AMD being smart about who gets a review sample

[xthetenth]

After that and the PcPer guy crying about not getting a sample yet when it turned out nobody had one, I'd love to see a bit firmer evidence to be really sure that it's as they say it is, come to think of it. It's a very heavy allegation, even if it's a good reminder that companies do the right thing not because it is right but because it is profitable.

Really, who cares. AMD or Nvidia or MSI or Asus or Intel or whoever can give samples to whatever sites they want and the remainder can buy their samples. In the end, a KitGuru review has 0 impact on my purchase decisions as do several other sites that give similar borderline mediocre reviews so I'd prefer the samples end up in the hand of more competent reviewers anyway.

There's potential for a chilling effect in the tone of other reviews. It's not good because it could influence other journalists. I'm definitely going to be putting more work into my own analysis and trusting words less this time through.

 

[Skurge]

LOL. No wonder they got the boot. Look at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFWgc8qjQwk

Damn, I'm upset I watched that.

I wouldn't want someone like that touching my products either. Neiher AMD nor Nvidia should send them anything until they can learn to be professional. I don't go to Kitguru often, but this made sure, I don't go there ever.

Who knows if how they say things went down is even accurate.

 

[KingFatty]

Did their youtube video get posted before or after AMD decided not to give them free samples?

 

[Pariah]

But why feed a troll. If KitGuru reviews are influenced by how much free stuff they get they shouldn't even be acknowledge as a reliable review sight.

As I said, someone else will likely send them a sample (for free), so they are going to get one anyway. AMD isn't stopping this site from a potentially negative review, they are just giving them more reason to be negative.

 

[Keysplayr]

Damn, I'm upset I watched that.

I wouldn't want someone like that touching my products either. Neiher AMD nor Nvidia should send them anything until they can learn to be professional. I don't go to Kitguru often, but this made sure, I don't go there ever.

Who knows if how they say things went down is even accurate.

Yeah. Just pretend it was Charlie Demerjian "Lite" talking about Nvidia.

 

[jackstar7]

If Nvidia did this, the forums here would be rolling for months filled with accusations of diabolical, conspiratorial motives.

Nah. The whole 3.5gb thing died down pretty fast, and that was real, not just perceived.

 

[Spanners]

I don't think this is a good move. AMD purposely not sending review cards to sites that have given them poor reviews in the past shows that they do not have confidence in their product to sell themselves to the reviewers. They don't want to risk that sites that aren't afraid to write about any disappointments they might have with the product.
I've seen the very careful use of the word "unfair" in this thread and the OP. This suggests that a negative review is an unfair review. That usually isn't the case.

This is just a single review site that's got on the wrong side of AMD correct? Not some widespread cherry picking? It might be a little churlish but I don't see how it implies some lack of confidence in the product. Titan Z didn't get sent to anyone if recall, which is more indicative of a lack of confidence in a product than this single site being cold shouldered. Not that Nvidia's actions should let AMD off the hook here. I agree with you about it potentially setting a bad precedent, even just the impression that review sites might be hesitant to be completely honest is a bad thing.

 

[Skurge]

Yeah. Just pretend it was Charlie Demerjian "Lite" talking about Nvidia.

I forgot he existed. Thank you for reminding me he does.

 

[RussianSensation]

LOL. No wonder they got the boot. Look at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFWgc8qjQwk

That video was horrible and it's probably what got them out of the reviewer's circle. He made some incorrect statements there saying current gen consoles are limited to 720P, when there are plenty of games on them that run at 900-1080P. While this in itself isn't relevant to Fiji reviews, it shows the reviewer doesn't have technical knowledge in this side matter and yet he tries to portray that he knows what he is talking about.

He also mentions how the reduction in power usage of HBM will mean AMD will allocate more power usage towards the ASIC/GPU itself which he says is worrying to him. This is actually a good thing, not a bad thing since it allows to make a much larger GPU and cram more transistors since when you have enough memory bandwidth, you should use the extra power towards a component that makes the product faster -- and that is the GPU. How he managed to put a negative spin on this is amazing.

He then rips AMD's products for being cheap but then he says he hopes Fiji is cheaper than a 980 (not 980Ti). What?! He also keeps insisting that no way is Fiji going to be competing with the Titan X, and he makes uneducated statements how the entire R9 200 series are re-badges of HD7000 series, from 2011. The only cards that were paper launched in 2011 were 7970/7950 but no HD7700-7800-7900 series was ever for sale in 2011, they only launched Q1 2012, which means they are 3 years old, not 4 years old. Another loss of credibility by fudging up data.

