AMD's Official Response to Thermal Test Video Controversy
... and it pops THG's bubble.  At best, the hobbyist site's level of professionalism can be called into question for its dubious Palomino statements.  But more condemning is that AMD's broadly more extensive tests of the Intel Pentium 4 produced results that directly contradict the finding reported by Tom's Hardware.  This disparity casts serious doubts on THG's motivations for the "Falling Off Heatsinks" article.  Here are AMD's remarks:

Additionally, in it's own tests AMD observed that the Pentium 4 processor-based systems it tested did not continue to operate after their heat sink and fan units were removed. AMD used multiple unmodified, third-party, Intel chipset-based motherboards for its testing. The second part of the AMD videos shows the results.

In its widely criticized piece, Tom's Hardware stated:

After the removal of the heat sink, Quake 3 Arena is slowing down significantly, but the system remains fully operational. The surface temperature of the Pentium 4 processor is a mere 29 degrees Celsius or 84 degrees Fahrenheit. ... Pentium 4 dealt with the thermal disaster in an absolutely perfect manner. No data loss and no hardware damage is more than most of us would expect.

The temperature of 29 degrees Celsius that THG reports is obviously grossly in error -- for one, Pentium 4 throttling doesn't kick in until the die reaches about 70 degrees Celsius.  That Pabst used an infrared thermometer on the reflective surface of the P4 slug is a novice mistake and might be partly to blame, but the AMD video clearly shows that in seconds the P4's temperature shot up to 120 degrees Celsius before shutting down.

Confirming what we reported earlier today, note that AMD rejects THG’s argument that the German webpage was somehow responsible for AMD’s thermal protection circuitry:

I've been asked if AMD is just now suggesting this technology to board manufacturers or if this is a knee-jerk reaction to the press it's received. I believe the fact that the board used in our video already existed when the original story hit nullifies the need to ask that question.

Press Release: Crucial DDR Rising Fast!

At Crucial Technology, one of the world’s largest memory upgrade providers, we’ve noticed a trend in our memory sales we thought you might find interesting.

Intel's PIII-S Coming?

Nils shares Intel PIII-S information and comments on THG's Hot Spot article.

"AMD Burn" Motherboard Predates THG Video

According to inside sources, development of the motherboard used in the so-called "AMD Burn" video predates the infamous "Fallen Off Heatsink" article on THG.  This is significant because in THG's face-saving article published earlier this week, the hobbyist site actually tried to claim credit for AMD's development of such thermal failsafe circuitry.  The OEM motherboard in question is used in the recently announced Compaq Presario 8000.  "Anyone who knows the lead time on board design knows this has been in the works," our source said.  This "should put to rest any thoughts that this was spur of the moment engineering sleight of hand," our source continued. 

AMD Spokesman: Yes, They Are Our Videos

Two videos circulating around the Internet depicting the thermal performance of AMD Athlon MP and Intel Pentium 4 CPUs in worst case cooling failures are indeed from the chipmaker, an AMD spokesman has informed us.  We have also obtained information about about a new system that will be released "immediately" that fully supports AMD's Athlon XP thermal diode as displayed in the video.

Source of “AMDBurn” Video Speaks

Terry Wang claims the video is legitimate. You can obtain the original video here, and the new Part 2 video here. Part 2 shows similar tests conducted on an Intel Pentium 4. In this video, the P4 turns off a short time after the heat sink is removed. This is logical since even in fully throttled mode, the P4 produces more heat than can be dissipated without a heat sink causing the die temperature to continuously rise until the thermal failsafe is tripped.

Severe Interoperability Problems with Intel Chipsets: How to Fry Your i845 Motherboard

If you are considering an Intel i845-based motherboard (reportedly, this is also a problem with Intel i850-based motherboards) read this article first before you end up toasting your new toy like we did.  UPDATE: We follow-up with important news about the "Pin A2" test.

Reading Your Email: Erosion of Rights During Crisis

The FBI makes a bid to pervasively scan email.

Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson and a former general consul to National Security Agency, said the FBI has plans to change the architecture of the Internet and route traffic through central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail more easily.

AMD Slaps Around Little Tom-Tom?

A video has appeared on the Internet countering a huge dose of FUD my former employer inexplicably dumped on his readership a couple of months back.  The new video, with AMD credits all over it, is entitled "How an Athlon(tm) MP 1.2GHz Really Copes with Heat Emergencies."  The piece demonstrates the AMD Palomino Athlon subjected to brutal circumstances such as heat sink removal while playing Quake III and boot up attempts when a CPU cooler is not attached.  In all scenarios, the Palomino comes out unscathed.  A similar though much less thorough test came out with unsurprisingly different results at Tom's Hardware.  Ouch!  Looks like dispensing bad medicine can result in a mouthful of looser teeth.  Good job Ben & Joe, perhaps you can also give THG a crash course in analyzing computer technology.

