Athlon 64 3400+ Motherboard...

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:55 pm

I'd also like to add that benchmarks as a whole are garbage period. I know most of you are like *gasp*, but it's true.

I believe it was two years ago that one of the major hardware sites found out that the mailing address for a multitude of benchmarks (I'm pretty sure it wasn't Sysmark) was a building that Intel owned.

Furthermore, one year (I believe 2002), AMD *won* that particular benchmark. I *think* one of the tests was crunching a lot of excel data. The following year, the benchmark was changed to favor Intel and they, surprise surprise, won. Basically they do better with HUGE excel sheets (that you will almost never use) and AMD was better for everyday use. Guess which test was included.

Now after that debacle, benchmarking has gotten better (mainly b/c Intel is being watched), but it's hardly the perfect tool to use for comparison and never will be. Sites do their best to even things out, but they will never be even.

Now at the same time, I'm not saying to totally disregard them. Instead, take them with a grain of salt or just as advice, not absolution like a lot of people seem to take them as. Benchmarks are made by people and a lot of those people work for Intel

.

If you *really* wanna know the performance of a processor and have 20,000 dollar simulation software, then I guess you could figure it out for *one particular set of tests that you are testing*.

Can anyone say Monopolistic Business Practices? No wonder why they're being sued by the Japanese Goverment

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trythil · Post by **trythil** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 5:56 pm

dwchang wrote: Can anyone say Monopolistic Business Practices? No wonder why they're being sued by the Japanese Goverment .

Funny that you say that, given the Japanese government's tolerance of existing Japanese monopolies...

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:40 pm

trythil wrote:
dwchang wrote: Can anyone say Monopolistic Business Practices? No wonder why they're being sued by the Japanese Goverment .
Funny that you say that, given the Japanese government's tolerance of existing Japanese monopolies...

Hey man don't rain on our parade

. I think AMD is suing too since they saw the government do it.

Too bad Japan != Teh World.

oldwrench · Post by **oldwrench** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:01 pm

I tend to put more faith in "real world" tests. They run application software that people actually use for content creation, audio and video encoding, image editing, and game playing to come up with benchmarks. These don't always give perfect results but I think they are closer to the truth. Maximum PC magazine does some interesting tests this way, check out their web site maximumpc.com.

kooda · Post by **kooda** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:42 pm

If you're going AMD, get a 939 pin like the other guys were saying. Wait for the Venice core if you can. They should be appearing soon. Late April I believe. They support DC, and more SSE instructions than my 754 pin, which is gonna hit a dead end at the end of the year. Ugh.