Hardware Review rantings

Zogthetroll · 03-20-2003, 08:57 PM

this is really nothing more than me venting my annoyance at what has recently become a pet peeve of mine, vague or less than helpfull hardware reviews. a saying i like that could be applied to these is "if you're going to take the time to do something, at least do it RIGHT". i'll explain what my ramblings are about. in searching various sites to do research on computer hardware, i would read the reviews/comparisons to try to get a feel for how a particular piece ranked, unfortunately, a large number of sites tended to consistantly do a few things which made the review have little to those looking for a good comparison & didn't have much of a knowledge base to work with. take heat sink & fan combos for instance. in one review of a thermaltake volcano 9, the author proceded to write a fairly decent article and ran tests of the HSF at different speed settings & at a few different clock speeds, which is quite informative (as long as i have the same hardware, case, & fan setup).

rule number one for accurate graphs/charts, always include a baseline, in this case, another HSF. another slightly more informative review (and the more common type), the author compares the HSF to his "stock" HSF (please, a few more details would help), which could be any number of a differant variety of HSF (from really crappy, to stock hsf that perform suprisingly well, again, not a good baseline).
in retrospect, i'm probably being a bit harsh here, but i'm looking at this from the perspective of someone who's relatively new to aftermarket cooling products & doesn't have a lot of experience to draw from, & i'll be the first to admit it. so i guess its all a matter of how familiar you are w/ the hardware or not. regardless, it would be nice to see a bit more time invested in some of them. btw, my hats off to BillA & others who do turn out quality, indepth product reviews. i'm not really expecting any responses to this, i just felt like expressing an opinion to those w/similar interests. (my wife gets this glazed look after a certain amount of talk about computers)

deeppow · 03-20-2003, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zogthetroll
in retrospect, i'm probably being a bit harsh here, but i'm looking at this from the perspective of someone who's relatively new to aftermarket cooling products & doesn't have a lot of experience to draw from, & i'll be the first to admit it.

Actually you're being kind.

The "free world" is driven by the commerical where there is no short-term technical measure of the claims. There are a few that play by the rules of "good science." But there is no court to bring those to justice that don't. Wanta make a fast buck? Ain't nobody gonna or can stop you.

Those that know can't save you unless you do your homework.

The layers ain't gonna. I can be in and outa business plus gone before you know the difference.

tim-may · 03-21-2003, 12:59 AM

i would just like to add fuel to zog's fire....
the dual channel pc3200 shoot out over at amdzone.com...ticked me off sooo much.

first off, why the hell is there a stick of pc2700 is there?!?! i know its a 'EL' stick of OCZ, but damn....they make pc3200 'EL' modules....

useless graphs, not enough different benchmarks (ha, some 'philosophy'...), no specified ram timings. it said 'agressive' timings were used, but how many know what the specific timings are on an epox 8rda+?

their cost analysis consisting of newegg...wtf....

using a prometeia and a multiplier of 13X and a 200mhz fsb would make that a 2.6ghz system with the ram in dual channel....pretty sweet setup, but only testing at one speed doesnt do too much besides show how this ram would perform in amd systems that are running that fast. some more speed grades would be nice.

i can feel for ya zog....nobody i know has the same depth of knowledge as i do about certain 'topics'. but there are about 3 that im half-assed teaching about overclocking and all. just wish i had somebody local to teach me about this stuff when i was learning about it...

jtroutma · 03-21-2003, 05:13 PM

Just wondering....

Is this thread all about just "blowing off steam" or do you actually want some review site recommendations???

Either way works fine for me

Brad · 03-21-2003, 05:21 PM

amdzone also did that mpx motherboard roundup a while back, quite possibly the worst motherboard review ever. Great site for news, but obviously the writers have no idea what they're doing. My favourite sites are aceshardware, lostcircuits, storagereview, xbitlabs etc. Simply because they actually do provide useful analysis as well as nice big pictures of all the products they review

tim-may · 03-21-2003, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jtroutma
Just wondering....

Is this thread all about just "blowing off steam" ....

Either way works fine for me

SURE!!!

