On Bill's urging, I am going to start a thread on how to pay for improvements and upgrades to my test equipment. Several suggestions have been floated:
1)Mfgrs could sponsor the test bench. Ads run on a page that describes the test equipment, etc. There are concerns that this might be viewed as a loss of independence and objectivity. The advantage here is that the people who directly benefit from the press of our reviews bear the cost.
2) Individuals could donate money. I feel a little weird about this but I guess that readers also benefit from an improved testbed and so there is some justification.
3) I could just suck it up and pay for it out of my own pocket. Yea this would be the best solution for both mfgrs and readers, but if I spend much more money on cooling gear/test equipment in the next few months my creditors will be using my scrotal sac as a changepurse.
4) Waterblocks and other review items could be sold off/raffled off after the review and proceeds funneled back into testing.
That's about all I have here at the moment (other than people actually buying Pro/Grills
)
So what are my needs? There are two MAJOR upgrades that need to be made. First of all, the lack of pressure drop data is a serious flaw in the current reviews. A good differential pressure transmitter system is really key to making the wb comparisons more useful in buying decisions. It would also be quite useful for radiator comparisons and a million other things. This will require buying a good DMM that can read frequency and it will likely require calibration of both.
The other major improvement needed is a proper die simulator. I have a copper die sim identical to JoeC's Athlon simulator, but it has 2 heater cartridges in it instead of the thin heaters. The problems with it right now are I need to remove the big copper socket from it so the top can be insulated, I need a 0-24VDC adjustable PSU for powering the heaters, and I need to purchase DMMs for measuring current and voltage.
The die simulator keeps me up at night sometimes. Socket A is on its way out, my test system is pretty finicky, and a mistake in mounting or a leak or a power surge or a million other things that DO happen could kill the whole system. A die simulator would allow me to mount Intel or AMD blocks of any style on the same heat source and control things much better. I HAVE to upgrade to this in the next 6 months because I don't think my CPU soldering tricks are going to work on newer chips (pins too dense and small and Intel doesn't even give one access to the "hot" diode).
The other issue I have right now is automation. We can talk about that if you like. GPIB WILL be a consideration on all instruments I buy though for sure.
Anyway I want to start a dialogue with you guys to see what you think is acceptable and to make the entire process transparent and out in the open. No one's buying any special secret access to the site I can promise and I want to dispell any talk of that before we even begin.
So what do you guys think?