He also talks about how none of R9 200 series were competitive at all which is utter rubbish since R9 270/270X smoked 750/750Ti in gaming, same for 280X and 290 vs. 960 2GB. He also didn't even mention how in the UK one could get much cheaper AMD cards than NV which made a lot of them worth buying.

And he wrote off the entire AMD CPU stack in his GPU preview of AMD's new cards. Digging more negative PR for a product that we shouldn't even hear about in a GPU preview. In essence, by trashing the current consoles, AMD's CPU line-up, the entire R9 200 line-up, it sent a message to AMD that this reviewer doesn't view any of AMD's current products favourably. He then went on to say how 6GB GDDR5 sounds better than 4GB HBM and that implied it would be a lot of work to explain how 4GB HBM is better than 6GB GDDR5.

No wonder AMD decided to drop this site because the reviewer is already being critical without even seeing benchmarks of Fiji. In fact, he spent half of his time comparing Fiji to 980 not 980Ti already shows he has no clue what he is talking about. I can see how AMD didn't feel that he was technically knowledgeable and had too much negative bias towards all AMD products that resulted in him not getting free review samples. The video was cringe-worthy. He should have waited until launch to describe all the different areas of concern he had and IF they had been addressed by Fiji or not. Instead, he preemptively buried the entire R9 300 series and FIji cards with his video. He should have known better to be careful how to phrase things.

 

[Despoiler]

Did their youtube video get posted before or after AMD decided not to give them free samples?

AMD confirmed on June 11 they were sending Kitguru a sample. June 12 Kitguru posted the video. AMD pulled the sample earlier this week.

 

[IEC]

Did their youtube video get posted before or after AMD decided not to give them free samples?

June 11th, AMD was planning to give them review sample and notified them as such.

June 12th, they post that youtube video.

Sometime early this week, events described in OP happen.

Edit: beat by despoiler

 

[coercitiv]

Yes it is. A large company such as AMD should not be worried about this small peanuts type of stuff. Very unprofessional.

Nevertheless, keep in mind you don't care about this type of stuff.

I don't care about that underhanded tactics stuff.To me its the way business is played everyday, isn't it?

I'm a consumer, not the ethics committee.

 

[Skurge]

AMD confirmed on June 11 they were sending Kitguru a sample. June 12 Kitguru posted the video. AMD pulled the sample earlier this week.

Yeah, that video sealed the deal. I imagine it would do the same with most companies.

 

[Spanners]

That video was horrible...

He also seems to be under the impression the Titan X is in a different performance category that GTX 980ti. He said that Fiji may "leapfrog" GTX 980ti but definitely won't do the same for Titan.

 

[Keysplayr]

This is just a single review site that's got on the wrong side of AMD correct? Not some widespread cherry picking? It might be a little churlish but I don't see how it implies some lack of confidence in the product. Titan Z didn't get sent to anyone if recall, which is more indicative of a lack of confidence in a product than this single site being cold shouldered. Not that Nvidia's actions should let AMD off the hook here. I agree with you about it potentially setting a bad precedent, even just the impression that review sites might be hesitant to be completely honest is a bad thing.

Not sending to anyone is far "cleaner" than sending to only the select. And to be fair, TitanZ was a $3000 card. I could understand them not wanting to send out TitanZ to just a few sites without pissing of others. Costly card, even for Nv.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

It's far better to let them do their negative review, and then have the product in reality be very good.

Utter nonsense. This very forum is absolutely convinced the 200 series tanked because of the poor thermal and noise performance of the reference design showcased in multiple reviews, even though buying a reference design was hard a year ago, much less today.

You can't read three posts without someone uttering the "perception is king" mantra.

But hey, AMD should allow someone to slit their throats, because reasons. Right?

 

[Keysplayr]

Utter nonsense. This very forum is absolutely convinced the 200 series tanked because of the poor thermal and noise performance of the reference design showcased in multiple reviews, even though buying a reference design was hard a year ago, much less today.

You can't read three posts without someone uttering the "perception is king" mantra.

But hey, AMD should allow someone to slit their throats, because reasons. Right?

