Website scaring customers away from AMD

[Negotiator]

So I was doing my daily price watch search, and I came across a site known as pcboost.com, which seems semi-well-known according to the feedback. Anyway, they had Athlon 64 3000+'s for a hair over $200, so I click in and afte selecting the Athlon 64 section, I was welcomed with this warning:

"Important Warning: Be Aware - AMD Athlon CPUs do not have the same type of automatic thermal protection / shutoff design as many previous CPUs and a single overheating incident can permanently damage your CPU. Proper cooling is critical. Even with a fan heatsink in place heavy CPU use can cause the CPU temperature to increase. Proper system & CPU cooling is critical."

The Intel side of the site had nothing of the sort listed. Apparently, you can slap a P4 in the middle of the sun and that SOB will keep on ticking. So, for all you about to buy an AMD chip, remember that "heavy CPU use can cause the CPU temperature to increase."

Linkage

 

[bluey424]

I remember watching a vid off of toms hardware a while back and they were demonstrating what happened to different procs when you took of the heatsink. The Intel systems clocked down and froze, the AMD's went on at the same speed until they gave off smoke and died. I'm a hardcore AMD guy but there is a bit of justification behind the warning, they're prolly just trying to cover their asses.

 

[atomic3]

Not only is the statment justifiable, but Intel CPU's are just generally more reliable. AMD's may perform better, but they are not as "smart," in terms of knowing when to underclock. PCBoost isn't just trying to cover their ass. They are trying to sell more expensive fans and heatsinks.

 

[Negotiator]

I will give you that that used to be true, but isn't "Cool & Quiet" supposed to include underclocking when things get to hot, or am I misinformed?

 

[BillLeeLee]

Athlons (non-64 versions) don't have any kind of thermal protection, but I'm 99% sure the Athlon 64 series have thermal protection in them.

 

[j3ff86]

It's kind of true at least for the athlon xp's and thunderbirds.. can't comment on a a64 haven't used one.

 

[Tordek]

a64 do have thermal protection (personal experience, look sig).

Not only is the statment justifiable, but Intel CPU's are just generally more reliable. AMD's may perform better, but they are not as "smart," in terms of knowing when to underclock. PCBoost isn't just trying to cover their ass. They are trying to sell more expensive fans and heatsinks.

Intel cpu, specially the latests Prescott architecture, need to be more "smart" in thermal protection because of how much heat they tend to dissipate.

Athlons, thunderbirds, applebreds, clawhammers, newcastles, etc... Need no such heavy protection mainly because they do not overheat that much when proper cooling is in place. (As proper cooling I mean nothing more than stock hsf or anything similar.)

It is true that all amd procs before the a64 didnt have the thermal protection at all, but with proper cooling in place nothing wrong could ever go wrong on stock settings...





In my book, this is just another iteration of the long going Intel is better than AMD because IT JUST IS....

 

[Visable-assassin]

I remember watching a vid off of toms hardware a while back and they were demonstrating what happened to different procs when you took of the heatsink. The Intel systems clocked down and froze, the AMD's went on at the same speed until they gave off smoke and died. I'm a hardcore AMD guy but there is a bit of justification behind the warning, they're prolly just trying to cover their asses.

That was a T-Bird anf an old school Palamino if I remember right.
The new AXP's (Barton and T-Bred) have the ability to shut down due to over heat via your motherboards BIOS...as long as the thing is setup right...itll shut off fast...I know my personal rig if I dont turn on my pump and try to power on...itll get to the post screen and boom it shuts off....its only done this since I got my S-TDX now I cant forget to turn the pump on since my PC wont even start up LOL

 

[SinisterAsinus]

That was a T-Bird anf an old school Palamino if I remember right.
The new AXP's (Barton and T-Bred) have the ability to shut down due to over heat via your motherboards BIOS...as long as the thing is setup right...itll shut off fast...I know my personal rig if I dont turn on my pump and try to power on...itll get to the post screen and boom it shuts off....its only done this since I got my S-TDX now I cant forget to turn the pump on since my PC wont even start up LOL

Yes but you still had some sort of sink/block on it, so the heat increase was slow enough for it to be caught. When the whole thing is removed, you'll realize the protection on the XPs really is useless. It'll burn up in less than a second just like the t-birds.

 

[lorcani]

I remember watching a vid off of toms hardware a while back and they were demonstrating what happened to different procs when you took of the heatsink. The Intel systems clocked down and froze, the AMD's went on at the same speed until they gave off smoke and died.

That sounded interesting, so I found the link.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20010917/index.html

 

[Visable-assassin]

Yes but you still had some sort of sink/block on it, so the heat increase was slow enough for it to be caught. When the whole thing is removed, you'll realize the protection on the XPs really is useless. It'll burn up in less than a second just like the t-birds.

If setup right as soon as the CPU hits a preset temp the thing shuts off...so on the newer hardware if by some act of god your sink fell off and it hit lets say 75c and in your BIOS you got it set for 75c the thing will shut off.

 

[bountyhunter]

hm, I smelled something burn in my computer, and i happened to be running a xp 2600 w/ stock hsf.

anyway, I heard that current motherboards didn't support amd's quiet cool whatever technology enough to make it useful.

 

[Barnaby]

blah.. If you can actually find a pre thoroughbred XP now, then I might consider that warning valid..

but considering that all XP's from the thoroughbread and up all have a thermal diode in it, and almost all motherboards in the past year have some kind of tempature shutdown feature, it's not a big deal..

And with Athlon64's, all the mobo's have tempature shutdown features. Don't confuse this with cool n' quiet, which is just support to underlock the cpu on the fly depending on usage..

In short, it's a BS AMD myth that was vanquished almost 2 years ago.. you pretty much have to try to fry an AMD chip now..

 

[lorcani]

hm, I smelled something burn in my computer, and i happened to be running a xp 2600 w/ stock hsf.

Last week I installed my Shuttle MN31N and AXP 2400+ with the retail hsf. When I plugged in the power for the first time, I smelled burning and saw a little smoke. I almost had a fucking heart attack, and leapt over the computer and unplugged it. However, to my surprise, it was working perfectedly.

 

[SmokeRngs]

If my memory serves me correctly, PCBoost has had something like that disclaimer up for years. It's nothing but a way to get you to "upgrade" your heatsink and make them more money.

I'm just glad that when I did order from them one time that I had already decided on a different heatsink. It was funny though, I order mobo and CPU from them. They sent the correct CPU but the wrong mobo. I was ordered the A7V since the A7V133 wasn't out yet and I needed something at the time. When I got my stuff it turns out they sent me an A7V133 instead. It was about $20 more than the A7V when it finally came out and of course would handle the 266 FSB T-birds. I think I got a good deal overall.

 

[Sojuuk]

Last week I installed my Shuttle MN31N and AXP 2400+ with the retail hsf. When I plugged in the power for the first time, I smelled burning and saw a little smoke. I almost had a fucking heart attack, and leapt over the computer and unplugged it. However, to my surprise, it was working perfectedly.

prolly just the paste getting burnt in LOL!