Why Do People Not Like Tom's Hardware?

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Go to any message board on the web, and you will find people with nothing better to do than bash other sites.

I find that of the major sites, THG has much more varied article topics which make it a more interesting read than some of the other sites. THG was the site that brought us the slot Athlon goldfinger schematics, the site that figured out what the bridges on the Tbird did, the site that uncovered the PIII 1.13 GHz debacle among other things. How many sites can say they have come up with any discoveries of substance like these? Certainly not Anand. No, Tom did not discover OC'ing, but he was the first to bring a how-to to the masses. If you hate THG's "biased" opinions on CPU reviews and what not, so what? There are dozens of sites out there that can provide you with pages of benchmarks, go read them instead. But THG has provided the online community with far more useful information than just Quake III benchmarks, and to deny him that is simply not looking at the facts.

Tom was one of three websites including AT that discovered the p3 1.13ghz problem. He's also the only one of the three that made a big deal out of it and patted himself on the back over and over. "Certainly not Anand" you say..it's because Anand didn't cock off at the mouth about the whole thing. Tom's is also only one of many who have uncovered the "secrets" (secret if you don't read any of the technical documents that already gave this away) of overclocking/unlocking an athlon. Toms was also not the one to bring overclocking to the masses. Geez cnet even had an article on their gaming site back in the day. I don't think tom really has brought a lot to the community except maybe some photoshopped P4 pictures from a while back.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Go to any message board on the web, and you will find people with nothing better to do than bash other sites.

I find that of the major sites, THG has much more varied article topics which make it a more interesting read than some of the other sites. THG was the site that brought us the slot Athlon goldfinger schematics, the site that figured out what the bridges on the Tbird did, the site that uncovered the PIII 1.13 GHz debacle among other things. How many sites can say they have come up with any discoveries of substance like these? Certainly not Anand. No, Tom did not discover OC'ing, but he was the first to bring a how-to to the masses. If you hate THG's "biased" opinions on CPU reviews and what not, so what? There are dozens of sites out there that can provide you with pages of benchmarks, go read them instead. But THG has provided the online community with far more useful information than just Quake III benchmarks, and to deny him that is simply not looking at the facts.

You're using what it used to be to excuse what it has become.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: syberscott

Originally posted by: Smilin

(who the fuk is gonna run a liquid nitrogen based pc on a day to day basis...but gee, that's real special that you pulled it off tom)

What's wrong with that? People drive cars everyday, so does that mean that an alcohol burning dragster is a waste??? There are enthusiasts in every hobby and you have to respect them for pushing the limits.

Nothing wrong with it. If you figure out how to get 600Horse out of your 2003 Mustang by all means tell us how you did it, but don't try to pass it off as specs for the upcoming 2004 model or somehow say this modified car proves that chevy's or honda's suck.

Tom needs a good dose of professionalism..and a new pic in his bio because he looks like he's straight from a "hairclub for men" commercial.

 

[Pariah]

Tom was one of three websites including AT that discovered the p3 1.13ghz problem. He's also the only one of the three that made a big deal out of it and patted himself on the back over and over. "Certainly not Anand" you say..it's because Anand didn't cock off at the mouth about the whole thing. Tom's is also only one of many who have uncovered the "secrets" (secret if you don't read any of the technical documents that already gave this away) of overclocking/unlocking an athlon. Toms was also not the one to bring overclocking to the masses. Geez cnet even had an article on their gaming site back in the day. I don't think tom really has brought a lot to the community except maybe some photoshopped P4 pictures from a while back.

Maybe you'd like to tell the rest of us what part Anand played in the PIII bug. The instability was initially discovered in Linux compiles which Anand doesn't test. Here's his article, please point out where any reference to a problem is mentioned:

Intel Pentium III 1.13GHz (1133MHz)

The rest of it you're basically just making up with no proof to back it up. Did Tom kill your dog or something? What are you so bitter about?

You're using what it used to be to excuse what it has become.

The site still has a far more varied article topic range than other sites.

