Is Tom Biased Against Intel?
Recently I got a bit irritated by some 10-20 emails in which people complain about my hefty criticism against Intel, accusing me of bias. To straighten this issue out once and for all, I'd like to explain myself here.
There is quite a bunch of sensible reasons why Intel is getting a whole lot of flak from me lately:
- I consider the release of high-end processor solutions that turn out to be utterly unavailable as unworthy of Intel. In the past Intel released a product and on the very release day you could buy those products almost anywhere in the world. Today it seems as if the releases of new Intel CPUs are pure PR-gags.
- I have got to criticize Intel if I receive a product that doesn't work the way it should. My Pentium III 1.13 GHz sample is simply not running properly and I don't seem to be the only one with this problem. I consider this as a rather serious incident. Once more I've got to say that I am not used to such things from a company of the format of Intel. In the past all Intel CPUs that I've used happened to be rock solid. Now times seemed to have changed for the worse, thus my criticism.
- I cannot possibly appreciate Intel's dealings with Rambus and its policy of forcing a questionable product such as RDRAM down the throat of hundreds of thousand of loyal customers. I consider the dirt that has been dug up about Intel's deals with Rambus so far as rather disgusting. Still I have my serious doubts that we have already heard it all yet. Intel will certainly receive praise from many others and me once it drops Rambus for good. My problems with Rambus have most certainly nothing to do with any stock market issues. I don't own any stock of neither Rambus or any other chip or memory maker. People who make allegations that I am trying to make money with falling Rambus stocks are only sad, because they are projecting their own greed on me.
- Even Intel's recent i815 chipset received criticism from me, although it would have been the one product that was supposed to be highly praised by Tom's Hardware. I do like the i815 and I have made it my default Intel processor platform. Still I believe that this chipset could be better if Intel wouldn't fear that it could interfere with its Rambus dealings.
- Finally I would like to remind you of the 'Caminogate' 1 and 2. Last year the i820 chipset was delayed and finally one RIMM-slot had to be removed from the design of the i820 motherboards. This situation left the brand new Coppermine processors without an Intel platform for a couple of months. Later i840 turned out to be unable to run with ECC SDRAM and then there was the sad MTH-story.
I only listed five points, although I could go on about it even further. Bottom line is that in the recent past Intel has provided a long list of failures and questionable dealings. Each failure and each piece of the Rambus-affair pushed me to be very critical with Intel. I cannot help it if Intel is having the worst record of its time. Don't blame me, blame Intel!
Finally I'd like to mention that I am aware of the fact that Intel is also providing good stuff. The 'Coppermine' Pentium III processors up to 933 MHz are excellent performers at an excellent price. There's of course more, but failures, flaws and questionable deals heavily overshadow all those good things right now.
Please follow-up by reading Intel Admits Problems With Pentium III 1.13 GHz: Production and Shipments Halted .
