Research before putting up controversial reviews!

[MaNiA]

I say controversial, because for far from the first time THG puts up a review that doesn't line up with <b>any</b> other. Maybe the rest are all biased, I dunno. But if you want people to believe <b>you</b> over them, at least don't make page long mistakes.

If I address anything here as 'You', I mean THG, the reviewer of the 3400+ in particular. At no offence to the forum members here, which I'm sure are decent ppl.

I expect this thread to be deleted, as I've heard that THG doesn't appreciate having people attempt to show their readers that there are true unbiased reviews out there.

But at least correct this point on the 3400+ review before deleting this thread... as this level of slander makes me uneasy and quite frankly pissed off.

<A HREF="http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1203/amdroadmap.jpg" target="_new">http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1203/amdroadmap.jpg</A>

The link above is, as best as I can determine, the most recent leaked AMD roadmap. It <b>clearly</b> shows that up to the 3700+, the peak <b>maximum</b> thermal output is 89W. For the whole range up to 3700+. I believe you'll find that that includes the 3400+. Which you 'approximate' will draw 95W as the 3200+ has a published 89W maximum (it does, but so does the 3700+). Why does AMD not list the specs on the 3200+? Or the 3000+? Or the 3400+? Because no one <b>cares</b>. All mobo manufacturers need to know is if they can cope with the whole product line. They don't want to design a product that only takes in to account the 3200+ peaks. Same as HSF manufacturers, and everyone else.

Sorry for my rant, but this is just one comment on a huge list of reviews from THG that have severely pissed me off.

I wasn't going to read the review, I just flipped straight to the conclusion. Until I read this - "<b>A close look at all the benchmark results reveals that the new Athlon64 just barely earns the performance rating 3400+</b>". As I said, perhaps <b>every</b> other site out there is biased. Could be. Stranger things have happened.

But the quality of this site has gone down hill for a long time now. Even on non AMD/Intel stuff. For instance, don't even get me started on the Gotham 2 review that states that the game 'is about setting off speed radar guns', where you race around 'a series of bends followed by a long straight stretch, at the end of which you have to <b>decelerate</b> to <b>minimum speed</b> to pass the test.'

I'm sorry... but what is that? I'm sure that <b>anyone</b> else that has even played the game can sympathise there. They don't even <b>touch</b> on Live, which for many is the best thing there. If I dotpointed all the key things that they missed out in the review... why, you'd get a much better picture from reading that then from reading the review.

This is me picking on a <b>couple</b> of things in just 2 reviews. But there are many many many more reviews out there that annoy me, and many many many more people out there that are annoyed by them. And even more people that are misinformed by them, and possibly have their buying decisions affected by them. It makes me sick. Correct those reviews, and then delete this thread/ban me if you must.

 

[Coop]

You are absolutely richt MaNia !
But the problem is, the intel lovers here do think Tom is telling the truth ! are they idiots ? maybe, i rather call it ignorence....

Do not expect to get banned, because Tom does not interest what is gooing on on this forum, there a no moderators, and nobody comes here for a serious debate...

What i found the best review of Tom as far was the fact that the Athlon64 FX was the fastest in every review in the world, accept, yes you know it already, accept this site )
Always in for a good joke,
The problem i think is, the intel lovers do think Tom is telling the truth, as long as they cant see : hey Tom is lying here they will believe everything Tom is saying...

 

[motiv]

I would say most people would take THG's review with a pinch of salt, but then again would you trust a review from AMDZone to be unbiased also.

The results do vary from a lot of other "regarded" web sites, but all it takes is a different Driver/Motherboard/Graphix card etc...to make different conclusions from a cpu.

The review does seem to be out of line with other sites, but as a stated above, this could be because of those issues.

 

[MaNiA]

Actually I was going to comment on that AMDzone wouldn't be the best to trust either. And as such, I didn't really comment on it... I actually used to be a THG boy. Until I discovered that company's like AMDZone surprisingly line up a lot more nicely with Anand, Xbit, and pretty much every other reviewer that I do now trust then THG ever did...

I dunno, I guess it's mainly under the strain of making it a daily publication. They just put out some really off reviews... a shame if you ask me. They never should have taken up the games etc either. KISS principle, keep it simple stupid.