 

[Cosmic_Horror]

*yawn*

lets go back a few years....

Tom hardware site was a good computer online site, almost a pioneer of such. Many people discovered Tom site and also visited a very early Anandtech site.

Tom suggested that *back then* , he should have a members site. That is charge, people to read his reviews etc.

Public outrage followed! (this was the start of it, but everyone kinda ingores it)

How dare anyone charge for a review! this was the sentiment at the time.

Soon after this his arrogant side started to show, specifically (if i recall rightly) about a trip to the US which didn't go as well as he had hoped, and he spoke his mind. (think of a bumbling european travelling in the US with everything going wrong and you might get the idea how it went). Tom wrote that he didn't like certain things about america!

Public outrage followed!

i am sure you get the picture....

Personally think what you like, I am sure he is making good money regardless of what anyone else thinks of him *shrugs*


Admittedly Anandtech is the only site i visit anymore in relation to computer hardware reviews. I no longer do a major upgrade every 12 months with a minor upgrade 6 months later....

i keep an eye on technology from a general piont of veiw and visit this site for interesting topics but thats all i get time for...

 

[Rainsford]

I don't like him and his site for one simple reason, he's a zealot. Even worse, he's a zealot who's opinion changes with every new product release. While other sites (especially Anand's) take more of a wait and see approach to products, Tom immediatly forms a opinion about the future of all the companies involved and pushes his point of view like a religious loudmouth outside a baseball game. Yet with the very next product release he's on the other side of the fence with the same ferocity as before.

This makes it impossible to get any kind of professional opinion out of his articles because they are all over the map. As someone else said, it's not just about the benchmarks. More than any other reason, I read review sites to get another opinion on a product, hopefully a professional and balanced opinion. Tom does not provide that. What he provides is cheap, sensationalistic journalism that at best fails to provide a professional opinion to those of us seeking one, and at worst misleads newbies who don't know any better.

 

[Idoxash]

hmm in my opinion there are not so many great tech sites out on the web. heck even anandtech lacks in things and such but in my opinion and prob a lot of other ppl wish one day when you goto Tom's you get this instead.

Tomshardware.com

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Tom was one of three websites including AT that discovered the p3 1.13ghz problem. He's also the only one of the three that made a big deal out of it and patted himself on the back over and over. "Certainly not Anand" you say..it's because Anand didn't cock off at the mouth about the whole thing. Tom's is also only one of many who have uncovered the "secrets" (secret if you don't read any of the technical documents that already gave this away) of overclocking/unlocking an athlon. Toms was also not the one to bring overclocking to the masses. Geez cnet even had an article on their gaming site back in the day. I don't think tom really has brought a lot to the community except maybe some photoshopped P4 pictures from a while back.

Maybe you'd like to tell the rest of us what part Anand played in the PIII bug. The instability was initially discovered in Linux compiles which Anand doesn't test. Here's his article, please point out where any reference to a problem is mentioned:

Intel Pentium III 1.13GHz (1133MHz)

The rest of it you're basically just making up with no proof to back it up. Did Tom kill your dog or something? What are you so bitter about?

You're using what it used to be to excuse what it has become.

The site still has a far more varied article topic range than other sites.

I'm just basically making it up eh?
Here's tom cocking off at the mouth about the p3 stuff:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20000731/index.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20000801/index.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/200008281/index.html

Dig around in the above and you'll find the part Anand played in this which really amounted to hooking up HardOCP with a processor to test...Of the 3 people involved I'd probably credit Kyle Bennet with the most on this.

Here's toms (now corrected to cover his ass) photoshopped picture of a p4:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020909/index.html

Cnet has since closed gamecenter so I can't give you a link to their overclocking article but hey just go to google and type overclock and I'm sure you'll get one or more links that don't point to tom's hardware.

Is there anything I missed? Good, cuz now it's your turn: Give me some proof that tom brought overclocking to the masses and was the first to discover the pencil trick and how to overclock slot athlons...since you put me to the test, don't bother responding unless you have the proof.

