I've been browsing through articles looking for the reports of hardware incompatabilities, heat issues, HSF issues, patch issues. What I've found are dozens of REFERENCES to these posts, but apparently they've filtered out my access to them because the overwhelming reports of first hand experiences just aren't showing up. I am finding lots of "I bought Intel because I heard about AMD's [insert imagined issue here] problems" and "Haven't you seen the [insert rediculous number here] posts about the [insert imagined issue here]" I've build two Athlon systems now, and encountered no problems with either one. Both machines are still making their owners very happy. Neither is overclocked, neither is running hot, neither is having issues.
Most of the heat issues I've seen are first time overclockers trying to get their Duron 600 to hit 1GHz. They do this because there are lots of users that do successfully overclock their Durons significantly, and the processors are so cheap that you don't lose much if you fail. They fail because they don't know what they're doing, in the same way you used to hear a lot of Celeron users complaining about fragged CPUs.
A thermal sensor on the motherboard works just as well as one in the CPU. Most newer motherboards come with a drivers CD in my experience. An AMD CPU running at spec does not generate dangerous heat. Whether it is excessive is purely a matter of opinions, but if a standard HSF solution prevents it from burning up, it isn't excessive.
Most of the heat issues I've seen are first time overclockers trying to get their Duron 600 to hit 1GHz. They do this because there are lots of users that do successfully overclock their Durons significantly, and the processors are so cheap that you don't lose much if you fail. They fail because they don't know what they're doing, in the same way you used to hear a lot of Celeron users complaining about fragged CPUs.
A thermal sensor on the motherboard works just as well as one in the CPU. Most newer motherboards come with a drivers CD in my experience. An AMD CPU running at spec does not generate dangerous heat. Whether it is excessive is purely a matter of opinions, but if a standard HSF solution prevents it from burning up, it isn't excessive.