 

[Vapor]

THG's reviews are misguided, I agree. However, the 3400+ isn't for all people. I do more video editting and audio work (as well as a lot of Photoshop work, but there's no benchmarks for P4 vs. A64) than gaming, so it would make sense that I would buy a P4C or Scotty (when released). It seems that THG has favored video editting and audio work in their basis for decision, which is informationally beneficial to me. However, THG does need to emphasize gaming more, IMO for two reasons: 1) get people like you to stop complaining and; 2) show how good the A64s really are at what they were designed to do.

As for the gaming reviews, I read one (Halo) and haven't read one since--they're pointless.

If you're trying to get banned or deleted, you won't. Only offensive and racist comments get banned here (usually).

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.

 

[Harlequin]

as i said elsewhere ;

why did THG use DDR400 for the athlons , yet use DDR433 , @ 400 with lower timings for the P4`s?

Why is THG using a non patched version of 3dmark03 - with using verion 3.30 of 3dmark , its not a valid version anymore - therefore the 3dmark results are not valid.

for the record THG should be using version 3.40 and the det 52.16 drivers for the benchmark ; if not then its not to be consider `legitimate`.

Aquamark3 ; why use totally non standard settings? why not use default - so other readers can compare there own pc`s - and see they `dream machines` and wants one?

IMO , something needs to be done to get parity in this review.



<A HREF="http://www.3dfx-interactive.com/voodoo5-6000/picture6.jpg" target="_new">My 3dfx Voodoo5 6000</A>

 

[taitertot]

So let me get this straight you find the review biased so now you are bad mouthing THG. Then you said you don’t agree with the wording of the reviews or statements within them.

So why would you honestly think we THG forum members would really care if your opinion of the site and the reviews are poorly done. Just because the reviewers (NOT TOM PAPST) said the 3400+ barely earned the title 3400+. Because when I looked at the benchmarks all I saw was a new chip that could barely squeeze by the 3200+ in most tests.

So with that in mind it appears the statement is true and you are being overly zealous over a product that you will undoubtedly never be able to purchase anytime soon.

So then I am forced to conclude that you are a troll and tried to come off sophisticated and organized with your thoughts to appear to be a reader that didn’t like what he read because of "slanderous" statements made by the THG reviewers. Which quite frankly isn’t even possible since the CPU doesn’t have any lawyers to fight back on the "A close look at all the benchmark results reveals that the new Athlon64 just barely earns the performance rating 3400+" statement.

This quite frankly annoys me since you have now fostered a 17min waste of time and typing energies for me to say my piece in regards to your very unusual and pointless post.

I’ve said it before and Ill say it again you don’t like what the THG reviewers are doing don’t read it, well if you can actually read that is...

-taitertot

I carry the legacy of one of your fallen; let us remember him fondly for he is always watching.

 

[Vapor]

It's THG's website, they can do whatever they want.

Anyway, I guess their drive image isn't up to date (explanation for the fact they aren't using 53.03 or 3Dmrk2k3 340).

As for using DDR433 with lowered timings @ 200MHz vs. the A64 with DDR400, it's just part of their Intel bias (especially when the A64's performance is more influenced by timings).

3Dmrk2k3 should still be valid, it's not like they are testing ATi vs. nVidia, it's AMD vs. Intel--just processors.

Anyway, don't discredit THG completely, they put emphasis where it concerns some people most (i.e., not games).

I wonder if Intel were better at games while AMD was better at workstation use, would AMD or Intel win (i.e., is it really a bias for Intel or a bias for video editting and audio work?)??

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.

 

[Harlequin]

well , yes it is there own website , so they can do what they want , the way they want to do it - and im not actually accusing them of Intel bias.

about 3dmark - true , but if you read the `guidelines` published by futuremark , they explicitly state what gfx drivers and which build of the programme would be considered `legit` - and IMO , this not only applies to GFX cards - but to other components as well.

we can only wait and see how much of an improvement winxp-64 will have when it arrives (for the A64`s and the intel equivilent).

oh - about the heat issue , if you look at the roadmap - the total heat output for the entire 0.13 micron a64 range is 89 watts , and thats up to and including the 3700+ , so maybe another look should be made at temp claims?

its also the same with all the spurious figures being thrown about for the scotty chips and there output.

<A HREF="http://www.3dfx-interactive.com/voodoo5-6000/picture6.jpg" target="_new">My 3dfx Voodoo5 6000</A>

 

[Kanavit]

I believe Tom's Hardware Guide has the best reviews unbiased around the net. They offer a complete suite of testing very comprehensive and complete. I always come here to get reviews on latest Processors and I find THG to be concise and accurate with Conclusions. You won't find more information and in depth review on hardware anywhere else.

