Topic: Toms Hardware Stress Test - Which is better Intel or AMD?

[F9thDigi]

http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041217/index.html

Link goes to the report.  Graphs are continuously updated.  Should be an interesting test!

[Nemesis]

I don't think that this test can accurately be called Intel vs AMD.   The whole system appears to be targeted for stress not just the components from those vendors.

Also why did they use a current top of the line motherboard for the Intel and an older lower design for AMD?  They even make a point that it does not have PCI Express which is available in current boards for AMD.

[Javora]

I don't think that this test can accurately be called Intel vs AMD.   The whole system appears to be targeted for stress not just the components from those vendors.

Also why did they use a current top of the line motherboard for the Intel and an older lower design for AMD?  They even make a point that it does not have PCI Express which is available in current boards for AMD.

At this point using the old AGP instead of PCIe should not make too much difference since even the best graphics card can't overload the AGP port yet.  However the test should have used the newest AMD motherboard.

[E_Look]

It's hard for me to totally believe any opinion ventured by these review magazines.  Ever since I disagreed with Consumer Reports' choices of audio when I was a kid, and some years ago when I saw very silly choices by PC Magazine, I don't even follow them much, except for a few online sources, and even with those, every now and then.

But most often, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are pretty good.  I'm kind of surprised they rigged such a lopsided test (so far).

[Nemesis]

It's hard for me to totally believe any opinion ventured by these review magazines.  Ever since I disagreed with Consumer Reports' choices of audio when I was a kid, and some years ago when I saw very silly choices by PC Magazine, I don't even follow them much, except for a few online sources, and even with those, every now and then.

But most often, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are pretty good.  I'm kind of surprised they rigged such a lopsided test (so far).

I dropped all Ziff Davis publications years ago because they rigged everything in favour of big advertisers. 

The straw that broke the camels back was a comparison of 1ghz computers.  They used the newest socketed PIII and an obsolete no longer produced slot Athlon and motherboard - 10% performance penalty right there.  When one Intel machine had a slower than average video they pointed out how it dragged the numbers down for the Intel average and should be discounted.   When an Athlon had 1/2 the hard disk performance of 2 other systems with the same drive, it wasn't mentioned.  They made a big point of the best video card being on an Athlon and therefore you should discount some of the Athlons high video score- another Athlon had the WORST video card by far in the roundup and that was never mentioned.  Intel had several times as many ads in the magazine as AMD.  I stopped buying all Ziff Davis publications then.  Even before that I read the individual reviews and numbers because the Editor's Choices were clearly biased by advertising space. 

Tom's Hardware has been guilty of similar though less blatant things in the past.  I'll use them as a guideline but look for others to validate Tom's opinions.

One magazine I used to read (before the owner/editor sold it to a chain) was Boardwatch.  He told it like it is.  If something was useless trash he said so - no matter how many ads got pulled.

[E_Look]

I think some of the small nearly unheard little review sites may be less biased.  Some of them are just kids with enough MB left on an old hard drive that they call "server space", but they don't pull punches, either.  If it sucks, they say so; they're kids, and we don't (yet) have a secret state police that come after these things.

[Nemesis]

I think some of the small nearly unheard little review sites may be less biased. Some of them are just kids with enough MB left on an old hard drive that they call "server space", but they don't pull punches, either. If it sucks, they say so; they're kids, and we don't (yet) have a secret state police that come after these things.

That ability to say what you want is one reason I use google to search Usenet for comments when looking at new stuff.  There is a lot of chaff to separate from the wheat but the information can save you a lot of money.  Reading customer comments on sales sites is also useful.  Just watch for signs that the negative comments are being censored out.

Forums such as (Link) 2CPU.com can provide significant information even if you just lurk.  I used 2CPU.com as a resource that way when buying my dual CPU motherboards.