WTF is up with that Bill guy from The Hard Edge in Computer Shopper?

[chucky2]

I write this guy one little e-mail on how I disagree with him on how a PIII 800 on up beats a Athlon at the same clock by 7% (he doesn't even name a bench, just generalizes) and he writes some BS back how I mis-read his article and b*itches about 2.5 month lead times and on and on.

Aren't people in the professional world supposed to make sure what they print is true?

I don't, maybe I just haven't been abused enough...

Chuck

(Uh oh, read that last sentence and I'm putting the fireproof suit on now)

 

[cmv]

lol... I used to read that column all the time back when the computer shopper was still a thick son a b*. What was his lab called? Something about Pepsi...

It was about the only thing interesting that kept me buying it towards the end. Guess it wasn't enough as I haven't picked up a copy in years.

 

[Eli]

What's his email address?

 

[DDad]

Hmmm, that 2.5 month leadtime hasn't stopped them from talking about how great the P4 is.........

 

[RGN]

It was the lab of Doom and Pepsi cola... Used to be a great mag, now there is more reading material on a roll of toilet paper.

 

[Eli]

ROFL RGN..

 

[aic]

Is Golden member higher than Elite?

 

[Howard]

No

 

[sandorski]

There is a trend here: First MaxPC declares the Cel2 as a better OC'ing chip compared to Duron(amongst other things) and now this. Print media has a great disadvantage over good net sites. They suffer from a 1+ month delay where as net sites can comment within a couple days. Me thinks that print mags need to change their focus from the old issues that made them cutting edge to a new focus on issues that don't change from day to day.

 

[RagingGuardian]

I think the problem is these magazines are partly owned by ZDnet or something of the nature, and ZDnet is somehow affiliated with Intel. I could be absolutely wrong but that's what I recall. Here's a quote form the latest issue of Computer Shopper.



<< Thunderbird and Duron. No, they're not a sci-fi marionette show and an oil additive. They're AMD's newest CPUs. It took AMD more than a year to integrate its L2 cache on-die, and one of the first results is the Thunderbird. Now maybe the Athlons and Pentium 3s will show equivalent performance. Then there's the Duron, which some claim is AMD's Celeron killer. Yawn. Don't be surprised if Intel again one-ups AMD (if it hasn't already.) We told you years ago AMD's number-one job was to play catch up with Intel. So now AMD invented the Coppermine Pentium 3 and the Celeron. >>



Have you ever seen such a display of ignorance?

 

[sandorski]

That thar is one ugly sheep!

 

[CQuinn]

Chucky2:
There is a difference between truth and accuracy.

<Flame on>
You were a little inaccurate in what you posted above.
The article was referring to the %7 difference between the
1 GHz processors, not the 800 Mhz.
And the writer refers to the feature on 1Ghz system that is supposed to
be in that issue of Computer Shopper as his source, so his &quot;benchmark&quot;
is the findings of ZDLabs based on whatever systems they tested.
(Unfortunatley, I could not find a link to the feature article)
<Flame off>

But, Bill O'Brien was also inaccurate in that he only based his comment
on the ZDlab results for one article and not on independent analysis
from other sources. So, FWIW, his comment may have been &quot;true&quot;, but
was probably based on bad information.
(I say that because ZDLabs has a habit of testing system that OEMs send
them, instead of setting up a generic system where they can control
the effects of drivers, chipset, memory, and other peripherals on
system performance)

For everyone - The Hard Edge Column is [/L=here]
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2611143,00.html [/L]

Or you can get to it from [/L=http://www.zdnet.com/computershopper]http://www.zdnet.com/computershopper/[/L]
and scroll down to find the link to the Hard Edge.

There were a few other quotes from that article:
(please read it before you start the bashing run)



<< Now, before we get a billion letters in Crayola on scraps of brown paper from crazed Athlon fanatics in Montana, the Pentium III is faster by about 7 percent. And because of RDRAM the Pentium III costs about 25 percent more than the Athlon. >>





<< - RDRAM: Just say no. If you need to say more than that it becomes redundant. >>



RagingGaurdian: I hope that quote was from a Hard Edge column, otherwise
you're bashing Bill &amp; Alice for something they didn't do/say.

CMV: I stopped buying CShopper back (in the late 90s)
when they were still against putting the catalog sized magazine on
a subscription CD-ROM. Plus I found I could get to all the articles
thru the zdnet web site.

sandorski: You have a point, but the net sites can also have a problem
when they post inaccuracies in their articles, then have to scramble to
cover their asses after the damage has been done
(not mentioning a certain &quot;Rambus vs. Sdram part 1&quot; article from a few
months back)

 

[RagingGuardian]

CQuin, the quote is indeed from the October 2000 issue of Computer Shopper with Alice and Bill. Don't believe me?? Check it out on page 229, center column, last paragraph.

