hardocp 90nm athlon review thoughts

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[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 4, 2001
Messages
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Before i say anything, let me say that the [H] is my favorite enthusiast/overclocker website. With that in mind , i've been anxiously awaiting their review of the winchester core. It seemed to take some time for it to happen, and then now its here.

Is it just me or is that the lamest review ever? I understand they were keeping it simple, but please all this waiting for what, "uh we just overclocked it with a stock cooler." wtf is that? Is kyle letting the site slip so he can brush up his fragging skills before he competes? i think i could have written a better review, and i don't even have a 90nm amd64 to test. damn. Honestly i was expecting a wide variety of sample cores and cooling methods tested since it took so long for the review to post. Didn't they give prescott alot more coverage?

place flames below.
 
Meh, there is plenty of other reliable sites that overclocked with many different cooling solutions you can check out. If you rely on this site exclusively for information, than I'd use these forums as a resource, as many people have posted results.
 
I'm not angry, cause as homedude said, there is a fair amount of information on this forum and others, but I am a little dissapointed, as a review like that couldnt take more than an hour. :confused: Oh well, it is nice to know got almost to 2.4 on stock cooling and stock voltage. Also, notice that the winchester at 2.327= newcastle? at 2.4. 90nm is looking better alllll the time.
 
Sometimes short and sweet is the order of the day :D

Compared to some places the [H] does seem to offer the shortest reviews and not alot variety. I usually visit alot places and compare all their findings and visit forums and see what people are saying.

I guess Halo 2 has them by the gonads..... or maybe Kyle has his hands on a prerelease of Half-Life 2 :eek:



/me is waiting for Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines :cool:
 
I like that default voltage and stock hsf was used, but that should not have been the end of the review. The max on an xp-90 should have been found (or similar high end air). Then max on watercooling should have been found.
 
Maybe I'm a little bit out of the loop here, but the multiplier of 9.5 was used on the 3200+ / K8N Neo2 combo is a little bit interesting. I read an article a few weeks back about how the K8N Neo2 "falsifies" its multipliers (adjustments to the HTT is how it gets the .5 multipliers). Keeping this in mind, was the 245x9.5 really 245x9.5?

Either that, or I'm really wrong somewhere. :p

Oh, and I was expecting more also. More exotic cooling solutions, multiple samples to offset the fact that the [H] was getting samples directly from Newegg, comparisons between these and overclocked Prescotts, bumping voltage by small amounts to see results, etc.
 
_Korruption_ said:
Maybe I'm a little bit out of the loop here, but the multiplier of 9.5 was used on the 3200+ / K8N Neo2 combo is a little bit interesting. I read an article a few weeks back about how the K8N Neo2 "falsifies" its multipliers (adjustments to the HTT is how it gets the .5 multipliers). Keeping this in mind, was the 245x9.5 really 245x9.5?
Click to expand...

Yep, that's my major gripe about this article. The 245x9.5 stuff should tossed out and redone with the 9x multi instead.
 
I'm glad that they overclocked using a stock cooler and default voltage because thats something that not every review site does. It gives you an idea what you can accomplish at stock.

I also think that it was pointless to do a review of this nature ONLY using a stock cooler and stock voltage.

They should of done it three or four ways.

1.) Overclock it with stock voltage and stock cooler.

2.) Overclock it with stock cooler and increased voltage.

3.) Overclock it with aftermarket cooler and stock voltage.

4.) Overclock it with aftermarket cooler and increased voltage.

Next time [H]ard wants to do an overclocking review, just send me out the chip and i will be more then glad to take the time to do multiple overclocking tests.....as long as i get to keep the chip when i'm done :).
 
I was disapointed that they didn't throw some sort of watercooling on there and then try to max it out. I like that they used the stock cooling and voltage. Many times, you can get a good feel for what a CPU can do overall when you find the limits of what it can run at stock.

However, a lot of people do watercooling and you will generally get higher results out of watercooling than you will with stock air cooling. Even if raising the voltage doesn't help much in overclocking with this processor, it would have been nice to see what lower temps would have done.
 
