Maximum PC

I've been reading Maximum PC for years (finally got a subscription about two years ago) though I'm sick of the clear Intel bias.

Look, when the X6 debuted you guys said that AMD had a disappointing performance but all except one of the tests were over one hundred FPS and the last time I checked 1Hz = 1FPS and therefore most people won't see anything beyond 60FPS (60 Hz LCD's). Before the less informed jump in and start talking about 120Hz LCD's it should be noted those are intended for 3D gaming so your FPS is HALVED (two frames are combined to make one so a 120FPS = 60FPS effective). So saying AMD processors give disappointing performance doesn't cut the cake.

Then you have to look at longevity. Sure I understand what the title of the magazine implies though most of us aren't taking money showers, see related picture.


So for the rest of us getting the most money for our dollar matters. I personally went from socket 939 to AM3 though regardless I can still upgrade to just a socket AM3+ motherboard next year and get a second or third stepping Bulldozer CPU later on. All the Intel people will have to throw out both their CPU and motherboards as clearly Intel doesn't like their customers and with like a hundred times the resources of AMD could more then afford to make their customer's upgrade paths actual upgrades then outright nearly full system replacements.

Taking AMD and Intel's business practices in to consideration trying to convince me or anyone sane that Intel wouldn't jack their prices up even further if AMD disappeared is like telling any sane person they don't need oxygen, everyone knows Intel is a monopolist company interested in nothing more then money. Most of us know that even if an Intel board made by Gigabyte or MSI in example was not made by Intel that Intel still makes money from various components on those boards and very likely licensing fees. Heck, Light Peak will further establish more licensing fees from everyone in a few years. AMD hasn't from what I can tell tried to screw consumers.

Looking at innovation AMD has clearly brought consumers the first integrated memory controllers, 64 bit computing, etc etc. Intel only bothered because they still have to compete with AMD.

I'm not an AMD fan boy, I simply don't have the money to burn that Intel wants. If Intel changed their ways and provided the best bang for the buck sure I'd buy Intel then though I don't see that happening.

Also calling AMD parts budget is retarded. I could understand calling a 24inch HD $300 IPS LCD budget in the context of IPS screens specifically though you can't call anything CPU related budget except single and dual cores at this point in time. Heck, you guys are calling Nvidia 470 and AMD 5850 budget parts! Those are the affordable high end parts, they're not "budget" parts!

Honestly at this point I think it would be fair to call a part budget if it couldn't get 40FPS at 1650x1050 at medium settings in most games (not games like Crysis or Metro or whatever it's called).

I also think the magazine should use AMD as the basis for benchmarks as that's what most sane people will be using. Do I really need 200+ FPS in games from $8,000 rigs when my LCD is 60Hz and if I was using a 240Hz LCD really what is the effective ceiling where excessive performance counts for nothing? I doubt it's going to be far beyond 60 if not at or below 60 and that's taking in to consideration that some games can be reasonably (not desirably but reasonably) smooth at mid-20 FPS without getting too choppy and some games require a solid 40-45 FPS to play smoothly.

I'm not trying to say stop looking at the latest and greatest but we're not all taking money showers on Mars in fictional universes.

Sounds like someone needs to start reading PC World.

n0b0dykn0ws

With the complete lack of any reason why you think I'm wrong your post comes off as intelligent as your avatar looks.

You are complaining that Maximum PC is reporting/testing/pushing *gasp* maximum parts/PCs.

I haven't once read GTX 470s and Radeon HD 5850s being described as budget parts, but midrange.

How would you define budget parts? Is it based on their price, or their performance?

If you define based on price, then yes, AMD parts are budget. Their high end parts end where Intel's midrange parts begin.

I can buy a dual core AM3 part, with a HSF included, for 60 USD. Will it perform well for most tasks? Yes. Is it a value? Yes. Is it a budget part? Yes.

Maximum PC has been providing more guides for the dollar conscious consumer, but if it were to drop from the midrange/top end parts/guide market, I would drop my subscription.