 

[shadus]

*yawn*

Eh? Oh sorry, feel asleep at your nitpicking.

Summary in three words: Blah blah blah.

At least at toms you can see the descrepancies in the reviews, they let you know versions, timings, and settings. Unlike most other review sites. Generally toms is fairly unbiased and since I've been here I've heard them called intel biased (most recently), amd biased, nvidia biased, ati biased, I figure next they'll be matrox biased or xgi biased.

So again, to your post I say: *yawn*

Piss off trolly.

Edit: Fact is, toms is large enough to have a good following of all kinds of fanboys... intel, amd, nvidia, ati, xgi, matrox, dogsh!t, or whatever. Every review ends up pissing off at least one group of fanboys.

Sorry sunshine, yer not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/shadus.html" target="_new">Shadus</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by shadus on 01/06/04 12:14 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[TheRod]

Photoshop bench :
<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400_13.html" target="_new">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400_13.html</A>

--
Would you buy a GPS enabled soap bar?

 

[Zoron]

So what you're saying is that THG should read all other reviews put out by other websites before writing their own?

Interesting.

Let's not review it ourselves, let's just read what everyone else is saying and base our reviews off that! Amazing concept! This way, we'll please all the AMD zealots, and they won't dare accuse us of being Intel biased anymore! WOOOOOOT!

(Of course there will be the problem of Intel zealots claiming we're AMD biased, but that's relatively minor. Everyone knows that AMD zealots are more important than Intel zealots.)

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[InkSpot]

The problem is that THG made a couple of pretty severe errors.

1)Why dont use the same timings on memory in tests, this is afterall a CPU test so all common sense must say that all other variables should be the same including memory timings. Let alone using diffrent memory sticks. (DDR400 vs. DDR433)

2)Power figures

 

[Vapor]

Have you ever been to any other review site?? THG has some sort of bias, it's obvious. Whether that is an Intel bias (likely) or a video editting/audio work bias (less likely, still possible), is questionable.

XBit and Anand are the most reliable (for overall), IMO.

Of course, THG emphasizes what I care most about (at least in CPUs)...so I use it as my main reference.

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.

 

[Kanavit]

i think Anandtech is pretty biased imo. all the test favor AMD systems like office apps and unreal tournament 2003, while they cripple Intel systems with questionable inaccurate results. there is even a link to AMD forum from Anandtech.

 

[Kanavit]

add on a further note. I like THG is because they don't censor or conceal anything. Not like Futuremark , which bans people or threads that make their products look bad. at least THG doesn't do that and i respect that despite what people are saying. and the whole fiasco with approved drivers for 3dmark03 is more biased and unfounded against Nvidia. Futuremark's patch disables Nvidia's GPU compiler which is designed to optimize software for it's code path.

 

[Harlequin]

your posting even more rubbish now....

Nvidia have stated themselves that the patch doesn`t disable anything - there still using the gpu compiler

go look for the press release on nvidia.com

<A HREF="http://www.3dfx-interactive.com/voodoo5-6000/picture6.jpg" target="_new">My 3dfx Voodoo5 6000</A>

 

[Kanavit]

i disagree, Futuremark made that claimed first. Then Nvidia agreed later. i believe that the 3dmark03 patch did something to Nvidia's compiler forcing them to release new Force ware 53.03 drives to fix it. Action speaks louder than words.

 

[Crashman]

I expect this thread to be deleted, as I've heard that THG doesn't appreciate having people attempt to show their readers that there are true unbiased reviews out there.

You're an idiot and a troll. THG accepts all criticism, even that by people like you and p00p, er, Coop or whatever his name is.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Hey, aren't you one of the trolls that raised hell when THG published benchmarks of the overclocked EE with the standard benchmarks and FX-51? Hmm, I don't see you complaining about the 3400+ being overclocked in this benchmark. I bet you don't even consider yourself biased!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blackstarFM]

^^
to the poster above me. all i see is the inability you have to answer why THG is disagreeing with every other 3400+ review on the 'net, and why its using diff. RAM timings. maybe some admin will comment, but tbh would you trust any reviewer so completely incapable of doing a fair tests comment? stop trying to drag this off topic into a flame. personal abuse is not on, and its usually a sign you are frustrated because someone is right, or doesnt understand you. if you were making any point whatsoever, the second option may be true, but you're just being insulting.

