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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.
I'm sorry - how did they "carefully engineer" it so the rate of change is below the threshold? It looks to me like they pulled the heatsink straight off, which is exactly what was done in the Toms hardware review. So now you've seen two basically identical tests product completely opposite results. Who to believe eh?
Personally, I couldn't care less. The odds of a heatsink accidentally dropping off are pretty slim anyway, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
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.