(Self) Bias (Resistor)

Yes, the title is in reference to the Fear Factory song, but has no connection to the rest of the blog. Just felt like adding something else to the title besides the obvious.

So as I've may have said elsewhere, I'm a bit biased with computer parts... After building Ziggy and finding that Ziggy ran at 46C (115F) idle (IDLE for f*k sake!), I decided to never buy Intel again. Okay, the Prescott core P4's had a bad thermal sensor or incorrectly placed or something like that, but I think it just had a bad thermal design seeing that it honestly should have lasted a bit longer. Bah, whatever. The netbook had an Intel Atom processor with Intel integrated graphics. That thing was okay, but it was annoying to use.

If I get a free Intel-based computer, I'm not gonna complain, free is free after all. But I will never build another Intel system.

Sure Intel makes powerful CPU's but I have no use for it's ridiculous power. I do a bit of photo editing from time to time, watch videos, listen to music, and surf the net. I hardly play PC games, so why build something overpowered if I'm hardly going to even use more than 25% (if even that) of the computer's ability?

Not to mention AMD spends less money making CPU dies for each type of processor. As you may know (if you've at least read my post on Mei Ren) AMD stamped out a Phenom II x4 and locked two of it's cores to make it a dual core instead of making a whole new die for it. Why? because it's much cheaper to lock two cores than to make a set of dual-core dies.

AMD is cheaper than Intel anyway, which is good when you are trying to build a good rig for cheap. And for all the Intel vs. AMD crap out there... For f*k sake people shut your hole and stop bickering! A proc's a proc and just stick with what you like best. Bash the other company all you want, but what good is it going to do to flame each other? I post my opinion and experience of why I like AMD and don't really like Intel, but I'm not going to force you to go AMD. Your opinion is yours and yours alone.

Anyway... I do like AMD's Fusion line of CPUs APUs from what I've read, they really blow the Intel Atom line out of the water. Sure Intel may have the cutting edge stuff, but AMD usually has the more refined stuff it seems. Even look at the Bulldozer FX chips that were just released - under liquid helium cooling, the FX proc was able to be OCd to 8.429 GHz (which was done by AMD and a team of expert overclockers). Sure a liquid nitrogen cooled i7 may do 6.x GHz, but is it able to be OCd past that under liquid helium? I sure as heck don't know, and someone's gotta spend that money to find out.

Well, the other reason I don't really like Intel is that I continually see it when I read MaxPC. I do understand why, but I see more Intel mobos than AMD mobos get reviewed, and that's a bit annoying.

Anyway, I think I'm done for this rant. As a last word, if you don't like what someone else says, don't flame them, just stop reading/listening and go your own way.

(2014 update: Ziggy's CPU is not dead, I will never build another Intel system for myself, I also occasionally do CPU-intensive tasks from time to time, and AMD locks unstable/dead cores then sells them accordingly.)