anti-AMD again (albeit less fanatically than in the past). He's decidedly anti-Rambus (as am I, but I don't write articles purporting to be unbiased).
It's a good resource site, but very prone to sensationalism and exageration when flawed test results line up with his prejudices.
When serious reporters have all of their suspicions confirmed, they intentionally calm down and redouble fact-checking to make sure they don't embarrass themselves. Tom doesn't seem to have that concern, so I always read the site with a grain of salt and awareness of what his current emotional attachments are.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Questionable testing methods? He performed the EXACT SAME TEST on four processors, and both Athlons failed miserably. Regardless of how he tested them, the fact remains that the Intel chips didn't suffer damage, and the P4 KEPT RUNNING. Now, all of a sudden, AMD has a nice video out saying how their chips won't fail. Sorry guys, it's too little, too late. We're not falling for it.
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HardOCP.com ran an article the other day that said they were installing an 1800+ XP processor, and reached across the desk to grab something, bumping a key on the keyboard, which booted the machine with no heatsink and destroyed the processor.
You're saying that they worked on a powered machine and blamed AMD when they fucked it up.
ATX power supplies, unlike AT power supplies, run power through the motherboard whether the system is on or not. Some newer motherboards have a giant green LED in the middle of the board to alert you of this fact. (It even glows for like five seconds after you pull the power, since the capaciters take some time to discharge.) This is what makes possible the keyboard power-on feature that you described, as well as scheduled power-on and such.
You never work on a machine that is receiving power. Since they made such a basic mistake, I wouldn't trust their diagnostic skills. Don't believe them when they say heat fried the processor.
(Side note: while you don't want the machine to be powered, it is a good idea to make sure the machine is grounded to avoid static damage. For this reason, I'd suggest plugging it into a power strip and turning off the power strip. Ground but no power.)
the probability that your heatsink is just going to fall off is pretty low anyway. If the lack of heat protection keeps the cost down, then I'm all for it.
Agreed. Someone made the comparison between running a processor with no heat sink and running a car with no coolant. The car isn't exactly going to like it, either. Why do we consider this such a problem for PCs? Heatsinks don't just fall off. If they did, it couldn't be good for the system anyway to have a huge conductor rolling around on your motherboard.
Perhaps you should read the referenced articles before posting?
1. Many people find they need a rather big (and heavy) heatsink to keep an Athlon cool enough. These heavy heatsinks can fall off.
2. The CPU thermal sensor used on Athlons cannot respond to temperature changes faster than about 1C/second. Tom's tests showed the CPU melting in just a few seconds, so your monitoring software would do nothing to help you in that case.