Majority of overclockers go Intel, not AMD

Price, performance wrong on AMD chips
Dixons Group attempts overclocker takeover and AMD big component in PC World component dash

Why is everyone so behind the times? If PC World had a clue they would know that the majority of overclockers (IMO) are giving up on AMD and moving to Intel.....having been an AMD man for years myself, the last chip I bought was the 2400+, since then the prices have been too high on the top Bartons and the only real bargain has been the 2100+ Tbred B which was overclocking well, but nowhere near a stock 3ghz/800 FSB P4, or even an overclocked 2.4/800 P4.

I mean, AMD's obviously behind the 800FSB P4s for out and out performance. More and more P4 based overclockable boards are turning up. Intel's prices are getting lower. Memory prices are falling and faster memory is becoming available all the time to suit DDR400+ applications. Intel are up at 300(1200) FSB on many chips whilst AMD are lucky to get much over 200(400) FSB....

A last thing about PC World/Dixons group - even though they have massive buying power, their margins seem to be high as well. Ever went into a PCW component centre? They usually have about four motherboards that are all out of date, overpriced etc. Same goes for most of their other components - ever bought a printer? They give you a great deal and then charge you £15 for a £1 USB Cable!

Are they forgetting that the people who shop in PC World don't know anything about computers anyway, so would rather have a £500 Celeron machine than a £500 Prometia cooling system for their £2000 machine (would the average PC World customer even know what a Prometia is)?

What about warranties for overclocked chips? Is it OK to overclock a board or graphics card and still be within confines of a warranty but not a CPU?? Can you buy a PC from PCW then modify it using their components and still be within warranty. IMO their RMAs will increase tenfold!

I think it's a kettle of fish PCW did not want to open, and a market they are not used to, but time will tell...

Name supplied

To which we have had the following replies

WOW! I haven't read anything so clearly misguided in some time. Whomever wrote this clearly is outside the norm of the overclocking community. That isn't to say that there aren't people who agree with him, but they're in the minority.

People overclock for two reasons: to stretch the limits and stretch their money. Some only overclock for one of these two reasons, some do it for both reasons. Those only wanting to stretch the limits are those that use LN2 cooling and any kind of water cooling. They spend large amounts of money on their cooling systems in order to get the absolute best speeds. Excluding LN2 cooling (because it's not a lasting solution), people can watercool P4s to about 3.6GHz, and usually they use the 2.4GHz processors.

Watercooling an AMD 1700+ (which is the overclocker's main choice, not the 2100+), most people are reaching 2.5GHz. The performance of the 3.6GHz P4 is definitely better than the 2.5GHz AMD AXP, so to this group, the $130 price difference for the CPU and $50 price difference for the faster memory (remember, they're only getting to these speeds with FSBs of 1200MHz, and DDR that runs at those speeds isn't cheap) is worth it.

However, this group is clearly in the minority as most users (and indeed most overclockers) are still using air cooling.

Those looking for a combination of the two are looking for something that is cutting-edge, while still keeping the prices reasonable. They stick to air-cooling. With air-cooling, P4s are getting to 3.4 - 3.5GHz, while 1700+'s are getting to 2.3 - 2.4 GHz. Again, the overclocked P4 outperforms the overclocked AXP. However, the price premium now comes into effect.

These people won't pay $300+ for a watercooling setup. So, they have to weigh out the performance difference between the two setups with the cost difference of ~ $225. Plus, their RAM might not even go that high (we are talking about pushing RAM rated for 216MHz up to 300MHz, which isn't easy). Add on to it the fact that if the RAM or CPU dies (a sad but true part of overclocking), they have to spend that same premium again to get back to wehre they were. Many go to Intel, that's for sure, but I believe more go to AMD.