And no, tom didn't kill my dog and I'm not really bitter towards him at all. I'm just not the type of person that puts up with bullsh1t and shennanigans for very long. The question remains why are you swinging on his dick so much?

 

[Ophir]

From http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/200008281/index.html:

In the meantime Anand from AnandTech, who had been lucky to receive an actual working 1.13 GHz P3 sample, had offered me his CPU after he had heard that Intel wouldn't be able to supply me with another sample soon enough. I declined because I considered this issue to be Intel's business, which is why I expected Intel to sort out the situation and not Anand. In return Anand offered his CPU to Kyle Bennett. Kyle accepted and asked me to send him mine as well, so that he could compare the two and possibly back up my findings. I agreed, but I wanted to do a bit more testing myself first. I also hoped that Intel would finally send me a new sample, but this hope turned out to be in vain.

 

[Pariah]

Dig around in the above and you'll find the part Anand played in this which really amounted to hooking up HardOCP with a processor to test...

HardOCP already had a PIII, Anand did not "hook HardOCP up" with a CPU. After THG posted about instability, Kyle contacted Tom with similar results. Anand then offered his CPU, which he was unable to find an instability, to both sites for further testing. THG turned it down, waiitng for another sample from Intel, Kyle accepted it. Once again, Anand did not find any problems with the PIII and had nothing to do with bringing the bug to the public's attention.

Give me some proof that tom brought overclocking to the masses

Here's an article from July 1, 1996 which is older than the vast majority of enthusiast websites out there. Good luck finding an older article.

The SoftMenuTM BIOS Feature

the first to discover the pencil trick

I never said pencil trick. You're making things up again. Here's the article where he hypothesizes the bridges allow OC'ing:

Part Two - Possible Overclocking Of Socket A Processors With Contacts On CPU

And here is the article where he gives the full explanation:

Overclocking AMD's Socket Processors

The question remains why are you swinging on his dick so much?

Good observation. You're a real class act.

 

[billyjak]

I have the original article of Tom Pabst discovering how to unlock the old slot processors, in fact I did it right after I saw the article and the computer it's in is being used by my wife today.
If you want proof I'll scan it for you personally, you'll have to get the Paperport reader though, It will come with the scan.

Anandtech was a spinoff from Tom's Hardware guide when he first started back when he was about 16 years old, Tom had a link to Anands at the time, but Anandtech was not the name he used then.

Great reviews came from Both of them and then bad blood happened about an incident from someone emailing Tom, and Tom then kinda ruinned his respect and never recoverd from it.

Tom was very Anti Intel in the begining and he has proven himself time after time.
Many good article came from his sight and some bad ones to. But to Bash him for stupid reasons shows your maturity level.
I woud bet if you ask Anand himself, he would have rather very good things to say about Tom.

If you haven't followed Toms sight from the begining you have nothing to say about it.
And besides if you don't like his site, don't go there., But don't crucify him for assinine reasons.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: billyjak
I have the original article of Tom Pabst discovering how to unlock the old slot processors, in fact I did it right after I saw the article and the computer it's in is being used by my wife today.
If you want proof I'll scan it for you personally, you'll have to get the Paperport reader though, It will come with the scan.

Anandtech was a spinoff from Tom's Hardware guide when he first started back when he was about 16 years old, Tom had a link to Anands at the time, but Anandtech was not the name he used then.

Great reviews came from Both of them and then bad blood happened about an incident from someone emailing Tom, and Tom then kinda ruinned his respect and never recoverd from it.

Tom was very Anti Intel in the begining and he has proven himself time after time.
Many good article came from his sight and some bad ones to. But to Bash him for stupid reasons shows your maturity level.
I woud bet if you ask Anand himself, he would have rather very good things to say about Tom.

If you haven't followed Toms sight from the begining you have nothing to say about it.
And besides if you don't like his site, don't go there., But don't crucify him for assinine reasons.

Well said. I agree.