 

The video also presents the much more realistic situation when the CPU fan fails.  In that case the Palomino continued to play Quake III for several minutes before shutting down.  Again the chip was undamaged.

 

The main link points to a mirror, while the original link, which now appears broken, is here.

Who is Joel Hruska?

Joel sends us a little information about himself. For information on any of our contributors, go to the bottom of our ABOUT page.

AMD Sues Intel for Potential EU Evidence

In response to our inquiry, AMD spokesman, Drew Prairie, enumerates in detail his company's legal issues with Intel.

Intel to Revive PIII?

Nils claims he has the inside scoop. And he seems to have liked Darek's article.

Press Release: AMD Supports Microsoft at Windows XP Launch

AMD Athlon(tm) XP processor provides Extreme Performance for Windows XP.

The Intel Assessment of Hammer, Courtesy of Anand

Nils now gives us his, erm, frank opinion.  Not for the faint of heart.

Who do Voodoo?

Joel does. Joel takes a look at modern Voodoo drivers and WindowsXP support.

Sisoftware's Response to Drystone Downturn

We publish without comment Sisoftware's response to declining AMD Drystone scores reported here October 19th.

Crucial DDR-SDRAM Performance Benefits Over SDRAM

Joel gives a quick test showing the bandwidth performance of DDR-SDRAM over SDRAM.  This is the first part of an ongoing series.

2GHz Pentium 4 Another Paper Launch?

During the heat of the Athlon-PIII race last year, Intel established a name for itself as King of the Paper Launches. With the Pentium III Intel could not match the clock speed yields of rival AMD’s Athlon, but would announce similarly clocked PIII’s anyway as an attempt to keep up in the public relations war. The practice of firing out press releases launching products Intel could not deliver became known as “paper launches,” a phrase coined by AMD’s CEO Jerry Sanders.

I had a front row seat on the inevitable and disastrous conclusion of this questionable practice when Intel announced the 1.13 GHz Pentium III a little over a year ago. At the time, I served as liaison between Tom’s Hardware and Intel and witnessed up close the implosion as Intel was forced to recall the flawed chip, a part that the CPU-maker tried to rush out before even seeing if it worked properly.

Now, it appears the wobbly Santa Clara chip titan might be returning to those unsteady tactics. The Inquirer has published an Intel memo that states in classic Intel-ese obfuscation and misdirection that the 2GHz P4 is going to be in short supply for several more months. In other words, in the middle of the worst economic settings in recent times Intel introduced the 2 GHz part and still cannot meet demand. The north winds of fall sweep in the odor of another Chipzilla paper launch.

Sandra Drystone Scores

Gabriel sent in very interesting observations regarding the decline of K6-2 and Duron Drystone scores on Sisoftware's Sandra:

 

Machine K6-2 400@400 (mobo Elpina TX PRO (Aladin IV chipset), aircooled, 6 X 66 Mhz)

Sandra 99  : Drystone Alu: 987 MIPS Drystone FPU: 473 MFLOPS
Sandra2k1se: Drystone Alu: 781 MIPS Drystone FPU: 478 MFLOPS
Sandra2k1te: Drystone Alu: 688 MIPS Drystone FPU: 486 MFLOPS

Machine K6-2 500 @ 600 (mobo Fic PA2013, aircooled, 2.9 V)

Sandra 99  : Drystone Alu: 1533 MIPS Drystone FPU: 725 MFLOPS
Sandra2k1se: Drystone Alu: 1397 MIPS Drystone FPU: 708 MFLOPS
Sandra2k1te: Drustone Alu: 1192 MIPS Drystone FPU: 724 MFLOPS

Machine Duron 700@700 (MSI K7TPro, aircooled 7 X 100 Mhz)

Sandra 99  : Drystone Alu: 2327 MIPS Drystone FPU: 962 MFLOPS
Sandra2k1se: Drystone Alu: 1963 MIPS Drystone FPU: 954 MFLOPS
Sandra2k1te: Drystone Alu: 1945 MIPS Drystone FPU: 960 MFLOPS
 

It seems that all of these platforms decline in score, while they all report the same reference score of 1350 for the Pentium III.  More data points from other chips would be interesting.

P4 Strategy?

Nils writes:

It is interesting to note that Intel killed Zilog by promising that the 8086 would be 'almost' upward compatible enough for automated porting of CP/M code from the 8085 - as long as nobody used the special Z80 specific instructions.