Wow. Umm ok. Perception is king. It's true. I perceive AMD not sending samples to anticipated negative AMD review sites as dishonest. Now I have it in my head. Will always think about this launch with that hanging over AMD's "head". It's what I believe will be the majority's perception as well.
Better for AMD to suck it up and accept the good with the bad and give samples to all reliable NDA honoring sites.

 

[kawi6rr]

That video was horrible and it's probably what got them out of the reviewer's circle. He made some incorrect statements there saying current gen consoles are limited to 720P, when there are plenty of games on them that run at 900-1080P. While this in itself isn't relevant to Fiji reviews, it shows the reviewer doesn't have technical knowledge in this side matter and yet he tries to portray that he knows what he is talking about.

He also mentions how the reduction in power usage of HBM will mean AMD will allocate more power usage towards the ASIC/GPU itself which he says is worrying to him. This is actually a good thing, not a bad thing since it allows to make a much larger GPU and cram more transistors since when you have enough memory bandwidth, you should use the extra power towards a component that makes the product faster -- and that is the GPU. How he managed to put a negative spin on this is amazing.

He then rips AMD's products for being cheap but then he says he hopes Fiji is cheaper than a 980 (not 980Ti). What?! He also keeps insisting that no way is Fiji going to be competing with the Titan X, and he makes uneducated statements how the entire R9 200 series are re-badges of HD7000 series, from 2011. The only cards that were paper launched in 2011 were 7970/7950 but no HD7700-7800-7900 series was ever for sale in 2011, they only launched Q1 2012, which means they are 3 years old, not 4 years old. Another loss of credibility by fudging up data.

He also talks about how none of R9 200 series were competitive at all which is utter rubbish since R9 270/270X smoked 750/750Ti in gaming, same for 280X and 290 vs. 960 2GB. He also didn't even mention how in the UK one could get much cheaper AMD cards than NV which made a lot of them worth buying.

And he wrote off the entire AMD CPU stack in his GPU preview of AMD's new cards. Digging more negative PR for a product that we shouldn't even hear about in a GPU preview. In essence, by trashing the current consoles, AMD's CPU line-up, the entire R9 200 line-up, it sent a message to AMD that this reviewer doesn't view any of AMD's current products favourably. He then went on to say how 6GB GDDR5 sounds better than 4GB HBM and that implied it would be a lot of work to explain how 4GB HBM is better than 6GB GDDR5.

No wonder AMD decided to drop this site because the reviewer is already being critical without even seeing benchmarks of Fiji. In fact, he spent half of his time comparing Fiji to 980 not 980Ti already shows he has no clue what he is talking about. I can see how AMD didn't feel that he was technically knowledgeable and had too much negative bias towards all AMD products that resulted in him not getting free review samples. The video was cringe-worthy. He should have waited until launch to describe all the different areas of concern he had and IF they had been addressed by Fiji or not. Instead, he preemptively buried the entire R9 300 series and FIji cards with his video. He should have known better to be careful how to phrase things.

Another great post by RS, good read!

 

[krumme]

People buy way overpriced nv gpu all the time. Even enthusiast.
This is just small step in ensuring the playing field is leveled and amd can have better margins.
Its about time amd started to act like they were competing against nv. Took them forever.

 

[RussianSensation]

Not sending to anyone is far "cleaner" than sending to only the select. And to be fair, TitanZ was a $3000 card. I could understand them not wanting to send out TitanZ to just a few sites without pissing of others. Costly card, even for Nv.

It's not about that. The comments made in that video are not 100% objective. It wasn't only about Fiji, all his other comments on other products were often incorrect and gross exaggeration of facts. He went on this crazy rant about consoles and AMD's CPUs in a video that has nothing to do with those products.

Do you think a car magazine can publicly rip the entire Porsche, Audi or BMW line-up of cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and then say Oh but we are waiting to review this next model from Porsche, Audi or BMW but considering Mercedes has such amazing products and that Porsche, Audi, BMW had nothing worth buying for the last 4 years, we are highly skeptical. Do you think Porsche, BMW, Audi would want to send review samples?

There is a big difference between stating factual things based on real evidence and doing negative speculation that undermines a new product before it's even out and you haven't even had a chance to review it. Just like he said something along the lines how we are told 4GB of VRAM isn't good enough for 4K. Who is telling him that? NV's marketing PR?