If you want to read about low end parts and guides, then I suggest you pick up one of the other bland magazines, including PC World, and stop complaining, because those of us that are happy are getting what we paid for from Maximum PC.

n0b0dykn0ws

No, I'm complaining about mindless materialism and the general notion that what most sane people who game though also aren't wallowing in money would buy as being somehow sub-par. In other words I don't like reading that my system that games awesomely at 1920x1200 with typically maxed out settings is somehow "disappointing" as I'm not blindly materialistic. I would not consider the parts I own or would consider buying low end though I would certainly consider you based on your comments to be a pompous Intel fan boy who'd probably spend his last dollar on an extreme edition processor then take a girl out to dinner once a week. How about a reply from someone who takes this discussion seriously please?

I am taking this discussion seriously, and I am also seriously suggesting you stop fretting over it and read a magazine such as PC World. Why on Earth do you think a magazine titled Maximum PC should stop being about high end parts because you are not materialistic.

I put my financial priorities towards the bills that I already have and my family, but a still love to read about bleeding edge hardware. Should I stop visiting Anandtech because they rarely revue the most low end parts?

A better parallel. I'm a sys admin but my division isn't given the budget for top of the line servers and storage. Does this mean I shouldn't read white papers and try to learn all I can about my field?

Just because you can't afford it doesn't mean that Maximum PC should stop writing about it.

n0b0dykn0ws

As I said before I dislike reading that my parts and the parts I've consider buying are somehow sub-par. Your replies are a total waste of time.

Then why are you here?

It sounds to me like you are sore that you can't afford more, not that more is out there.

If that is your problem, then get over it or you will never be able to lead a fulfilling life.

There is always something better.

n0b0dykn0ws

You have over five thousand posts and all you've done on my thread is troll and I'm wondering why you're still here. That's a rhetorical question which in layman's terms means you're not supposed to reply because it only further establishes that you're merely a troll.

I'm the troll?

You're the new person that comes to complain "I don't like reading that my parts are sub-par" to a magazine that is founded on pushing the envelope. What about that don't you get?

Right here is an example of why I have resolved to raise my son that if he can't afford it, he shouldn't be a dick about others having it.

n0b0dykn0ws

You're implying that I'm being a dick about other people having better hardware when the point of this thread is to not read insults about the hardware I and many other readers already have; perhaps you should teach your son not to troll people's threads instead. Also since you're in the same time zone as me you now have me wondering why you're more interested in trolling on forums during work hours instead of working to feed your son? That too is rhetorical though I doubt the word's definition will sink in any time so just know ahead before you reply that I can continue to counter whatever you say hardware or not.

The reason Maximum PC is referring to the CPU's as "sub-par" is because in benchmarks they do not perform as well as Intel's extreme high end parts.

As you know, most software is not built for a 6 core processor and most people don't use the additional threads. Heck, most people don't even use 4 cores, let alone 6.

Based on benchmarks, AMD is consistently slower than Intel's high-end parts. In other words, why do you think AMD's flagship CPU is a little over $300? Because it performs about the same as an equivalent Intel part in the exact same task, benchmark, etc.


However, I don't think benchmarks tell the whole story, as you mention. Everyday use is not taken into account by Maximum PC very much and really not much by any reviewer. If I get a dual core, am I going to notice the difference between a quad core in everyday use? Not likely unless the software takes advantage of the multiple cores or has some other significant advantage. Same thing goes for any of the newer processors as well. Most of the time, you will not notice a difference between an AMD processor and an equivalent Intel processor.

I'm not sure where the TS is coming from since I let my subscription run out more than a year ago... but I do know that if you look at AMD & Intel by flagship part Vs flagship part, AMD doesn't stand a chance, and that's what Maximum PC does. AMD doesn't intend for their flagship part to go up against Intel's flagship part, they know that would be suicide, instead, they price their parts so that they will be very competitive in the same price range.

