Toms is biased. He has the inate abbility to mix facts with spin to prove his point. He has been "anything but Intel" since the mid 90's.
Other than that.. most of the hardware sites have been trying to make something of nothing. I do read them occasionally to try to find out about latest hardware releases... but the tests they do on processors are so abstract that they really hold little relevance to virtually anyone that is stopping by the site.
Of course, people will disagree... they'll set up benchmark tests so that people can measure their computer's peformance against others. These tests must exist because most people wouldn't really notice the difference during actual gameplay. Yet somehow, the abillity to get 115 FPS in AH vs 110 FPS has become important.
Sites like Tom's are to blame. Almost directly.
The "I must hate everything that is Intel because they are so big" mentallity is finally toning down. Intel is actually grateful to AMD for that. I would sit back at work and read article's on Tom's in regards to how we were threatening motherboard manufacturers, pc manufacturers, doing deceitful things with our processors... whatever. Any move Intel made was spun into. Of course, all this was going on during an Anti-Trust investigation by the U.S. Government... the ideal time to start strongarming people.
At Intel, almost down to the man, we believe AMD has a better designed chip. They took 75% of our design and were able to improve on it due to the aquisition of another chip manufacturer's design team and came out with an excellent product.
At Intel, almost down to the man, we know that AMD will never have the manufacturing capabilities (neither in quanity or quality) that we have. Nobody will even aproach us there for some time. Nobody can make chips as for the low $$$ we can.
We're working to completely change architecture to meet demand. I don't know exactly what direction that is going, but I have a tendancy to think that making things specifically for benchmark tests is going to go by the wayside. Its encouraging that Intel has moved from the "lets just make the same old chip smaller and faster" policy. But lets face it.. until last year there really was no need to do so.
The strange thing is the "until last year" part. These same arguments have been raging even when Intel had a far superior product. Yet, people still recommended AMD chips (K5 or K6) citing some article that someone wrote somewhere... when in fact... those chips simply sucked.
With an argument that is pretending to be about the "here and now"... I find it ironic that so many are harboring 8 year grudges against Intel and still proclaiming to be unbiased.<not a reflection on you Bloom.. just a general statement>.
...ah... enough of the soap box.
Glad we weren't talking about overclocking... I woulda gone on for years
AKDejaVu