This is a different issue from PCPer which is a 100% NV-biased site. Even recently on Twitter, PCPer says there is no difference in FCAT between AMD and NV. You well know this is 100% incorrect.

http://www.sweclockers.com/test/20216-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-i-sli/5#content

Those project quantum comments make me not trust kitguru either way

They were really idiotic. Not only is he comparing a OSX product to a Windows product, but he made no reference to the fact that the tiny Quantum PC is so much smaller than the Mac and that you can't possibly compare Tahitis in a Mac to Furys in that Quantum PC. He not only ignored performance then, usage model for the products, but also perf/watt. He also went on to say how water-cooling is less reliable without providing any facts to back up that assertion. Ironic indeed considering Apple used water-cooled CPUs in the past before they switched to Intel.

 

[Keysplayr]

Another great post by RS, good read!

Slow your roll there fella.
When someone disagrees with every single solitary point of another, that leaves room for interpretation. RS did not agree with a single point the KitGuru guy made. That is impossible. There was 13 plus minutes of video and the guy covered many topics and some were a little out there, and some were pretty spot on. RS came down on everything the guy said.
It was more or less a huge excuse for AMD not sending KitGuru a card.

 

[Keysplayr]

It's not about that. The comments made in that video are not 100% objective. It wasn't only about Fiji, all his other comments on other products were often incorrect and gross exaggeration of facts. He went on this crazy rant about consoles and AMD's CPUs in a video that has nothing to do with those products.

Do you think a car magazine can publicly rip the entire Porsche, Audi or BMW line-up of cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and then say Oh but we are waiting to review this next model from Porsche, Audi or BMW but considering Mercedes has such amazing products and that Porsche, Audi, BMW had nothing worth buying for the last 4 years, we are highly skeptical. Do you think Porsche, BMW, Audi would want to send review samples?

There is a big difference between stating factual things based on real evidence and doing negative speculation that undermines a new product before it's even out and you have had a chance to review it.

This is a different issue from PCPer which is a 100% NV-biased site. Even recently on Twitter, PCPer says there is no difference in FCAT between AMD and NV. You well know this is 100% incorrect.

http://www.sweclockers.com/test/20216-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-i-sli/5#content



They were really idiotic. Not only is he comparing a OSX product to a Windows product, but he made no reference to the fact that the tiny Quantum PC is so much smaller than the Mac and that you can't possibly compare Tahitis in a Mac to Furys in that Quantum PC. He not only ignored performance then, usage model for the products, but also perf/watt. He also went on to say how water-cooling is less reliable without providing any facts to back up that assertion. Ironic indeed considering Apple used water-cooled CPUs in the past before they switched to Intel.

He did constantly suggest that "things remain to be seen" and "I could be wrong" throughout the video.

 

[krumme]

The ethical line is in no way crossed here. Lying is. As with woodscrews flying around you or calling 3.5GB a feature.
You should be an idiot if you gave gfx to sites that work your competitors case. How stupid is that?
The reviews will be found by google and shared anyway.

 

[Keysplayr]

The ethical line is in no way crossed here. Lying is. As with woodscrews flying around you or calling 3.5GB a feature.
You should be an idiot if you gave gfx to sites that work your competitors case. How stupid is that?
The reviews will be found by google and shared anyway.

Then all initial reviews that were given cards by AMD should be ignored and only sites that buy their own retail cards should be given any credibility for their reviews.
For you to think that no ethical line is being crossed here is itself, unethical.

 

[Grooveriding]

I think it's a good move. There is too much corruption in the review industry as a whole, not just specific to tech. With the advent of the internet it has gotten much worse. We see shills in forums, youtube comments and on social media for every and any product laying astroturf for their employers against the competition. The corrupt reviewers are part and parcel of the overall issue of companies corrupting the review process as well as stealing from sites such as this and others that run forums by using them for free advertising in the form of viral messaging.

I think you have to walk a fine line though and only act in cases so extreme that you can be certain there is something amiss. So it's a problem that can't really be resolved. Somewhat easier to deal with review sites as they are a larger entity and there are far fewer of them. Run a search for x product in any category with review following it and the first several page hits are usually complete garbage and give results that are blatant advertisements.

It's always going to be difficult to keep reviewers clean with the way the product producers offer them free enticements all the time. I see this in my field and the approach pharmaceutical companies take in trying to push their latest happy pill by offering all sorts of significant freebies to get their samples pushed around.