What is Tom doing???

[igottaknife]

3 new AMD 760 boards, but no Abit!?! WTF those boards couldn't even be compared to his previous benchmarks. FOr all we know they suck. That article was the most worthless I have seen yet. All he had to do was say "DDR's cheap and so are these boards" end of message. There was no real comparison not even all the contendors. Worthless.

Your Signature Sucks

 

[FatBurger]

They were all pretty crappy, you're right, but I'm glad he posted thorough reviews of them. I'd hate to have someone just give an opinion and not back it up with anything, regardless of how much I trust them.

But I agree that the Abit KG7 should have been in there.

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Whoever thinks up a good sig for me gets a prize

 

[tdean]

i agree, but i think tom lost a lot of credibility when he raved about the boards with the kt133a chipset and via southbridge and thousands of us went out and bought them only to find out they were junk. how could we find all those problems and he couldnt?

 

[Guest]

Actually, the KT133A chipset is far from being junk. The fact that it can stand its own even against many DDR platform is not just because the latter aren't good enough, but also because KT133A performs well.

Of course, the Southbridge bug doesn't help the public relations. But it has been fixed, from what I hear.

Leo

 

[Guest]

> They were all pretty crappy, you're right, but I'm glad he posted thorough reviews of them.

I have to disagree. These new mobos are far from being crappy. The testbed is different (a different graphics card, for example), so it is hard to compare, considering the majority of Tom's benchmarks have to do with video. But from what I've seen over the net, it is time for the venerable A7M266 to lose the performance crown. Gigabyte's latest AMD760 board performed better already. Now Epox's board performs even better than that.

Leo

 

[FatBurger]

I don't know about it being fixed or not, but I haven't had ANY problems with it, just with the Via 4-in-1 drivers.

I have an Abit KT7a-RAID, with a SB Live even

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Whoever thinks up a good sig for me gets a prize

 

[Sihs]

I agree with you. The A7M has a couple of drawbacks. It's way overpriced and it doesn't allow multiplier adjustment. These boards are not "crap".

Sh!t Happens.

 

[tdean]

you are right, i should have been more clear. i guess my point was just that once he recommended them, we bought them and had nothing but problems. i have since fixed mine (i have 4 aopen ak73 proa and 3 ecs k7vza boards) and i am pleased. it sure took a lot more effort and time than it should have though... doooh.

 

[Bud]

I'm with FB on that...as far as Tom's reviews of kt133.
I have to report that I've had NO trouble with KT133 686b chipset on any of my Abit boards. And I'm using SB-live also.
I've never needed to flash a bios and I've had no trouble with via 4in1 drivers. I've got bios WW and
not even the latest 4in1 in my lead machine. Oh....wait
I do have that pesky mouse pointer problem with Nvidia drivers in a few games though. But I don't think that
can be blamed on KT133.

Also you have to remember that when Tom did the KX/KT133 thing, it was about the only chipset going for AMD and it
was a relief to have someone making a chipset.


I'm not in touch with my feeings, and I like it that way!

 

[tdean]

i understand that, and that isnt really my point. i guess im not being clear. i just thought he should have pointed out the well documented problems with the southbridge. like i said, if all of us could find these problems (and a quick look through these posts will assure you that they exist) then he should have at least mentioned it. i bought my boards based on his reviews and wound up sending a bunch of them back which took more time.... you get the picture. if it was b/c no one else was building an amd compatible chipset at the time, then he should have just said its better than nothing... lol.

 

[bungee]

I have to agree with the initial point that is: Tom's didn't made a good review at all for the 3 Mobos with AMD. It seems that they have been rushed and made the minimum. I have never seen a review form Tom as undressed as this one and I'm a bit disapointed. For when a real good review with all the chipsets available for DDR to see the real actual difference in performance and price? Don't forget that for the reviews for Ali and Kt266, those chipset were just been released! Now, new BIOS versions considerably enhence the performance of these chipsets and I would really like to see how these chipsets performs really. When they say that for DDR, go only with AMD760, I'm sure today this sentence is old and not true. Lot of people bought ALi and VIA chipsets with DDR and are very satisfied.
Please Tom, make a review with all those chipsets with there new BIOS so we will not shop our computer with old review with pre-release chipsets version, please!

Dasdrasvyet Sovyetskikh Soyuz! (not true)

 

[Bud]

I guess it was I who was not clear. MY POINT was that if I can build 6 kt133 and 3 kx133 boards and detect NO problems
other than the standard installation of via drivers, then what do you expect of Tom?? You think he had trouble and didn't report it?? Maybe he wanted to trick you?

I'm sorry to hear you had trouble, really. And I do understand computer trouble. Example, I've been trying for 2 weeks to figure out why I lose the mouse pointer in some games (only with nvidia drivers)....Tonight I realized I didn't have the absolute latest mouseware drivers...damn,
I been using the same mouse forever without trouble....DOH!
Okay it took me a while to figure that out...But I did. I'm sorry you had to take a bunch of equipment back, but sometimes it's not bad equipment...a little persistence can help you prevail.

Having said that, I did take back a H/D that was totally a lemon (confirmed at the shop). And I returned a GF2pro from evga...i'm convinced there was something wrong with it. And I returned a lemon cd-rom by Hitachi (also confirmed). So, it's not just VIA chipsets that go wrong...it's electronics in general.


I'm not in touch with my feeings, and I like it that way!

 

[tdean]

no bud, im not saying tom tried to trick anyone, im saying he obviously wasnt thorough enough in his testing. i am glad you didnt have any problems, but you are certainly in the minority. we have beaten this topic to death, so lets move on. : )

 

[Bud]

Sorry, I didn't mean to be sarcastic. And since I've taken us tangent to the thread I'll only make one more point.
If I recall correctly, one of Tom's earlier reviews of the Abit board DID in fact flush out a problem with the 686 south bridge, in that when all PCI slots were filled there was a real problem with IRQs. However I still bought Abit baords because I never seem to use all 6 PCI slots. 5 is plenty. Perhaps there should have been more testing and I can agree with you there.

I'm not in touch with my feeings, and I like it that way!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bud on 07/13/01 11:48 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[icyura10]

Can't we all just be happy to have some data instead of not having any of the data?

The other comparisons have already been made, and we should (presuming we are technologically intelegent people here) be able to make the comparisons ourselves!

<font color=red>When you smoke your CPU, what kind of papers do you use?