[TriLUG] AMD and reliability

[Barry Gaskins]

   I read an article a few years back where they removed the heatsink
and cooling fan from an intel processor and an AMD processor and then
ran the computers until it overheated.  Of course both of them
overheated pretty quickly but the intel processor had some type of
thermal sensor that shut down the chip before any permanent damage was
done but the AMD processor lacked anything like that so it self
destructed.
   That was a few years back so AMD may have added such protection in
the latest chips.  I tend to agree though that AMD is currently a
better value.  You can buy a lot of heatsinks and cooling fans to be
sure you don't overheat for the difference in the price of comporable
chips.

   - Barry Gaskins

On 8/3/05, Randall Barlow <rpbarlow at eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
> It makes sense that both AMD and Intel would have similar success rates
> on their chips - these things aren't the sort of thing that typically go
> "bad" once they've made it past the manufacturing stage.  After
> manufacturing, the chip either works or it doesn't, and it is tested in
> the factory with a BIST (Built in Self Test) pin before it goes to
> market to verify against defects.  After that, the only way I can think
> of a chip having problems is heat, which is often times problems with
> the case or cooling systems, and not the chip itself.   Heat usually
> even just causes errors in data and not usually permanent damage, though
> that is possible if the temperature got high enough.  So I wouldn't
> expect reliability differences between AMD and Intel, just performance
> differences since they have different implementations of the ISA...
> 
> Randy Barlow
> 
> Lee Fickenscher wrote:
> 
> > I have to agree with Ken 100%.
> > I have found basically zero difference between the reliability of AMD
> > and Intel. Your choice of motherboard and/or memory is much more
> > likely to affect your stability than your choice of processor.
> > I generally choose AMD just because I feel that they have a better
> > price/performance ratio. They certainly have a better power/
> > performance ratio lately with the exception of the Pentium M, which
> > would probably be the only Intel chip I would choose to use over AMD.
> > -Lee
> 
> 
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