Tom's Hardware Wants Your Help Choosing CPU Tests For 2011

Tom's Hardware wants you, well not literally, but they do want your input as to which tests you'd like to see featured in their updated CPU charts for 2011. That's right if there is a new benchmark, game application or something else out there you'd like to see featured on the new CPU test charts for 2011 now is your chance to tell them and they might just listen!

Here’s the current list of test they'll be featuring:

• Apple iTunes 10.0.1
• TMPG 4.7 with DivX 6.9.2 and Xvid 1.2.2
• MainConcept Reference 2.0
• HandBrake 0.9.4
• Autodesk 3ds Max 2010
• WinRAR 3.92
• 7-Zip 4.65
• Adobe Photoshop CS5
• AVG Anti-Virus 11.0
• 3DMark Vantage
• PCMark Vantage
• SiSoftware Sandra 2010
• Metro 2033
• Just Cause 2
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• DiRT 2

Two things to keep in mind: Tom's would prefer to use free/trial/open source software, making reproducibility an option for as many of our readers as possible and the apps they are going to be willing to use will likely be the ones most applicable to the largest number of readers out there. So don't go all crazy suggesting some lame duck software no one has ever heard of or some totally niche test that only the geekiest of geeks would be willing to try. The have said there 'may' be room for a handful of more fringe tests but I'm sure that doesn't included something totally out there!

Fro more details checkout Tom's Hardware Wants You: CPU Tests For 2011

Tom's Overclocking Competition Begins!

Using everything from liquid nitrogen to water cooling and everything in between, 5 teams of three people from each of the participating countries will be given the chance to break the overclocking world record and win some cash.

The first annual Overdrive Overclocking Championship by Tom’s Hardware, is a worldwide overclocking competition to be held in the United States, Germany, Taiwan, France and Italy. The winners from the preliminary trials in each country will be flown to the finals to be held in Paris, France. There they will get a shot at the grand prize, a $5,000 gift certificate to the online shopping site of the winning team's choice.

“For the preliminary trials, contestants will be using the Intel Core 2 Duo Desktop Processor E8600 and for the finals, the next-generation Core i7 micro architecture from Intel,” said Patrick Schmid, Worldwide Editor-in-Chief of Tom’s Hardware.

“This will be one of the first worldwide overclocking contests where the Intel Core i7 processor, Extreme Edition, will be used," said Schmid.

Everyone is pretty excited to see how for the new Core i7 can be pushed, and I'm sure these guys will push it to the breaking point. So it should be interesting to see how the competition goes. The current Intel world record is listed at the Overclocking World Record Database at 8.2ghz on a P4.

From Tom's Hardware

The New Face Of Tom's Hardware

Our good friends over at Tom's hardware are getting a makeover. As part of the Bestofmedia Group buyout of TG Publishing, the long-time owner of Tom's Hardware, the site will be receiving a face lift and undergoing a few changes.

Anyone whom might happen to visit the site come April 16th will notice a brand new design of the home page.

Click the image to see a larger version.

There will be a new rotating menu on the left side of the page; like the old menu, this one will rotate through a list of articles, showing you a graphic image and brief description for each article. All of the stories will be Tom's Hardware stories there will be separate boxes lower down the page for Tom's Guide and Tom's Games articles.

In this image of the lower part of the page you can see the areas for more Tom's Hardware articles, as well as the boxes for Tom's Guide and Tom's Games articles. You'll also notice links to their popular graphics card and cpu charts, as well as a forum box with a few of the latest posts.


The Desktop VGA Charts

Two of my favorite Tom's pages have to be the Video card charts, and the CPU charts. While the article only discusses the graphics card charts one can assume the other charts will undergo similar changes.

Click the image to see a larger version.

As you can see you'll use the dropdown menu at the bottom of the screen capture to select the benchmark you want to use to compare graphics cards. In a second image you can see the dropdown menu that will be used to select a benchmark. And in the third image you can see the actual benchmarks. You can delete cards from the chart by clicking the red circle with the X inside. Lower down on the page, there is a place where you can add cards back into a chart.

What we can expect

Bestofmedia Group laid out their plans for the future of Tom's Hardware, Gear Digest and TwitchGuru.

Three key ideas were presented.

1. Editorial experts from around the world would benchmark and write about the best and most important new products in the areas covered by each website.
2. All of the Bestofmedia websites around the world would share articles, increasing the number of high quality stories available to all readers.
3. All the websites would be identified by the Tom's trademark.

Tom's Hardware should remain one of the industry leaders in product benchmarks and reviews and Gear Digest will/has become, Tom's Guide and TwitchGuru is now going to be Tom's Games.

For more information on all the changes check out the full article at Tom's Hardware