[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrSlacker they write a lot of BS just to make companies happy

Can you give any examples? I hate to put you on the spot, but I have always found them to be accurate and fair. In their head to head articles, and when they review multiple units of the same class, they seem to have a pretty broad range of best to worst.

 

[MrSlacker]

i dont remember things of top of my head but i subscribed to them for about a year already, and just hate reading it now. worst $2.50 i have ever spend. they post all old news. when CrossFire came out, i read about it online, then in 2-3 weeks i get a magazine with the same info as i got online...

 

[Edwood]

For computer hardware trends, print magazines are too little too late.

Tom's Hardware is only looked upon by me to see early pics of new products, but the words are not really reliable, particulary benchmarks.

I like sites that look at real world results as well.

An analogy would be, would you rely on a headphone gear review here with only a bunch of graphs and benchmark results, (only RMAA readings, etc.)?

-Ed

 

[funnytimes]

maximumpc is more geared towards beginners, while CPU is more advanced. that said, most of the information in those magazines can be found online. I have a subscription to maximumpc because it was $3 a year, for that price, I dont mind a dose of tech physically on hand. CPU is rarely discounted.

as for what forum/site to use, I would recommend use all of them, but that might be because I too have not found one particular place that I feel is completely (or at least very) impartial.

that said, I am not sure why you consider the case most important for stability. As long as your temperatures are fine, you system will not be unstable due to heat. Most any case can keep temperature at a reasonable level, unless you are looking for an very quiet setup, and even then the case is not the most important piece.

I think testosterone and competition is a more present in audiophilia, but here it is much more maturely developed (and perhaps hidden)

for quieting/silencing, www.silentpcreview.com is pretty much the only choice, but most likely you have already found it. that said, dont get too caught up in it. The more you read, the more you notice noise from yoru computer. I think a safe place to stop are grommets on harddrives.

 

[mr_slacker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Welly Wu Elec: I hear you man! Today, I was over at Anandtech and I was reading the review for the new AMD Athlon64 3800+ X2 dual-core chip when I realized two things: 1. Anandtech probably did not have the actual physical CPU to test with, 2. some of the latter synthetic benchmarks do not even show how the AMD Athlon64 3800+ X2 CPU performed relative to the Intel Pentium D 820!

1. How did you come to that conclusion? Did AT fake all the 3800+ benchmarks?

2. None of the benchmarks compares the 3800+ to the 820. But all of them shows how the 3800+ compares to the 830. Which makes sense since they cost roughly the same.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Welly Wu Then, the same thing happened with the Plextor PX-740 internal CD / DVD double layer burner drive: some of the benchmarks forget that the Plextor PX-740 should show up on the synthetic test benchmarks on the CD C2 error measurement and PI2 DVD error measurement as well!

I think AT doesn't post the error number if it's below a certain treshold level. Look at page 6 of the plextor review, BenQ is the only burner in the "PI errors" graph.

 

[MrSlacker]

woa didnt know there was another mr slacker here!

 

[mr_slacker]

hehe...

I noticed your presence on these boards a while ago. Almost the same strange nickname. What are the odds?

 

[MrSlacker]

when i saw it, i thought someone made it to make fun of me or something.... then i saw that you been here since 2001...

 

[Nightfall]

I've been in the high end pc game for a LONG time. Tom's was written off as worthless and a mouthpiece long ago, and isnt taken seriously by anyone these days. As noted by some others, Sharky is okay, [H]ardOCP is pretty solid too. Also, I basically agree about Max PC, the magazine being geared for less than pc gurus, but the online forums can sometimes be worthwhile. I also wouldnt completely write off Anandtech, they generally always indicate when they are simply quoting numbers on things they havent actually tested, and do perform their own tests down the road. One excellent site is:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/

a lot of it is geared toward overclocking, but I suspect you will find a lot of good info there. The user base is EXTREMELY knowledgeable, no pun intended.

JC