Here's the original Slot A OC article:

Overclocking AMD's Athlon Processor

And here is the goldfinger article:

Make Your Own Athlon Overclocking Device

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: billyjak


If you haven't followed Toms sight from the begining you have nothing to say about it.
And besides if you don't like his site, don't go there., But don't crucify him for assinine reasons.

I don't consider deeply flawed reviews that arrive at incorrect conclusions to be an "asinine" reason, nor do I see the validity of coasting on a reputation earned years ago.

 

[Ophir]

The problem is that many un-computer-educated people browse his site (it's apparently very popular) and take his words as truth. They don't have the time or concern to research on these forums, so they rely on what he says. When he is not correlating facts with his conclusions or runs a test in an unfair manner, his biased statements essentially become false-advertisement for the products he touts. He cannot morally maintain a site in such a fashion. He has a responsibility to deliver information OBJECTIVELY.

From his "About Us" page:

Launched in 1996 by Dr. Thomas Pabst (known to his legions of devotees as simply "Tom"), the site is now the best source for independent editorial reviews of cutting-edge computer hardware. Tom leads a team of veteran journalists and technology editors who are committed to maintaining the site's no-holds-barred brand of technology journalism. As a result, Tom's Hardware Guide readers have come to rely on the site for unbiased and authoritative articles on the products that matter to them and to help them make intelligent purchasing decisions.

As of December 2001, Tom's Hardware Guide has achieved over 40 million page impressions and attracts an audience of more than 2.3 million unique visitors per month, making it the most popular independent hardware site on the Web. Having grown from humble origins into a powerful force in the PC hardware industry, Tom's Hardware Guide has expanded operations in the United States, Europe and Asia and features subsidiary sites in six languages.

Tom's Hardware Guide has changed the landscape of technology journalism.

 

[blade]

No one remembers a few years ago when he was bashing America?

There were some interesting wars here when this was a ubb forum. That convinced me he is low life and will always be a low life.

Originally posted by: Brian48
Exactly. I remember that vividly. Screw him and the rest of his anti-American Euro-crash. BIAS in his articles? I wouldn't know. I won't even give his arrogant ass the satisfaction of counter hit.

You guys that still praise this idiot, do you not care that he hates Americans? :Q

I be damned if I'd ever bother with him and his site. Sure he's shut up on that issue since then. Hey, got to have hits from those Americans, pays the bills eh.

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: dullard
Am I the only one who just looks at the benchmarks performed, the test setup, and the results (but skips the conclusions)? I never have time to read a rambling conclusion that may or may not be biased.

I'm the opposite, I'll look at the benchmark results from 3-4 siotes and the rest I'll simply read the text.
Benchmarks are usually similar between sites and, knowing the technology you can usually know before hand almost exactly hardware'll perform.
The text gives you the meat of the article, as any example using graphics cards.... any bugs, adaptive anisotrophy through multiple angles? How is the mip map biasing? etc
For processors it'll give you the meat of descriibing any potential issue of bias for the tested application, the more in-deoth sites will often use VTune or somethigng ismilar to give an app;ication profile for what types of instructions were used when and how frequently, latency dependency etc.

Benchmark charts in my mind really don't tell much by themselves.



One other thing I forgot to mention earlier... I absolutely HATE Tom's current selection of benchmarks and for me that's made many of his reviews worthless for a long time now.
That's not so much a criticsim of him as his and his employees view of fair, consistent benchmarking of applications commonlu used by consumers however.

 

[Rand]

Don't even get me started on Rahmat. Reading one of his "articles" is like voluntarily plunging your hand into boiling water, while using your other hand to gouge your eye with a salad fork.

I think of Rahmat as being akin to a poor man's Ed Stroligo....

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Remember Harvey's arguments with him?

I'm old, but I'm not that old. Yeah, I think I remember them.

Originally posted by: blade
No one remembers a few years ago when he was bashing America?

I remember that, too. The worst of what he said about the U.S. was in his e-mails to me.