Wow, that was short, and a little bit redundant :rolleyes: . Hmmm, well here's hoping Kyle goes back and does a full review soon. I am sure he's been busy, and given the quality reviews he has put up in the past it's fair to say that he deserves to get a mulligan once in a while... :p
 
yea, the stock cooling provides a good baseline for what can be had for essentially no money and no risk.

But I really would like to see the next step. After all this is an enthusiat board. There are alot people who are here because they no trouble dropping $50 on a new heatsink.
Hopefully we'll get a follow up with a nice XP120 and maybe some watter cooling.
 
burningrave101 said:
I'm glad that they overclocked using a stock cooler and default voltage because thats something that not every review site does. It gives you an idea what you can accomplish at stock.

I also think that it was pointless to do a review of this nature ONLY using a stock cooler and stock voltage.

They should of done it three or four ways.

1.) Overclock it with stock voltage and stock cooler.

2.) Overclock it with stock cooler and increased voltage.

3.) Overclock it with aftermarket cooler and stock voltage.

4.) Overclock it with aftermarket cooler and increased voltage.

Next time [H]ard wants to do an overclocking review, just send me out the chip and i will be more then glad to take the time to do multiple overclocking tests.....as long as i get to keep the chip when i'm done :).
Click to expand...

What aftermarket cooler? Or do they try all 50billion of them?

How about a vapochill so they can show those results too?

They should hire NASA to Cryofreeze it to almost absolute 0 too so we can see what it does when superconducting.

And they should try it with home made coolers too.

And they should show how high it will overclock when in an oven with no heatsink too...

</sarcasm> get real..

==>Lazn
 
I didn't have a problem with stock the stock heatsink being used, but....

Stock voltage, come on. Any o/c'er worth their salt knows that's where the magic happens.
 
Well, I realize that they are not going to be testing every heatsink in the world, but it would be nice to see at least 1 aftermarket cooler, say a Thermalright XP120 or something. Highend air cooling is not that expensive, and requires no knowledge at all, so I think it would be worth throwing in. Ideally, it would be nice to see what you can get using watercooling also, as I know they have those Exo's from Koolance laying around, and they are easy enough to set up and use.

Most overclockers are willing to throw out another 50$ to get some good cooling on their chips, and I don't see [other than time constraints] why the [H] wouldn't test some other solutions.
 
I didn't have a problem with stock the stock heatsink being used, but....

Stock voltage, come on. Any o/c'er worth their salt knows that's where the magic happens.
Click to expand...
The review did say that they tried increasing the voltage but it didn't make any difference to max OC in their testing.
 
It's time to change the name to oftOCP. That review needs some Viagra....or Vagisil.

I miss the days of charbroiled mobos and home-grown CPU and GPU sandwich coolers.
 
pretty bad review... i know when my board comes in im gonna throw everything at this 3500 I'm reviewing for ClubOC, including air and water...

I was hoping to get a good idea on overclocking these things from this review... all i got was stay the hell away from this processor....

hopefully kyle and steve give it anotehr go, I seriously doubt they'd let us down that quick...
 
Lazn_Work said:
What aftermarket cooler? Or do they try all 50billion of them?

How about a vapochill so they can show those results too?

They should hire NASA to Cryofreeze it to almost absolute 0 too so we can see what it does when superconducting.

And they should try it with home made coolers too.

And they should show how high it will overclock when in an oven with no heatsink too...

</sarcasm> get real..

==>Lazn
Click to expand...


I love your sig! ;)

May the MPAA and RIAA rot in hell!!!
 
Below Ambient said:
pretty bad review... i know when my board comes in im gonna throw everything at this 3500 I'm reviewing for ClubOC, including air and water...

I was hoping to get a good idea on overclocking these things from this review... all i got was stay the hell away from this processor....

hopefully kyle and steve give it anotehr go, I seriously doubt they'd let us down that quick...
Click to expand...