Then Intel reversed it's strategy by releasing the P4 and trying to force everyone to do massive code rewrites - perhaps just to take the code market away from the base that runs so well on AMD designs.

Of course the flies in the ointment for Intel are that the Pentium 4 has quirky and often sub-par performance, the chip has not been wildly embraced, Intel is having difficulty transitioning production to the P4 resulting in shortages, and the enormous 217 mm^2 die makes the P4 expensive to produce (which might be part of the reason for the shortages).  Intel is also having to delay Northwood, the 0.13-micron version of the P4, until next year leaving the chip giant at a performance disadvantage to archrival AMD whose Athlon XP is not only faster than anything Intel produces, but also cheaper than Intel's pricey P4.

Free McOwen

If you are wanting a follow-up to Tom McFadden's July article, check out this site devoted to the subject.  David McOwen faces enormous fines and multiple 15-year jail sentences for installing a Distributed.net screen saver on a Georgia school's computers.  Here is a quote from McOwen from the "FreeMcOwen" site:

 

This is David McOwen. I need everyone's help that possibly can. I worked at a school system 2 years ago that is part of the State of Georgia and was the configurator of the computers. They are now prosecuting me for Felony conviction with up to 15 yrs in prison and wanting $ 415,000. They are saying the Dnet client costs 59 cents per second for the Internet transmissions! If you or you know anyone that can help please contact webmaster@freemcowen.com. Beside my life and my family, the future of all that use the Internet and computers is at stake. Don't let them turn the good of computers into something so terrible. If it was so terrible it should be taken away from the world and not prosecuting one individual. People were panicking about rumors of the Govt tacking on a 5 cent surcharge to supplement the Postal service because E-mail is taking away from their business and now the State of Georgia is saying E-mail costs 59 cents per second and this is not a rumor!

Also we need to know if anyone in the United States or the world has been prosecuted for this. We need to know for sure that they are setting this dangerous precedent, making me an example and everyone is next. They did not give me an opportunity to just turn the client off, they also said that there was no harm done after they turned it off. How can they call it a felony then and looking for nearly half a million dollars! Please help in any way that you can, whether by E-mails or any other support.

Molecular level transistors

Spencer Kittelson sends us this. Lucent/Bell Labs yesterday announced the fabrication of a molecular level transistor, one with a channel length that is the same size as a single molecule. The effective channel is about .001 micron which is at least two orders of magnitude improvement in existing technology and a full order of magnitude better than any lab technology. If fully implemented on a large scale die, you could fit perhaps 10,000 times more transistors in a given space (which would make for a 400+ billion transistor CPU!). Further, the method of fabrication utilized a bit of "self assembly" techniques which have long been predicted as a requirement for nano scale production. In this case, an organic semiconductor solution is poured onto the chip and the requisite molecules seek out and attach to the first gate contact. Subsequent processing adds the other gate contact. It's an elegant approach with fantastic potential. Go here for the webcast.

AMD at MPF: Hammering Open Bottlenecks

Joel shares info from his hour-long conversation with AMD about the 64-bit Hammer.

AMD Dispels XP Recall Rumour

The AMD Athlon XP has been greeted with essentially universal acclaim since its introduction.  However, a recent rumor surfaced on the enthusiast site, OCWorkBench, alleging that AMD issued a recall on all remaining unsold stocks of Athlon XP's in Taiwan.  Responding to our inquiry, AMD Spokesman Damon Munzy reported that the number two chipmaker "has not recalled any Athlon XP processors" and that shipments of their flagship processor continue to ramp.

Hammer Analysis

AMD's recently announced Hammer bridges the world of PCs with the world of supercomputers.

Intel's Net Income Collapses by 95 Percent
The toll is heavy from Intel's questionable price war with AMD combined with the jellyfish-soft economy. Considering the much higher expenses "Chipzilla," as Intel was famously dubbed by The Inquirer's Mike Magee, incurs from manufacturing the enormous 217 square millimeter Pentium 4, the battle with AMD may have brought the ailing Santa Clara giant temporary wins with some in the media, but the price war has hammered Intel's bottom line. Intel's net income fell a distressing 95% from $2.51 billion to $0.106 billion (coincidentally, its R&D spending will be $0.100 billion dollars less than "previous expectations"). Profits before acquisition-related costs declined by a whopping 77% while gross margins were reported at 47%. Sales declined by 25%, 3% more than its chief rival, AMD, reported.