Now there are those - like myself - that want the best bang for their buck. Since we use air cooling as well, our results are the same. There's no question that buying a $40 1700+ that will run faster than a $450 processor is going to appeal to this group. Not only that, but if they do decide to skimp on the RAM or if they just got unlucky and only got to about 3.2GHz, the AXP would perform better than the P4. This group will not risk $225 hoping for more performance, and they surely won't risk it when those components could go up in smoke. In fact, many don't even want to get faster memory, they just want a faster CPU. This is something that Intel can't offer, and the answer to the question of why Intel boards overclock higher than the AMD boards. I can run my 1700+ at much higher speeds without raising my FSB at all. Everyone agrees that this isn't the best way to get the most performance from your setup, but it will increase performance, and for many, that's enough.

AMD may need to look into their numbering scheme and revamp things, but they surely don't need to worry about this segment of the market. Not only does it logically follow that more overclockers go the AMD route, but I can tell you that, in practice, there are more overclockers on the AMD side than there are on the Intel side.

Sean Griesheimer

Greeks have it lucky on broadband costs
Broadband in Greece 850 times more than in Sweden

Well i read your post from www.theinquirer.net and i got really amazed when i saw that Greece has prices ONLY 800 times bigger then Sweden(or Gibraltar). Well how about you try to get some prices from Romania... where our "great" ISPs offer 0,5k/s - 3 k/s lines for 30$ US. Or a nice country where if i have a problem and i call to ISP they say will be solved in 5 minutes and next day i call em and they dont even know what was about. Here, in Constanta town, our local ISP, one of them, called Pellin is ofering those lines where when we see 2k/s we give Partys for few days hehe.

Anyway, as i know our ISP, Pellin had a line of 10mbits and was paying 24000 US $ and now has only 6Mbits line, but i don't know price anymore. Plus of all these, ISP still gets more clients, accepting them without telling them before that they get a line 10 times slower then a DIAL-UP.We alreay are about 1000 customers on that line, each having LAN in its back due to high costs. Average salary is 80 US $.

THank you very much in advance. I hope you can publish a part of this, or entire text. Please dont mention my name or email, just you can say someone REALLY UNSATTISFIED CUSTOMER of Pellin ISP. Anyway, im 99% sure that Romania has highest prices from all over the world.

See you..

Overclockers switching to Intel??? No I don't think so, at least not in the USA. The ONLY CPU Intel sells at a competitive price to AMD's Athlon XP is the 3.0 Gig. 800 MHz and only as of a week ago when Intel dropped it's prices due to lost sales to AMD. Prior to that Intel's prices were excessive across the board and that's why so many people are still buying AMD Athlon XP's. If you compare prices you'll see that Intel's P4 CPU's range from $20-$70 MORE (from U.S. Internet vendors), than AMD's on an equal performance basis. Ace's Hardware has a price comparison chart in their review of the Athlon 3200+ here.

And if you check PriceGrabber.com you'll see that for weeks AMD's CPUs and Asus and similar nForce chipset Mobos have been the top ten leaders. So maybe in some parts of the World people are foolish enough to pay a premium price for a P4 but not in the U.S. where overclockers are buying AMD CPUs in droves.

I speak from experience as I just built a Barton 2500+/Asus A7N8X Deluxe which O/C's to a true 2500 clock with just a SLK-700 heatsink and 70mm fan @ 1.79V with 100% stability. The RETAIL Barton 2500+ costs $128 delivered and a 2.53 Gig. P4 costs about $195. The nForce Mobos are also cheaper than Intel's so no clear thinking person would buy Intel right now or possibly ever in the future as The Times, they are a Changin'

Randy Hubbard

Unfortunatly a lot of ocers have joined the dark force...

But what is he (watch quote down in this mail) talking about? how can he complain about the prices of the barton cpus and then get an 800mhz P4 and a canterwood for hundrets and hundrets of $? sure it performs better than any amd solution available now, but its extremely expensive. thats why there are still a lot of amd fans out there.

He is obviously one of those geeks that always have to have the system that is this 10% faster ,you dont even notice in applications, even if it costs hundrets of dollars more. for "normal" ocers theres still nothing like amd.