03-20-2003, 08:57 PM	#1
Zogthetroll Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ohio, U.S.A. Posts: 177	Hardware Review rantings this is really nothing more than me venting my annoyance at what has recently become a pet peeve of mine, vague or less than helpfull hardware reviews. a saying i like that could be applied to these is "if you're going to take the time to do something, at least do it RIGHT". i'll explain what my ramblings are about. in searching various sites to do research on computer hardware, i would read the reviews/comparisons to try to get a feel for how a particular piece ranked, unfortunately, a large number of sites tended to consistantly do a few things which made the review have little to those looking for a good comparison & didn't have much of a knowledge base to work with. take heat sink & fan combos for instance. in one review of a thermaltake volcano 9, the author proceded to write a fairly decent article and ran tests of the HSF at different speed settings & at a few different clock speeds, which is quite informative (as long as i have the same hardware, case, & fan setup). rule number one for accurate graphs/charts, always include a baseline, in this case, another HSF. another slightly more informative review (and the more common type), the author compares the HSF to his "stock" HSF (please, a few more details would help), which could be any number of a differant variety of HSF (from really crappy, to stock hsf that perform suprisingly well, again, not a good baseline). in retrospect, i'm probably being a bit harsh here, but i'm looking at this from the perspective of someone who's relatively new to aftermarket cooling products & doesn't have a lot of experience to draw from, & i'll be the first to admit it. so i guess its all a matter of how familiar you are w/ the hardware or not. regardless, it would be nice to see a bit more time invested in some of them. btw, my hats off to BillA & others who do turn out quality, indepth product reviews. i'm not really expecting any responses to this, i just felt like expressing an opinion to those w/similar interests. (my wife gets this glazed look after a certain amount of talk about computers)

03-21-2003, 12:59 AM	#3
tim-may Cooling Savant Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: California Posts: 161	i would just like to add fuel to zog's fire.... the dual channel pc3200 shoot out over at amdzone.com...ticked me off sooo much. first off, why the hell is there a stick of pc2700 is there?!?! i know its a 'EL' stick of OCZ, but damn....they make pc3200 'EL' modules.... useless graphs, not enough different benchmarks (ha, some 'philosophy'...), no specified ram timings. it said 'agressive' timings were used, but how many know what the specific timings are on an epox 8rda+? their cost analysis consisting of newegg...wtf.... using a prometeia and a multiplier of 13X and a 200mhz fsb would make that a 2.6ghz system with the ram in dual channel....pretty sweet setup, but only testing at one speed doesnt do too much besides show how this ram would perform in amd systems that are running that fast. some more speed grades would be nice. i can feel for ya zog....nobody i know has the same depth of knowledge as i do about certain 'topics'. but there are about 3 that im half-assed teaching about overclocking and all. just wish i had somebody local to teach me about this stuff when i was learning about it... __________________ AMD Althon XP 1700+ JUIHB 0302 @ 2Ghz (air cooled) 10.5 Multiplier X 191 FSB = 2005 Epox 8RDA OCZ PC3500 512mb EL (SYNC CAS2-2-2-4-2) eVGA Ti4200 64mb @ 285/570 (stock air cooling) Antec True550 Antec True430 for 220w pelt

03-21-2003, 05:13 PM	#4
jtroutma Cooling Savant Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: SLO, CA Posts: 837	Just wondering.... Is this thread all about just "blowing off steam" or do you actually want some review site recommendations??? Either way works fine for me __________________ Athlon64 X2 4200+ @ 2.5Ghz (250FSB x 10) OCZ VX 1GB 4000 @ 250FSB (6-2-2-2 timmings) DFI LANParty nForce4 Ultra-D SCSI Raid 5 x (3) Cheetah 15K HDDs LSI Express 500 (128MB cache) OCZ PowerStream 520W PSU ATI X850XT PE (Stock) DTEK WhiteWater + DTEK Custom Radiator Eheim 1250

03-21-2003, 05:21 PM	#5
Brad Thermophile Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Nuu Zeeelin Posts: 3,175	amdzone also did that mpx motherboard roundup a while back, quite possibly the worst motherboard review ever. Great site for news, but obviously the writers have no idea what they're doing. My favourite sites are aceshardware, lostcircuits, storagereview, xbitlabs etc. Simply because they actually do provide useful analysis as well as nice big pictures of all the products they review __________________ 2x P3 1100's at 1400, Abit VP6, 2x Corsair 256mb PC150 sticks, 20gb 'cuda ATA-III, 2x 40gb 'cuda ATA-IV in raid 0. 20" Trinitron. No fans 2x 2400+ at 2288mhz (16.0 x 143), Iwill MPX2, 2x Kingmax PC-3200 256mb sticks, 4x 20gb 60gxp in Raid 5 on a Promise SX6000. Asus Ti4200 320/630. Cooled by Water

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