What really pissed me off is, he posted on his own site, calling me a maniac and saying that I lied and faked them. Some who know me may think that one out of two may be true, but I still have his original e-mails with the complete headers. After that, it didn't matter whether he was right or wrong about hardware. He'd shown me all I needed to know about his integrity. :Q

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Dig around in the above and you'll find the part Anand played in this which really amounted to hooking up HardOCP with a processor to test...

HardOCP already had a PIII, Anand did not "hook HardOCP up" with a CPU. After THG posted about instability, Kyle contacted Tom with similar results. Anand then offered his CPU, which he was unable to find an instability, to both sites for further testing. THG turned it down, waiitng for another sample from Intel, Kyle accepted it. Once again, Anand did not find any problems with the PIII and had nothing to do with bringing the bug to the public's attention.

Give me some proof that tom brought overclocking to the masses

Here's an article from July 1, 1996 which is older than the vast majority of enthusiast websites out there. Good luck finding an older article.

The SoftMenuTM BIOS Feature

the first to discover the pencil trick

I never said pencil trick. You're making things up again. Here's the article where he hypothesizes the bridges allow OC'ing:

Part Two - Possible Overclocking Of Socket A Processors With Contacts On CPU

You're right you never said that. But those of us that live in 2003 refer to closing the L1's on an Athlon as "the pencil trick"...of course tom makes it out like it takes surgical precision, a couple nano-robots and his awe-inspiring computer skill to do.

And here is the article where he gives the full explanation:

Overclocking AMD's Socket Processors

The question remains why are you swinging on his dick so much?

Good observation. You're a real class act.

Oh STFU you started it. Just leave my dog out of it next time and you won't get insulted. Now run along little man..tom has just discovered how to make his nuts bounce on your chin with his PDA and he wants to test it out for the new article.

 

[Idoxash]

Wow!!! I learn even more about ol Tomy. Well, his site is like every other site on the internet... Someday it shall come to a end!

--Idoxash

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: AunixM3

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: AunixM3
Right, lets all bash the person who "discovered" overclocking...

I'd hafta agree with Rand, for the most part. I like Tom, got nothing against him,

~Aunix

Riiiiiight, and Al Gore invented the Internet

WHAT?! You mean Al Gore didn't invent the internet? :Q

I thought he invented pants????

I remember reading an article talking about one video card "smashing" another in performance...
looked at the benchies and the difference was less than 2%

Only one example......

Anyone got a camera?............................... (and a good photo editor?)

I have no way of knowing if there is truth to the appearance that his site is bought and paid for or not......
Don't even care if it is true or not...... Make me ask that question and I'm outta there :|

-Sid

 

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by: Smilin
Oh STFU you started it. Just leave my dog out of it next time and you won't get insulted. Now run along little man..tom has just discovered how to make his nuts bounce on your chin with his PDA and he wants to test it out for the new article.

Witness the degradation of this thread, and these forums in general sometimes, and you can't help but wonder how some people have the nerve to criticize someone elses writing ability....

"you started it"
"leave my dog out of it"
"nuts bounce on chin"

The most vocal Tom hater has to admit that even Omid Rahmat has more worthwhile comments to read.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: Sunner
Remember Harvey's arguments with him?

I'm old, but I'm not that old. Yeah, I think I remember them.

Damn, though you had went away and died of old age or something...



I'm kidding damnit!

 

[Dufman]

anand is a lot cooler name than Tom

and i like the reviews, and layout better

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: Brian48
Exactly. I remember that vividly. Screw him and the rest of his anti-American Euro-crash. BIAS in his articles? I wouldn't know. I won't even give his arrogant ass the satisfaction of counter hit.

I must have missed what he wrote, but if he was bashing America then I like the way you think and he's off my list as well. I personally don't care for his page. It just plain sucks.... and yes, I have detected a bit of ego in there. As far as I can tell, AT has a more professional culture to it with about 95% of the forum members being straight up about tech issues. Not many attitudes in here and I don't see anyone professing to keep score cards. It is what it is and you get what you ask for.