i am annoyed that a user has been called a "troll" for finding some major flaws in the review, if you dont agree with RAM timings and A64 being a major issue, you have no right to insult ANYBODY when it comes to reviews. do some research first. best to be an accurate troll in my opinion, if it offends people at least, hopefully, it triggers some neurons.

all THG are doing by overclocking the 3400+ is showing that in their eyes its still slower then the 3.2C, and that it doesnt overclock well. however, firstly it does. secondly, it doesnt need to, as on air (or any cooling method) its capable of much higher performance level (except on MPEG coding, which is apparently what THG think their users use all the time) then anything except a P4EE, and the FX is faster overall (and cooler) then that.

thats just being pedantic tbh - in light of all the other major errors (its only nitpicking if you dont actually understand the major difference in performance the RAM timings had, that they are using a non valid version of 3dmark, beta BIOS's, old BIOS's in the A64 tests, and invalid Aquamark versions, and incorrect A64 prices - they dropped before this review was posted btw) in this review, i think we can safely put that comment on the back burner.
THG are also incorrect in speculating on the AMD heat output of the 3400+. they should learn to read a roadmap and technical details chart. the maximum heat output in W of the entire 64bit lineup 2.4GHz and below doesnt exceed 89W, so what are THG making up spurious figures for? im annoyed, as they know better.

---
intel fans, did you notice the 5GHz P4 review? tried multiplying the FSB by the multiplier? it doesnt add up.
also, the pic is photoshopped funny the only artifacts are near the (incorrect) clock speed.

also, for a 3.2C, its funny for it to have an engineering sample unlocked multiplier. go see. if the picture is pulled and replaced (its already happened once ) i bet theres hundreds of users here and everywhere who will be happy to send you a copy.
THG lied once again there, and thats once too many for me. why is everything else truthful, if they dont either have the skills, or the inclination to test properly?
you're not idiots or sheep, go check up and ask yourself why they do this. get a calculator, and do it now. use photoshop and zoom in on the WCPUID pic, and see the only artifacts are around the clock speed. i could do better mental arithmetic, and editing in MSpaint.
---


these are the only two reviews i saw here recently, and they are both glaringly flawed. unprofessional, unscientific definately. biased or just stupid? im not sure. but they're definately underestimating their user base (hopefully, tho im not seeing much proof of that here).

all i want to say has been said already @ futuremark - bear in mind, its not an AMD/ Intel site, which is good. a lot of errors have been made in Intel's (sorry, Toms) reviews recently - see some of the comments here: http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=techmobocpu&Number=3259739&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1

im not insulting the users. im insulting the review, and indirectly the reviewers. and if people get the wrong impression, they need to re read the review and question it - better yet, look for others.

this site, and this unmoderated forum are a total joke. not only does the review disagree with every other site on the net, and the stock scores people are getting with 3200+'s, but they dont even attempt to explain or hide their glaring inadequacies as reviewers. i feel sorry for the intelligent posters here, who have to get so defensive to defend a site not worth saving.
its not even a new, inexperienced site. if anything, its got worse over time. i blame the office location.

oh and Kanavit. looks like you got banned again @ futuremark under your other username. funny you mention bias, as thats why you were banned.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by blackstarFM on 01/06/04 11:24 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[darko21]

Wow that was one big post.

Nice work.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

 

[blackstarFM]

yep, i looked at the recent THG reviews with mounting horror - its scary how misleading the 3400+ review would be to the general public, but i suppose with no agency to check up on reviewers, Tom's will keep on doing it.

i in no way connect THG to its forum users btw. they voted the FX51 top CPU if i remember correctly, so have some accurate views of the CPU situation IMHO.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by blackstarFM on 01/06/04 11:11 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[darko21]

Ya there is little that can be done about it. I'd say a lot of PC Mags are worse then THG is now. It's a complicated industry none of the big advertisors want to spend money advertising in a medium that does not review them in a faverable light.

Whats sad is how good this site once was and how unreliable it has become. I mean if their testing for Intel Nvidia, always comes to a different conclusion then the rest of the internet hardware review sites, How could you trust a review on monitors or anything.

If THG don't get back on track they will sonner or later fail. People want the truth not half truths.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.