Bi-Monthly Feedback Thread

Well my first suggestion is something I've seen people ask for, for years and years from the tech community in general:

Max OC Vs Max OC GPU benchmarks. For an example, the GTX 460 and GTX 470 vs the 5770, 5850, and 5870. Overclock them all as high as possible and see what you get. Then get the performance increases at certain OC milestones in a certain benchmark to show overclocking performance gains between the cards.

But on a personal note here are some suggestions/questions:

1. Computer cases.

A. I would love to see a direct A/B testing of multiple high airflow cases.

B. A modern watercooling guide would do wonders, in my opinion, to get newer users into it.

C. I would love to see a good article to highlight the differences, advantages, disadvantages, and thinking behind different styles and markets of computer cases, like the high end Lian Li cases vs the mainstream gaming cases. It would be great if the writer could manage to describe the quality difference between companies like Lian Li and Silverstone and the more mainstream companies like Antec, which I find very hard to describe.

I would also really, really, like to bring back that short-lived article series where Tom's featured the different rigs of the users in it's community. I always loved seeing other user's Rigs.

It would be great to see some computer monitor articles. I would love to see an article that highlighted the difference between cheaper TN panel monitors and high end "true" 8-bit panels, like the IPS panel.

Thanks for this guys, its a really great gesture.

I'd like to see some updated information on the best CPU and GPU Hierarchy charts as well as a summary table of CPU and GPU specifications. A summary article with a breakdown of the differences between the Intel/AMD processor families and a guesstimate of how various mobile graphics cards compare would be ideal.

The reason I'm asking for this is I have recently been considering buying a medium-duty gaming laptop and am having a hard time comparing the options like:
i3-370M vs i5-450M (+$50) vs i5-520M (+$100) vs i7-720QM (+250) (prices from a specific model)
or
335M vs 285M vs 5850 vs 5650 (which graphics card for performance/money)

In comparing the graphics cards I have been out of the loop and do not know how the cards compare with each other or how some of the last generation of cards (285M/4850) differ from the current gen.

On the processor side of things I would like to see some recommendations on processor family and pricing, from what I was able to figure out on the cards I mentioned the i3 has no HT or Turbo, the i5-450M has turbo and HT, i5-520M has a faster turbo and HT, while the i7-720QM is an older Clarksfield chip with 4 cores/HT/and a higher turbo... but knowing this doesn't help me at all in trying to figure out if the upgrade is worth the price difference, or if it's even worth considering because in the model I was looking at the only GPU available is the 5650 so maybe it would be better off to switch to a model with better graphics.

THG used to do nice reviews of LCDs around 2006 (who remembers the speedy Viewsonic VX922?) but I don't think they have anyone with the knowledge and equipment to do it any more.

Guys!! I've been talking to some users on other forums who claim that the Lucid Hydra scaling has really, really improved. I think Tom's should look into this.

I enjoyed the CPU/GPU bottlenecks article but would like you to follow up with an AMD system. Also I don't like Tom's CPU charts anymore. I liked the old ones and only two games.........bench games and games that take advantage of multi cpu's please. Throw in a few vintage cpu's to compare. Take a look at AnandTech' Bench and you will get the idea.

;-P

When they had comments for articles like this people flamed the author for posting them. It's much easier to disable comments than to get rid of comments.

This is something not everyone has access to. I would love for someone to do benchmarks on one of these massively-cored Opterons. There's 4-CPU motherboards out there: http://www.provantage.com/supermic [...] UPM392.htm

Even though most of tomshardware readers won't buy Xeon and Opteron systems, it could be a neat look into the future. Also, there's a fantasy aspect about these super systems that most of us can't play with. But yeah, just seeing someone benchmark a 48-core Opteron (4x12 core) will make jaws drop.

There's going to be a new set of Opterons coming out in 2011 as well, and Bulldozer is said to get up to 16-core. So, that could be 64 cores on a motherboard.

3D TV without Glasses.
info @ www.3dfusion.com

How's that for an article idea. :~)

Until there are fixed P67 chipset mobos available and/or Bulldozer is released, I can fully understand there'd be a hiatus on the SBM articles. Anyone with a budget over $750-$800 would be foolish to build now.
In the spirit(s) of both competitions and giveaways, however, I have some alternate suggestions:

1. Do a $500-$550 competition. Three (or more) authors build budget boxes and overclock them for a competition. My biggest concern there is we'd see three 770/870 + X3 455 builds, although it might be more interesting if you did a live feed of the overclocking (even though it wouldn't be LN2).

2. Do a graphics card competition. Provide the same base platform of CPU, mobo, RAM, and drives to three authors. From their (varying) budgets, they choose only the PSU, case (+fans) and GPU(s). Only the GPU(s) and PSUs that go with them are given away.

3. Do a potentially massive roundup, e.g. of cases (or monitors). The total SBM budget of $500+$1000+$2000 may buy more cases than you've got time to review (and give away!), but you could probably choose a range of typical sizes and styles.

Seriously - please fix the thumbs up thumbs down ratings system for the comments.

It used to be a great way of sorting the idiots from the fun and informative. It made your comments section really good and well worth reading. Now i'm using the site less because I just can't be bothered reading all the comments.

After you have fixed the thumbs out thumbs down ratings system in the comments section you might want to consider adding HQV Benchmarking ( both SD and HD ) to your graphics cards reviews and charts. This would really distinguish you above the crowd of IT related sites.

Isnt there a Benchmarking Section somewhere on the site, cause they talk about Benchmarking, yes? But the articles are placed where?

Im not sure where excatly to be honest, but ive done my searches on the topic before.

Think its part of the site hard to get too honestly.

This link might be helpful.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2977.html

The chart you are looking for i cant find off hand either to say, in terms of ideas. But should be in there somewhere.

But on the idea of benchmarking, is a lose though. But was there at one time, thats for sure. Was one of the only reasons why i was here when i first signed-up.

Style & IT Pro need a comments section. Comments are half the value of sites like this. I'm thinking I won't bother reading style or IT pro topics if there's no feedback.

I notice you have a "radiation bracelet" Tom's Style entry. It reads like an ad, has false-to-the-point-of-harmful information, and no way for aware readers to point this out.

It almost appears as if articles like the above are actually paid ads that prefer to be on a site protected from user-comment scrutiny? This may be false, but how would I know.


As for disabling comments to prevent flaming, nobody's forcing anyone to read the comments section.

^ I agree with #2 and #3; I think the attitude expressed in #1 could be "cured" by directing Mr. Gruener's talents back into the mainstream, perhaps as part of #3.

I think that the first one is a little harsh but definitively I couldn't agree more with #3. Tom's Hrdware used to be the only place where I would read tech news, but after reading so many complains about the iPhone articles in every single one, and reading about the delay in days with the "news" I started going to other websites. I didn't know there were a lot of news about hardware besides iphones and ipads!

If people is asking a lot to put less iPhone and articles more relevant to this kind of website, why don't they do it. or at least create the "iPhone or smartphone" section.

I stopped reading iphone articles a while ago. I'm not interested in whatever they say.

Maybe as an expansion to the best GPU of the month series to focus on how important monitor resolution is to take benefit from high power GPU's. Maybe work that into the hierarchy charts.

more articles on overclocking of cpu's and gpu's.

It is the best way to sort of fun and informative idiot. It makes your opinion very good, well worth reading. Now I use the site, because I just do not bother to read all comments.The the best way to achieve this, I believe, is to create a system user-submitted benchmark results, like "Crysis" workbench tools. If the user submitted data, and then basically every combination of the coverage, no time, and testing by the yous hours.