I would prefer to look at total system cost when comparing. For example, my high end 6-core AMD gaming rig cost about the same price as an Intel i7-980X CPU, so trying to compare it to an Intel 980 based system is just silly. I could have build an i5-720 rig for the same cost as my AMD rig (at the time I built my current PC), so that's what it should be compared to, and when doing so, in photo & video editing tasks especially, a 720 based system just falls on its face. I think that maybe this is what the TS is trying to get at But I have to agree with n0b0dykn0ws, MaximumPC isn't about performance per $$$, it's about performance regardless of $$$.

BTW... it was mentioned that AMD's flagship was just over $300... AMD has lowered the price on its current flagship CPU, Phenom II X6 1090t Black Edition can now be picked up for as little as $220 + tax & shipping, & the new daily price at newegg is $229... I wonder if this means that we'll be seeing Bulldozer parts sooner than expected???

But AMD's CPUs are inferior to Intel's at the moment. Intel crushes AMD's performance.

Having said that ... buying the 'correct' part is a decision that should be informed by both your budget and your intended use of the PC.

If you have a $1000 budget, for instance, it makes far more sense to buy a cheap AMD CPU and sink the majority of your budget into the best GPU you can buy. AMD's CPUs are more than 'good enough' for gaming .. modern gaming is almost entirely GPU-bound.

You rail about Intel being 'monopolistic (impossible with multiple players in the industry, by definition) and money hungry. Do you really think that AMD is different? They only difference is that, at the moment, Intel has the better parts.

If you've been reading MPC as long as you say, then you remember when MPC touted AMD's parts are superior. In fact, until Intel released the Core architecture, the pendulum swung back and forth between the two companies regularly. It is only in the past few years that Intel has taken a clear lead and that is, quite frankly, because Intel's products are quite clearly better.

Intel's CPUs are faster, cooler and draw less power. They overclock better and offer better performance.

What you have to do, as a consumer, is decide how much power you need. Porsche makes a faster car than Jeep but if you need a car that goes offroad .. why would you buy a Porsche? The Honda Civic will get you to the grocery store and back just as ably as the 911 Carrera, so if you're buying a car for grocery shopping, why would you buy a Porsche?

Gaming doesn't require the fastest CPU on the market. Most games don't take advantage of multiple cores yet, so clock speed is still king.

All that said, this is Maximum PC, not Average Budget PC. They report on the best of the best and show us the parts that many dream of owning. You don't buy Top Gear magazine to read about the latest Honda Civic and you don't buy Maximum PC to read about the latest $85 CPU.

And yet the big bad "Clear Intel bias and misuse of the word budget" MPC magazine does in fact look out for both the "biggest and Bestest Enthusiast" and those interested in squeezing the absolute best performance out of the lowest budget. Not to mention those in between. Witness the "Dream Machine" build articles soon followed by the mid range and budget articles. Witness the fact that MPC does a pretty fair job keeping all informed just where AMD and anyone else falls in whenever there is a change to CPU's, video cards, etc.

Oh! did I forget to point out the routine articles on the website about netbooks and all in ones.

JAB Creations, you must be reading a different magazine than we are. MPC tries (and does does pretty well) to, as the word "Maximum" implies, present technology from both perspectives; what is the best/fastest performing piece of gear out there and what is the best/fastest piece of gear out there that gets the job done according to purpose and budget.

But then you have to be able to actually read not just see words to understand that.

I stand by my comments, I don't like having my hardware insulted.

Then you need to either buy better hardware on a very regular basis or stop reading publications that discuss hardware that is outside your price range.

Being insulted by mods now, great business ethics.

Looking at your original post, we are not calling 470's budget parts. they are mid-high range parts.

As for the performance, look at the benchmarks. an Intel i7 930 CPU beats anything that amd had, even the 1090t. there is a reason AMD parts are priced so low. that is where they perform.





Ted

The moderators here are 100% independent of the magazine.