Toms Hardware Guide, Untrustworthy?

ozt9vdujny3srf

From time to time whiile browsing Boards and in #boards.ie, i have seen various comments that quetion Toms Hardwares validity.

Is there any foundation for this?. Why are theyy so untrustworthy?

Eurorunner

From time to time whiile browsing Boards and in #boards.ie, i have seen various comments that quetion Toms Hardwares validity.

In what respect exactly? No expert on the matter as i dont use Toms that often but on my internet travels, i come accross references to Toms quite a lot when the subject area is hardware. I only call in there when i want to find a review on a piece of hardware or get info to overcome a snag when putting a machine together or making modifications..

Kali

I think its down to the fact that 4 years ago it was one of the better hardware review sites around... with well-written and informative articles. These days with the onset of extensive site advertising one may question the fairness of certain reviews and they're definitely lacking in length and detail compared to a few years previous.

Same was said of anandtech a long time ago.. as always just check out a few sites and don't take any one review as gospel.

BigEejit

Wot Kali said ...

And i would go further to say that nearly all of these review sites get free samples for testing from the manufacturer ... i.e. hand picked, fully populated boards, sometimes with unreleased bioses ...
Most boards bought in the shop/on the web are not fully populated (my new Abit IC7-G is not fully populated) and they will come with rev 1.0 bios ... there are a few sites out there that buy their stuff, cant think/find any at the moment, but they are the best ones to look at for reviews in my opinion....

koneko

Occassionally when you're looking up loads of reviews for something, like the latest graphics cards, Tom's Hardwares results seem to be slightly different from everyone else's. Usually different in favour of their sponsors.

To be honest, I don't like their policies. Anyone that's been reading HardOCP lately will know what I'm talking about. Trying to muscle out other websites (AMDmb) is not a tactic I agree with, especially when they use their lawyers to do it.

There are plenty of good sites out there, and I like reading users reviews aswell (especially from the overclocker community). Tom's Hardware is not one of the sites I put on my list to check. Hardware sites all form a community, no one is under the illusion that their site is the only site people read, so a lot of them get along pretty well. Tom's Hardware don't want to share cake with anyone, and I'm pretty sure they won't be around for a long time with an attitude like that.

Scruff

There was a big huge bust up last year between Tom Pabst (the founder of tomshardware guide) and one of his main journalist\reviwers. It was all over the web tech news\review sites. I remember reading loads on it cause i had been a bg fan of the site a few years ago.
Google it and ye'll probably find out more.
It was a right bitch fight altogether, lots of hissing, pulling of hair and wild alegations all over the shop.
I know a lot of people and other sites turned against tomshardware as a result.

Eurorunner

I only delve into the hardware stuff occasionally...when i have to really..or when i need a product review. Given what you all have suggested above ref. Toms, whats the best independent site for this sort of thing now?

spongebob

the top monitoring website on the web has to be the Mary Hanafin site. She is a wonder.

http://www.maryhanafin.ie/

she got into overclocking and thermal paste reviewing late in life because of her day job that she described in the Dáil as follows on the 4th of March 2003.....

" My role involves monitoring progress in implementing the new action plan on the information society"

As she is a country woman from Tipp (at heart) she is still under the impression that a SPDIF connector is some sort of drug paraphenalia but the woman has come so far recently....

M

po0k

http://www.arstechnica.com/ - excellent site, but I think some o the more meaty stuff is subscriber-only.

Eurorunner

..poor old mary



Cheers for that syxpak...checking it out now.