ZDNet's Technical Director, George Ou, has called the latest round of pre-release Barcelona performance data by AMD, blatantly deceptive, cherry-picked and simply wrong.
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ZDNet Technical Director calls shens on latest Barcelona performance figures
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This will be an interesting thread, I think.
Shenanigans.
If that's what you're inquiring about.
". . .so outrageous that it's criminal" and ". . no intention of behaving honestly or ethically" are the kind of statements that can get you introduced to gentlemen in $1,000 suits with shark smiles. I wonder if AMD will try, like Nvidia did with FM long ago, to pressure a softening of that language, or decide to leave well enough alone.
If he'd said, as he should have IMO, that it OUGHT to be criminal, he'd be expressing his point of view. As it is he's said something that very well may be actionable, regardless of whether it's actually acted upon.
And let's not rehash 2003, but that's an awfully simplistic view of what happened.
You're right, it's not a conditional but my question still stands. Why do you need a qualifier in there at all? I know jack squat about libel law but I just find it amusing that someone could be sued because they didn't explicitly state that what they are saying is an opinion. Considering the definition of an opinion and all....
Because there are actual objective standards to reference re "criminal", so by using that word he's arguably acting with a reckless disregard for the truth, which is one of the standards for libel. Unless, of course, he can show it to be criminal by pointing at the relevant law that's been broken.
FM by using "cheating" (which it seems to me while a nasty word is less nasty than "criminal"), actually was in a somewhat better position legally as it would have been very hard for NV to have shown that FM acted with reckless disregard to an objective standard as to what constitutes "cheating".
Tho this is all academic --I don't actually expect a suit from AMD over this. Just moderately surprised that ZDnet didn't have a paid weasal add a few out clauses to the language that really wouldn't have weakened the point they were making at all.
FM by using "cheating" (which it seems to me while a nasty word is less nasty than "criminal"), actually was in a somewhat better position legally as it would have been very hard for NV to have shown that FM acted with reckless disregard to an objective standard as to what constitutes "cheating".
Tho this is all academic --I don't actually expect a suit from AMD over this. Just moderately surprised that ZDnet didn't have a paid weasal add a few out clauses to the language that really wouldn't have weakened the point they were making at all.
Well, George Ou at first suggested that those results were just made up by the marketing at AMD after they had to admit the low launch clocks. Not true. These numbers were advertised in April, when they were correct ones, as 1. Intel introduced the 3GHz Xeon 5365 later, 2. the better benchmark results for Intel that he took for his comarison also were submitted later. Anyway, also "leaving these numbers posted on AMD's website is blatantly wrong". Oh well.
The other objection, so that there will be no 2.6 GHz Barcelona short term is perhaps a more good point.
But let's look how he resolves the situation: by taking the most recent (and best to date) results on Intel's part. Fine. Let's jut ignore the fact those are produced using a newer complier with significant performance improvements... (And say the difference is because of - what else - AMD's deliberate misinformation action.) I would think making a comarison using results with the older compiler for both is still more correct, as a compiler probably affects both sides similarly, so the ratios remain relatively intact...
The other objection, so that there will be no 2.6 GHz Barcelona short term is perhaps a more good point.
But let's look how he resolves the situation: by taking the most recent (and best to date) results on Intel's part. Fine. Let's jut ignore the fact those are produced using a newer complier with significant performance improvements... (And say the difference is because of - what else - AMD's deliberate misinformation action.) I would think making a comarison using results with the older compiler for both is still more correct, as a compiler probably affects both sides similarly, so the ratios remain relatively intact...
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