To compound the chip titan's problems, Intel is having difficulty transitioning production to the Pentium 4 as it fazes out its old CPU stalwart, the much smaller-died Pentium III. To add final insult to injury, AMD has recently released the Athlon XP, a cheaper chip that outperforms Intel's fastest P4, and Intel has recently stated that it must delay its only answer, P4 Northwood, until next year.

VIA Announces Details of New Processors
C5X, C5XL, and P4 socket compatible CZ discussed.  UPDATE: Information regarding the Socket-478 compatibility of CZA was not obtained from Glenn Henry, and Mr. Henry denies the accuracy of this rumor.  We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Press Release: VIA Announces Establishment of new VIA Platform Solutions Division

VPSD to provide VIA’s global customer base with innovative platform solutions for Servers, PCs, and emerging new generation of Information Appliances.

Press Release: AMD To Announce 'Hammer' Architecture Details
AMD's Fred Weber today will disclose architectural details of AMD's next-generation "Hammer" microprocessor architecture at Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, Calif.

Press Release: New AMD Athlon(tm) MP Processors Extend AMD's Performance Leadership In Multiprocessing Server, Workstation Markets
High-performance multiprocessors align with AMD's True Performance Initiative to develop new processor performance metric.

Anthrax

Nils Dahl presents one of the best primers on the dangerous bacteria that I have seen.

AMD Patents

Michael Westman sent in more AMD patent information for your perusal.

Missing Girl Another Internet Hoax?

We tested the email address attached to this story and it is apparently inactive. In our nation’s currently sensitive climate, it is particularly unsavory if this message turns out to be a hoax.  UPDATE: This is indeed a hoax.  Those credentialed at UT who passed this message around, please beware of this fact.

 

Little Girl Missing in Austin, Texas

I am asking you all, begging you to please, forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE. My 9 year old girl, Penny Brown, is missing. She has been missing for now two weeks. It is still not too late, Please help us. If anyone anywhere knows anything, sees anything, please contact me at zicozicozico@hotmail.com. I am including a picture of her. All prayers are appreciated!! It only takes 2 seconds to forward this on, if it was your child, you would want all the help you could get. Please. Thank you for your kindness, hopefully you can help us.

0.13 Micron Intel Pentium 4 Delayed Until Next Year?

Ace’s Hardware is reporting a rumor that Intel’s much needed 0.13-micron replacement to the existing P4 Willamette core will have to be delayed until next year. We have maintained for many months that the new 0.13-micron Pentium 4, code-name “Northwood”, would not launch in quantity until next year despite Intel’s promises otherwise. Combined with emerging rumors of Intel’s existing production problems, AMD’s recently introduced Athlon XP might find significantly less competition than expected for the lucrative Christmas buying season. Intel, infamous for “shooting blanks” after numerous “paper launches” over the last two years, might find itself eating crow instead of turkey this holiday season as its aggressive “pulling ahead” campaign might very well be backfiring. Initial reviews of AMD’s Athlon XP 1800+ shows that the chip currently deserves the performance crown over Intel’s fastest offering and now it appears Intel cannot respond until next year.

Apples and Oranges:  The Cyrix PR Debacle vs. the AMD Athlon Model #

Joel gives us his take on AMD's model rating.

Benchmarks: AMD's New Athlon XP 1800+, Part 2

We continue our review of the Athlon XP with a look at the second important measure of a memory subsystem - bandwidth.

Does prayer really affect things or is it just a bunch of phony baloney?

Could there even be such a thing as metaphysics? Spencer Kittelson sends us these interesting findings.

Press Release: CMTL (Computer Memory Test Labs) Approves Kentron Technologies’ 1-GB, Low Profile, 133-MHz, Registered, ECC DIMM for Intel/STL2 (Tupelo) motherboard

A new CMTL-certified 1-GB, PC133 Dual In-Line Memory Module (DIMM) for 1U, hyper dense and blade server applications is now available from Kentron Technologies.

Press Release: National Scientific Corporation  Announces Equity Line of Credit Now Available  Process

NSCT receives notice that the SEC has declared the Form SB-2 effective which registers shares under the equity line of credit in which Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc. acted as placement agent.

Press Release: National Scientific Corporation Granted CIP Patent On Tunnel Diode Manufacturing Process

NSCT granted Continuation in Process (CIP) Patent #6301147 from the U.S. Patent Office for the manufacturing process of their Tunnel Diode Controlled Memory Products.