Your sig makes me laugh :D

Copyofricer-joke.jpg
 
It was a bit disappointing, pretty quick and dry... Even compared to other quick and dry OC result articles they've posted in the past. I understand it's not a full-fledged review so I won't fault them for not testing everything under the sun (you guys did read the part where they stated this no?) but I still expected a bit more tweaking, use of a mem dividier, or at 'least different multipliers used.
 
Getting back to the short, sweet, and to the point writing, here are our results. No voltage tweaks were used, as they did not make any difference.
Click to expand...

Sometimes I wonder if you people even read the whole articles are just go straight to the conclusion and call it a day?

They said that they did Vcore tweaks but it didnt help any so whats the point of showing the results of it?
Then you guys complain that it was short but they do reviews like this all the time. As mentioned before theres been so much talk about the new 90nm on forums and on other sites that all you need to know can be found elsewhere. Now I can understand the anger of not having a full review after all this time but honestly get over it! They've done so many kickass reviews on other products that its a whatever if they dont please me every single time. But hey whatever you guys can keep crying
 
It seemed like Kyle just did the review to make it look like he had done something. Kyle usually writes great articals but this was not his finest moment. We needed to see some watercooling at the least. Maybe a top speed run so we can what we might be in for as the yeild gets better.
 
It's odd for an overclocking site to only overclock using the stock heatsink. The only reason I can think of was that if the voltage didn't give even the smallest gains, they figured that a bigger sink would have been a waste of time.
 
Yeah it did seem a little...cursory.

About the stock cooling thats fine cuz Im probably not THAT hardcore to get another cooler.

But the VCore thing I woulda liked to see some more with that. (YEAH YEAH I saw where he said it didnt make a real diff but still wheres that screenshot?)

Also what about dropping the multiplier to emulate results from a 3000+? Since thats the one ppl will really want to get if theyre worried about price... (such as myself)

I also love this site but yeah that seemed a little lacking.
 
Yep, it was done quick and rushed out. Sorry.
 
Lazn_Work said:
What aftermarket cooler? Or do they try all 50billion of them?

How about a vapochill so they can show those results too?

They should hire NASA to Cryofreeze it to almost absolute 0 too so we can see what it does when superconducting.

And they should try it with home made coolers too.

And they should show how high it will overclock when in an oven with no heatsink too...

</sarcasm> get real..

==>Lazn
Click to expand...

They could of used ANY aftermarket cooler. Almost all of the K8 aftermarket coolers would be better then the stock cooler. The Thermalright XP-90 would be a good place to start for a heatsink.

The four tests that i mentioned are pretty common for an overclocking review, especially for an overclocking site that is suppost to be as hardcore as HardOCP...
 
I was really let down by the review too. [H]ard to me isn't the stock cooler. I was really wanting to see a Thermalright XP-90 or 120 used and some watercooling. Kyle used to use an Exos in motherboard reviews, but didn't use one in an overclocking article? Some phase change cooling has been reviewed in the recent past so some of that would have been cool too. It'd be really interesting to see something more to the caliber of the P4 @ 4.44Ghz article from awhile back.

When it comes down to it, a 3200+ overclocked with a stock cooler doesn't really show me (and probably most of the readership) what kind of speeds a 3200+ in their own rig could hit. Not many readers of the site use stock cooling to OC on.
 
You are only as good as the last job you did. Tough crowd here.

Much like an American Corporation, your stock value depends on this quarter earning result. :eek:
 
lazyman said:
You are only as good as the last job you did. Tough crowd here.

Much like an American Corporation, your stock value depends on this quarter earning result. :eek:
Click to expand...

I dunno, I surely would've liked to see a better article on the subject but at this point it's value is really moot as the 90nm parts have been out long enough that anyone following user results on the boards and elsewhere knows what to expect from them.

I don't think the article taints any of the good work [H] has done in the past, I'm looking forward to whatever articles the Cooling editor will be assigned much more so than a full fledged review of the A64 90nm parts. It's something [H] hasn't touched on in a while in the form of an outright review.
 
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