The new revisions of the nf2 boards usually reach 230fsb+ without any modifications and cost less than 100$. that paired with a 50$ 1700+ or 1800+ which oc really amazingly is still by far far far the best bang for the bug.

My 1700+ runs @2.3ghz with a silent air cooler for 12$, that's about the average oc for the low end xps. so 150$ for cpu and mainboard that runs about 3000+ speeds (200fsb x11) theres nothing comparable intel has to offer.

I think its really sad how people jump on intel... too sad how fast they forgot how intel used to rule the market and release buggy overpriced cpus and didn't mind, just because there was no real competition.

Thats why i will NEVER buy anything from intel again.buying intel in this hard times for amd is like donating bill gates some money to fight "those insecure open source systems that might".

I want to buy granite online. Can you help? [Eh? Ed.]
Hello,

My clients are looking for Granite online. I am looking for a company who can meet their needs. Can you help me, or, barring that,can you send me to another reputable source?

I can be reached at the number below.

Name supplied

Dear Sirs,

Yes, I am able to supply granite for online purchase at prices not available to the average granite shopper in local stores. We have a large supply, in convenient 470 ton blocks, the perfect size for any use. Because we supply in bulk, and do not maintain a storefront, our prices are usually 2/3 to 3/4 the price of boutique granite shops.

Our supplies are kept in weatherproof underground storage facilities, and are picked up by the customer. Unfortunately, we offer no delivery services, but at these prices, it is worth getting a truck for.

Let us know how many blocks you need, minimum order of 25, and excavation and removal must be done within ten (10) days of the order. I look forward to doing business with you.

Charlie

What's the use of Mail Tracker?
INQUIRER introduces Mail Tracker

Maybe I'm just missing something, but why would I bother going through all the C&P and new message motions of Mail Tracker instead of just forwarding my spam to the usual trio of SpamCop (which does all the tracing dirty work, gives me a report and and sends multiple complaints with one rodent whack), uce@ftc.gov (which might not be much more than a deep black hole to which it feels good to send stuff) and the "Missed Spam" address of my ISP (which Brightmail theoretically uses to fine tune its filters)?

When I want to really get pissy and personal with those "special" spammers, there's always Sam Spade and Geektools' WhoIs.

Name supplied

Does Core Protect protect hard drives?
Core Protect claims it can save bust hard drives

No they don't. Do they?

To me "bust" means hardware failure, not data corruption by software - though either will make you cry. These guys do corruption. Virus attack, operator error, Microsoft Product Activation. What they've got is something like a device that copies disk partition A to disk partition B. Then - presumably - you only get to work on partition B: A is now invisible to malicious operating systems and viruses. When something very bad happens software-wise, you copy A back to B and erase the problem.

I'm not sure I'd do it that way, but it probably suits some people.

Ah. On careful reading, it isn't quite as I suggested. B evidently in fact contains a map of disk write attempts. These disk sectors are now saved on B and served from B. Other disk reads are served from A. But B doesn't contain all of A, only attempted changes to A. Clever.

You're still in deep you-know-what if the disk breaks, but that's what RAID is for. I wonder how this product fits with RAID? Like, for RAID 1 you have to buy two of these?

Although RAID is about keeping data, and this thing is about throwing it away...

S.P

It's not just Intel in the Big Apple, you know
Intel's Otellini: 10,000 wi fi hotspots in Manhattan. Some mistake, surely

Regarding your 10,000 wi-fi spots story: New York City proper has well over 100 active hotspots from Verizon alone.

See here.

Verizon has deployed 802.11b on top of quite a few of their public phone booths, free for use by any Verizon DSL customers. As I'm a DSL customer, I use one of the Hotspots while several floors above the hotspot below. It may be 1Mbit at that range, but it's far better than cellmodem or GPRS. These hotspots have only been deployed/activated in the past month or so.

Just thought you would want to know.

Name supplied

More Voices of Unreason shout at BT
BT blocks BT IP addresses

Your article discusses BTs 'NEW' Midband product.