Press Release: VIA Technologies Announces Full Support for the AMD Athlon™ XP Processor 1800+
Broad product portfolio dedicated to comprehensive AMD processor support on all platforms

Press Release: AMD Announces Collaboration With Microsoft On Marketing AMD ATHLON(tm) XP Processor And Microsoft(r) Windows(R) XP
Activities to highlight new and improved customer experiences with AMD Athlon(tm) XP and Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP

Press Release: AMD Unveils New AMD ATHLON(tm) XP Processor; Drives Initiative To Develop New Processor Performance Metric
Partners rally around world's highest performance processor for desktop PCs.

Benchmarks: AMD's New Athlon XP 1800+, Part 1

We will have another article or two later today, but this is a starter on memory latency characteristics.

Press Release: AMD Endows W.J. Sanders III Chair in electrical and computer engineering at University of Illinois

AMD announced that W.J. Sanders III, the company's Chairman, CEO and co-founder, has been honored with an endowed chair in electrical and computer engineering at his alma mater, the University of Illinois.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Nils Dahl on the launch of AMD's new product-line.

PC World Shows VIA Reference P4 Chipset Beating Dell Intel i850-based system

The VIA system meets or exceeds the performance of the Dell system in all tests.  Thanks, MJS.

In Defense of AMD's Model Rating System

"AMD's Model Number nomenclature, though not perfect, is a good start.  With it, consumers will have a better idea of the real power of AMD's chips in relation to Intel's."

Florida Anthrax Victim Reported

Bob Stevens, a 63-year old photo editor for The Sun, a popular supermarket tabloid, marks the first case of inhaled (pulmonary) anthrax since 1976. Concerns of a biological attack are raised, as the deadly disease is a common element of biological warfare stockpiles. Health officials, unsure of the source of the anthrax spores, are on the lookout for other cases since the incubation period for the disease ranges from typically seven days to as long as sixty days. Stevens, from Lantana, Florida, had just returned from a trip to North Carolina. He checked into the hospital Tuesday and was initially diagnosed with meningitis. Stevens’ current condition is grave.

Budget Gaming Showdown:  The GeForce2 MX vs. the Kyro II 

Joel reviews budget graphics.

Press Release: AMD Says Third-Quarter Processor Average-Selling Price Decline Was Larger Than Expected

AMD says that sales for third-quarter declined by 22 percent from second-quarter sales of $985.3 million to approximately $766 million.

The Real Reason Intel Canceled the 2GHz Server Xeon

Industry sources have revealed that the real reason behind Intel’s recently canceled 2GHz Xeon server chip was not due to technical issues, but solely attributable to the poor performance of the MPU.  Reportedly OEMs pressured the chip giant to snuff the chip after seeing convincing benchmark results demonstrating that dual 1.2GHz Pentium IIIs soundly and consistently beat dual 2 GHz Xeon servers based on the Willamette core.  The Santa Clara CPU company now plans to accelerate the launch of “Prestonia,” the 0.13 micron server version of the Pentium 4, into early next year.  The first Prestonias are expected to debut at 2.2GHz, the minimum speed necessary, we are told, to reach performance parity with its more established, but much slower-clocked PIII older sibling.  Although Intel could easily introduce 1.5 GHz and perhaps even faster Tualatin PIII’s, the semiconductor firm has locked its fate with the P4 as it attempts to market megahertz over MIPS.

Short Takes: Kensington TurboRing Trackball
A great input device for $10.

Press Release: VIA Announces September Sales Results
VIA Technologies, Inc announces its net sales for September 2001 at about NT$ 2.6 billion (US$ 75 million approximately).

Updated Guest Opinion: A Pacifist’s Plea

Although I subscribe to the Geronimo School of Diplomacy (in fact, my mother is Apache-Cherokee, an odd combination), we received a heartfelt letter from a reader seeking a more peaceful solution to our crisis. The bow-and-arrow in our logo is there for a reason, but as an American I respect any well meaning person brave enough to speak his heart in a time that will bring them criticism.

Press Release: National Scientific Corporation Announces Successful Fabrication of Tunneling Diodes, New Memory
National Scientific Corporation announced today that it has demonstrated tunneling effects in silicon-based diodes labs in Ireland.

Press Release: IBM Launches "High-Powered" Initiative For "Low-Power" Products And Services
EPA Recognizes IBM Mainframe as Industry's First Energy-Efficient Server.

Press Release: AMD Introduces 1.1GHz AMD DURON(tm) Processor For Mainstream PCs
New AMD Duron processor features 3DNow!(tm) Professional technology for enhanced multimedia computing.

On nForce and XP

Nils share his thoughts.

Just Foam 'Em

As our forces risk life and limb, here is Nils' novel strategy.

Guest Opinion: Rebuttal of MSNBC's "Evils of Pacifism"

David Luke dissects the rhetoric and specious logic of manipulative journalism