 

[chucky2]

CQuinn- Thanks for not flaming me too bad!

His statement says that between an 800 PIII and a 800 T-bird, and between a 1GHz PIII and a 1GHz T-bird, the PIII leads by about 7%. Now, I went and read the Gigahertz computing article at: ZDnet and I've come to the conclusion the other people on Talkback had (and what most of the people here would probably deduce): Why wasn't a T-bird used to compare to the PIII?

The comeback to that was 2.5 month lead times. OK, I guess maybe they should put a disclaimer on the front of the magazine waring customers that their benches are 2.5 months old and can't be interpreted as reliable.

I mean, for us, we know to not read thoe *hit rags and read the online reviews from the reputable websites. But for the un-aware computer newbie, they're going to pluck up that ComputerShopper in the magazine section of the local store and read the Gigahertz Computing article. Then, based on the inaccurate results of the article, and backed up by &quot;The Hard Edge&quot; blurb, they'll go to Worst Buy and get ripped.

That's what I can't stand. When a newbie gets mislead and/or ripped just because they don't know.

For the record: I have nothing against the PIII or T-bird. I just can't stand it when BS like this makes it out into the mainstream.

//end rant

Chuck

 

[CQuinn]

RagingGuardian:
Sorry to have doubted you, but the way you put that quote it was unclear
that it didn't come from the same article that chucky2 was ranting about.

chucky2: (no flames this time)

Point taken, it galls me too when I have to play damage control because
someone who it getting paid to be a computer &quot;expert&quot; can't get their
fact straight.
Unfortunately, those newbies will get ripped even if
the 'right stuff' is printed in CompShopper because they'll still
think that Packard Bell is the same as Hewlett Packard, and since that E-machines does everything they think the want, at a lower price, that its
the better deal. If all it takes is an extra boost from the Hard Edge, then
their minds were already made up.

After reading the article, you still ask why a T-bird wasn't used as
a comparison system. For the same reason I already pointed out...
They aren't testing CPUs, they're testing the systems that the OEMs
send to them. Yes, maybe someone on the test crew dropped the ball and
didn't request the newer systems from these companies. Or maybe this
review was based on the system they got 2-3 months ago, and they couldn't
get T-bird systems from all the companies in the comparison?

While online sites like Anandtech do have a faster turnaround for reviewing
new systems, they also typically don't have a shooting match between multiple
machines all at once. Most of the results I see are generated over several
months of swapping parts out to test various configurations, sometimes going
back to update a specific CPU or peripheral

What newbies and most of the media need to learn is that there is more to
the system than just that single &quot;hot&quot; component. And they need to have/
explain in better concepts how the parts all work together to make the
system a good performer. Our job is to keep passing that idea on, and
hope that some of them start to clue in.

 

[rowcroft]

Hey, I would think that if I had to work at ZDNet I would be really sensitive all the time. Don't we all know better then to put any weight into their benchmarks and reviews? They are okay for news but that's about it really. I don't trust a company that uses their own software for &quot;impartially&quot; testing and evaluating systems. Especially when their tests never seem to line up with the rest of the tech community. Add to that writers who are journalists and not techies and it isn't a very good mix. There, 'nuf said.
Rowcroft

 

[Remedy]

All those fecking mags make me sick including PC Gamer, even one of there issues between march and june of '00 had an article of Geforces and Amd systems having problems. As if it is something that just happen recently they still posted it even though that was last years news and the KX-133 boards had already came out in Jan of this year.

Anyways all these damn paper print reviews always seem to dump out on Amd or 3dfx or anyother underdog company no matter what the benchmarks say. If a Geforce gets 100fps and a V5 gets like 80 fps in q3 benchmarks they go on to say some bad remarks about about the v5. Not even telling the ppl that 80 fps is more than playable or the samething happens to amd vs intel in q3 benchmarks. If the p3 leads the athlon by 5 or 6 frames(most programs they bench use heavy SSE instuctions) they think it killed the athlon. What is up with the favoring of the bigger companies.

 

[sandorski]

CQuin: True, online sites often post incorrect or incomplete news/reviews, but they are able to correct errors and/or fill in the blanks much quicker. By the time print mags are able to correct there mistakes 2-3 months may have passed and usually that is not the case because they only disseminate data through reviews.

Case in point: May issue MaxPC, front cover Athlon review. When I saw this issue, I snapped it up in anticipation. After reading it I couldn't help but feel ripped off. I mean, where were all the motherboards that were the buzz in May? How come I already knew the answers to the questions they pondered upon in the review? It's simple really, because I having kept up on the net sites had seen the answers and had even seen answers to questions that MaxPC couldn't even imagine.

I understand the limitations that print mags have, but I don't think they do. If they don't realize that some issues are better left alone, we will continue to see comp printmags going under