Crazyhorse bracht me naar deze nieuwe Blurb van Ome Tom, waarin hij dit keer een verhaal vertelt over de andere kant van AMD. Volgens Tom is AMD namelijk helemaal niet zo'n lievertje zoals velen denken. Gebruikers werden volgens Tom niet genoeg op de hoogte gesteld van de Irongate / GeForce bug. Daarnaast zou AMD "Super Bypass" als een nieuwe feature introduceren, terwijl het eigenlijk gewoon een bugfix is. Intel is daarentegen veel opener, die vindt het helemaal niet erg om haar blunders en fouten openbaar te verkondigen .
Now as if this wasn't ridiculous enough already, AMD is leaving all retail-buyers of Athlon-processors and Irongate-boards out in the rain. The two large OEMs that are shipping significant quantities of Athlon-systems (you may guess their names, it's not exactly difficult) are of course aware of the Irongate/GeForce-issue and they actually like GeForce as well. Obviously they disagree with AMD's above opinion and intend on running GeForce at AGP2x, just as it is supposed to be. What is the result? Those two OEM's are using some custom made motherboards that don't have the AGP2x-bug and so they can offer their Athlon-systems with a GeForce -card that is actually working at AGP2x and thus under the specifications that AMD claims on its website. Of course nobody of the poor retail-customers is supposed to know about it, because it could blemish Athlon's and thus AMD's reputation. Maybe we should ask AMD if they agree with Michael Dell at least on some part of what he recently said in an interview. Dell claimed that everyone who exchanges parts inside his PC (as the retail-buyer obviously does) is at the 'lunatic fringe'. Obviously AMD doesn't feel like caring too much for us lunatics and so we may continue to buy motherboards that don't fully live up to AMD's AGP2x-specifications, although AMD is aware that there is a fix for that problem. The OEM's get that fix, but of course they are more important. Money talks, and the money of retail buyers is just as good as the money of the obviously more demanding and less lunatic OEM-customers. So why not take it? Officially the problem is played down by subtly putting NVIDIA at fault and claiming that AMD's marvelous 'internal testing' proved that it doesn't matter anyway. Back where I come from we call this 'sweeping something under the rug'. I wonder what you think.