Inconsistent reviews between Anandtech and Tom's Hardware

[Diesel]

I recently read through Anand's revies of the Abit KT7-RAID and the Asus A7V , as well as the full Socket A motherboard roundup , and Anand gave the nod to the Abit, showing that it was better at overclocking and both boards were very close in benchmarks.

Based on that roundup, and Tom's Hardware's lack of any decent Socket A motherboard reviews, I purchased a KT7-RAID board. When I received it, I was very impressed with some of the features.

Today, I check Tom's Hardware to find that there is now a review of 10 Socket A boards , with some strange inconsistencies.

First, Tom reviews the Abit KT7 as having only ATA66, while the board actually comes with ATA100.
Second, he reviews the Asus as "the only manufacturer in our test that includes an adapter cable for the three additional USB ports, so you can actually use them", whereas my Abit came with a connector for an additional 2 USB ports in addition to the 2 ATX spec ports, something that was omitted from the Abit review.
Third, Tom's benchmarks almost directly contrast the findings of Anand's, again with inconsistencies.

• Here , the Asus leads, and the Abit is middle of the pack.
  
• Here , the Asus again leads, with the Abit still middle of the pack.
  
• Yet, here , in a benchmark that supposedly "shows the sequence of the game benchmarks", the Asus is in front (as expected), while the Abit, inexplicably, trails every other motherboard.

I'm not sure if this is just bad reviewing or blatant bias, but something don't smell right.

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spidergoolash: "heh, a cup of diesel dan - mwahhha"
me: "heh, a cup of me is like a cup of heaven!"

 

[WaterB]

Tom's rep has been tarnished over the last yr or so. I'd suggest you look at some more reviews. Reviews are posted at Aceshardware.com, arstechnica.com, firingsquad.com.. etc.

From what i've been hearing from people on IRC, the KT7 is a better board, it does come w/ ATA-100 but a cheaper version is also out that does not have ATA-100. I have no idea about the USB since IMO.. it's a POS..

 

[Diesel]

What's a POS? USB?

Personally, I find that it sucks too many CPU cycles, but it works better than the alternative for some devices, namely printers (better than LPT, not Ethernet), webcams, and digital photo transfers.

Basically, it's not good for keyboards and mice, but it's better for things that use either parallel or serial interfaces.


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spidergoolash: "heh, a cup of diesel dan - mwahhha"
me: "heh, a cup of me is like a cup of heaven!"

 

[WaterB]

i just wish they'd skip over USB 2.0 and go over to firewire.. USB2.0's getting big.. IBM's been having convocations for different manufactuers explaining and giving the specs of it.. bah...

 

[Diesel]

Firewire is already fading from the scene, with everyone trying to avoid the licensing fees by coming up with their own semi-proprietary solutions, such as Sony's i-Link.

I wouldn't count on Firewire catching on anytime soon, since it's still only being utilized in a VERY limited range of products.
Other than a few external hard drives, and some digital video cameras, I can't think of any decent implementations of the interface. Even on hard drives, the price is so ridiculous that it becomes prohibitive to use it that way. Even SCSI hard drives are cheaper, and offer better performance.

This is not to say that USB doesn't have it's problems: it does! But Firewire is not the solution that many industry folks made it out to be.
I expect it will hit the end of it's lifeline in about 5 years, at which point, it will fade into obscurity along with all of the other "technologically better, but inefficiently marketed" standards.

----------------------------
spidergoolash: "heh, a cup of diesel dan - mwahhha"
me: "heh, a cup of me is like a cup of heaven!"