This is not new at all. This is simply the standard ISDN rental with the BT Together package. Exactly the same 64k one channel or 128k for both. The use of each channel is aggregated to give a monthly total of 150 hours. Exactly the same as the BT together package. But how do you know what you you are using? Just click here say BT. You click here, but instead of telling you how much you have used, it tells you, you are not yet within 35 hours of the limit. So much for family planning.

BT are trying to dress Midband up so the tossers in OFTEL think BT are doing something for the masses who cannot receive broadband, when in fact they are doing sweet FA.

Yours via ISDN and BT Together

Colin ' pissed off and ripped off' Bull

Reading the RIAA-ot act
RIAA is behaving like a school bully

Mike,

I take the freedom to use property as I see fit, as long as it doesn't detract from others' rights, as a right, here in the good ol' US of A. If that means I want to develop software for my computers, then so be it. No one can say anything about it unless I am infringing on their life, liberty, or property.

What we have here is an example of a perfectly legitimate tool being illegalized because the government (and/or controllers behind it) are afraid of said tool. The tool might be used for unethical or illegal purposes, so Big Mommy government has to stamp the tool out entirely, ASAP.

But isn't this to be expected? Our Second Amendment to our Constitution affirms in plain English the individual '... right to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed', yet I can't carry and bare any sort of anything most anywhere, let alone 'Federal' property. With such diabolical things as the DMCA, whose wording and intentions aren't nearly as plain, what would you expect?

Gun manufacturers are also being eyed to be sued for improper use of the tools they make, though there has been some legislation passed against such activity. Napster and Kazaa don't have such a luxury.

Just another example of the welfare state, Mike. Those in control will have their 'rights' by damn, even if it means other people have to give up theirs!

Jacob

As you reported, the RIAA sued Jesse Jordan and ended up settling with him having to pay them his life savings. Now there are two main reasons why one entity would sue another. The first I can think of is greed - they want the other's money and think they can win it. I think we can discard this reason as I'm sure it cost the RIAA more than $12000 to pursue this case, and besides, that's peanuts to them. The other is justice, but as the RIAA has agreed in this case, he didn't actually break any laws or do anything wrong. So I think that is not the reason either.

So what is? All I can think of is that the RIAA wants to give us all the impression that they can target any individual they like and take their money and there's nothing that individual can do about it. Either the individual pays up or their legal fees are going to be so astronomical defending whatever made-up claim the RIAA has levelled against them that they'll wish they had. Now, here's what the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as terrorism:

noun : the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

and terror:

noun : a state of intense fear; a frightening aspect

I personally feel that the threat of having my life savings taken away for no reason to be a frightening aspect of the RIAA's policy, and I believe they are using it systematically, as this is not the first time they have pursued this policy. I am therefore left with no other conclusion than the RIAA has opened a terror campaign to coerce us into seeing things their way.

I for one can't wait for the "War on Terror" to start targeting the terrorists right in our midst... in fact the RIAA is even threatening to inflict the much feared "cyber terror" upon us, where they will hack into our computers and distrupt them from their normal functions.

Nicholas (full name, email supplied)

I remember a college kid who wrote a program that allowed file sharing. It provided a search mechanism that allowed you to get information from computers all over the world. It even took files and cached them on their own servers so that you could download it from them instead.

I believe the program goes by the name of Google.

Does this mean that Google and Microsoft can be sued by the RIAA if some website provides illegal music for downloading? I mean, Google is the search utility pointing you to the illegal music file. Internet Explorer is the program allowing you to download such content.

Isn't Kazaa, Morpheus, and this college student's software just another Google/IE clone with a more focused purpose?

Maybe the RIAA would have a tough time getting Microsoft to admit they committed a crime, much like how they didn't get this student to admit to a crime. But maybe they'll try and take Microsoft's personal savings too.

Hmmm, $40 billion ... that might get the RIAA into the black.

Mike Schanberger