On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, at 6:12pm, Rich C wrote: > However, powering the chip on with no heatsink is not really any different > than removing the heatsink from a running processor.
I believe the theory was that there were in fact relevant differences, but I sure don't know what they were supposed to be. If I had to guess, maybe the processor does not run at full clock upon power on? I dunno. In any event, I certainly don't regard the motherboard method as a full-proof solution. OTOH, I do not regard the failure cases as mission-fatal to people who know what they are doing. Yah, if you don't put the heatsink on your CPU, you loose. So don't do that, then. ;-) FWIW, I also don't understand why AMD doesn't just put a last-chance, thermal-interlock in their chips that kills the power if it gets near melt-down. > Well then the junk manufacturers use VIA for Intel solutions too, because > I have had problems with all the VIA motherboards I have used, regardless > of platform. Same scenario. Intel's chipsets are expensive, so they do not get used in the el-cheapo motherboards. If you are building a bottom-of-the-barrel board, you are not going to buy the most expensive components on the market. I've met -- hell, I've *owned* -- boards with VIA chips that were flat-out defective by design. The VA-503 from FIC is a good example -- I've encountered several of them, and most of them never even managed to boot MS Windows 98! You had to load PCI slots in a certain order, or it would not POST. But my favorite flaw was that if you put cards in all four PCI slots and the AGP slot, one of the power SCRs would **melt**! On the other hand, I've used high-quality boards with VIA chipsets that have never given me a second of trouble. The difference is in the quality of the board, not the chipset. I'm not trying to say that all VIA chipsets are top performers. They aren't. But Intel has put out some dogs, too. i810, anyone? :) > Bugs is one thing. How fast the workarounds are created is another. I'm really not sure what you are trying to say there. If you mean the speed of the fix... well, if I remember correctly, Intel had to face major media pressure before they even admitted the FDIV bug existed... ? > True, it is a perception issue, but it's still important. Eh? Are we talking technical merits here, or who has the bigger marketing budget? :) If marketing muscle is an "important" factor, then I guess I should stop using this Linux thing... ;-) >> What really matters is, "Can you get your work done?" Both brands >> provide a "yes" answer in nearly every case (with the errata being evenly >> > distributed for both as well). > > The errata is masked by the fact that most people use Windows. Server > admins mostly use Intel. I really don't get what you are trying to say here. How are processor bugs masked by the fact that most people use MS Windows? And what does the fact that server admins mostly use Intel have to do with that? > RAMBUS isn't a bad idea. It was a Bad Decision(TM) in that it was a > proprietary architecture (read expensive) ... Well, I dunno about you, but "proprietary" and "over-priced" are both bad ideas in my book. :-) > ... and it was ahead of it's time. There is also the latency issue, which I have yet to have confirmed or denied to my satisfaction. > But the fact that you CAN overclock an Intel processor much more than an > AMD processor ... Would you mind backing that up with some references? I am not an overclocker, but I do read about that stuff from time to time, and everything I've encountered has indicated a strong preference for AMD over Intel in the OC world. My understanding is that Intel makes it much harder to overclock their chips. There is also the issue of the 1.13 GHz Pentium III, which was *already* overclocked, by Intel, beyond stable limits. That's not what I would call "much more", but rather, "much less". :-) > ... says a lot for the "overhead" that these processors have in terms of > stability and reliability. You could look at it that way. You could also say Intel is selling you a product that has been deliberately de-tuned. If the chip is capable of running stable at 1200 MHz, I would like the manufacturer to sell it as such, and not lock it at 800 MHz just to keep prices high. By all accounts, Intel is killing off the PIII line not because its time had gone, but because the price/performance ratio beats out the P4 by a considerable margin. -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
