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Benchmark Program Rewritten to Favor Intel?
BrookHarty writes "Interesting article over at Van's Hardware, that BAPCo the maker of the SysMark benchmarking program, has re-written its SysMark 2002 benchmark program in favor of Intels P4. AMD joined BAPCo in order to "correct" these "broken" results. AMD reports that BAPCo's SysMark 2002 (written by Intel Engineers) is a collection of tasks to summarize "Real World" performance. Interestingly, these tasks are selected for Intel's favored performance, while removing certain tasks that favor AMD. Vans Hardware has additional information on BAPCo's Shady history."
Dudes, what's the deal with this ad?
Couldn't get a picture of Bozo or Marceau? Is the only clown pic you could come up with this one of John Wayne Gacy?
I have been pwned because my
If they optimize the processor to do really well in Lightwave, for instance, then the application benchmarks will reveal the benefits in a very obvious, and easily duplicated, mannre. For people who need the power for their Lightwave processing needs, then that is absolutely completely suited for them. Synthetic benchmarks, on the other hand, often have a tenuous correlation with real world applications, and are numbers that are largely abstract to most purchasers.
I bought 3 athlonXP motherboards and an athlonXP1800 last spring. I threw out every single motherboard and the cpu is in my closet. I have downgraded back to my pentiumIII. Why?
I had major stability problems and the athlon burns too hot. First I relized my old powersupply did not have the power to even boot these babies(300 w), I first had to buy a new powersupply, then new ram, then a new case. After this my first motherboard would boot and then crash after it was done posting. I returned it for an abit which was extremely buggy, and my netgear nics wouldn't work, it blue screened multiple times whenever I used my geforce(well known bug), and the apic controller did weird things in linux and sometimes would not shut down properly. It then died totally 2 weeks later. It was exchanged for an msi board that supprisingly worked as expected, well at first. The system would not shutdown properly under linux but I didn't care that much. I then noticed the cpu kept reaching above 45c which could damage the chip over time. A third problem was whenever I enabled the nvidia opengl patch the system would crash quite often. The problem went away if I disabled it. I built the drivers from scratch so it was the right version for my kernel compilied from source. I then spent $60 for the top of the line cpu cooler. I had to use some force to get it to close on the cpu and my screwdriver flew off the cooler and damaged a chip on the board!
The guys at the computer shop said they would only exchange my msi for another exact ones and they were becoming agravaited at me for obvious reasons. I was so angry I just said f*ck this sh*t and didn't bother to replace my motherboard. Even if I get the board replaced, I am faced with the same problems and bugs! I admit I broke the last motherboard and it was totally my fault and not AMD's but after a month and $750 dollars later, I did not care. DDR ram only worked with athlons at the time and I now had two cases and powersupplies which I did not need. I felt like a sucker who just flused $750 dollars down the toilet when I downgraded back. Why should I have to put up with that crap? Anyway the first board was probably defective and the second should of not even left the manufactoring plant. I did look up my bugs online and there were many pissed off consumers who had the same problems with the same exact sets of hardware, so the abit one is a piece of sh*t. Many early chipsets for the athlon processors are buggy. Especially VIA's. There is even a well known linux/nvidia/amd bug that can crash your system if you do any opengl which plauged my msi system.
Are there stable bugfree wonderfull athlon boards out there? Yes I am sure there are. I am not trying to start a flamewar here but rather just share my experience with them. I am thinking about finally getting rid of my pentiumIII. This time with a guinine intel processor.
Is it the fastest or cheapset? No. Do I care? no. I want something close to the fastest that will work with my case, work with my power supply, work with all of my perihperals, and be reliable. All the benchmarking websites do is show how fast the chip is. I want to know how reliable it is. I can find some vendor references to overall reliablity but the boards vary from chipset to chipset. If I put down big bucks to upgrade my system it better well work and keep working for a long time! There is a similiar arguement about buying an expensive sun box over a cheap lintel one. You get what you pay for. This is why many bussinesses choose intel overwhemingly over AMD.
Most of the reliablity problems which plagued the first generations of athlon processors are gone and I admit the first intel 810 chipsets were terrible but there are less bugs with intel chipsets overall. I am willing to spend $250 more this time and feel at ease and look forward to use it for a long time.
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Yes, that's why the press release from AMD is so important in establishing fairness...
Facts are facts, no matter where they come from. If AMD had a factual press release that was independently verifiable, then what are you suggesting the site do? Publish the same information and not credit AMD? Then you'd be screaming that you found a conspiracy when it was discovered that the information was based on an AMD press release.
What's your idea of a "fair" site? One the uses the BAPCo SysMark utility and does not mention that it was written by Intel to favor their CPUs?
It's just a CPU manufacturer we're talking about here, not your wife. If you're happy with your CPU, that's great, but don't start making baseless attacks against a web site simply because they pointed out Intel's underhanded benchmark manipulation.