AMD being smart about who gets a review sample

[tential]

Those project quantum comments make me not trust kitguru either way

 

[bystander36]

I trust the review sites which scrutinize the things that are important to me. Everyone is different, with different most important features and most annoying problems. All these sites focus on different things, and it is up to us to know what things matter to us. Noise, performance, ease of use or lack of certain types of broken features matters to me. Some people worry about TDP, and could care less about noise.

I personally want to see reviews from all types, even those who are biased. As you read them all, you can get an overall sense on where a card stands with what matters to you.

 

[happy medium]

Those project quantum comments make me not trust kitguru either way

I think AMD engineers should stop worrying about a box that won't sell and make a cpu and gpu that's fast under 200 watts! :thumbsup:

 

[IEC]

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

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

 

[Stormflux]

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

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

Wow, I regret giving this video an extra view. This is a horrible video. Rumour monger pandering by an entitled 'Tech Journalist'.

Edit: I hope full reviews come out soon. AMD really mistep by not having reviews ready as soon as their conference at E3 ended. If they were already selective in who gets review samples, this wait for reviews should not have happened. AMD PR/Marketing team still needs lots of work.

 

[xthetenth]

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

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

I love the long rant that's just trying to get people to not consider Fury as a possible competitor to the 980 Ti. It's beyond farce and totally ruins any credibility they had to me. Compare to their 770 review which had no rants about how it was dishonest and customers had to look out to avoid getting scammed because age and not performance is what people buy. There was also no drawn out wishing session that the Titan would beat the 7970 GHz when it was obvious it would perform much better.

But at the end of the day, this is awful and badly handled from AMD's side and a reminder that companies are not your friend and they are not your team. One being bad does not make the other good. Always tread carefully with them and make sure they feel they have to respect you.

 

[happy medium]

But at the end of the day, this is awful and badly handled from AMD's side

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

Mabe they needed something to take the focus of no hdmi 2.0 on there Fury card?

 

[96Firebird]

I wonder if techpowerup will get anything, since they are the ones that consistently put out those nice perf/watt charts. I bet AMD favors the sites that put out fps/dollar charts. Too bad there arent many of those...

Uhh... TPU has perf/$ charts.

 

[Ajay]

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

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

Despoiler already posted this above, but yes, KitGuru lost their minds in posting this video.

 

[Spanners]

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

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

Wow, that was painful.

 

[Abwx]

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

Yes, very unprofessional to send cards to trolls, i guess that it s fixed now..

 

[Meekers]

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

Fair is fair, I agree with this. Especially since AMD did not point to any specific incident. Having seen the video that was linked later I can kind of understand the decision. However, this is an incredibly risky move from AMD and I think their generic response about sending it to places that are 'more positive' makes them look very bad.

If they wanted to do this they should have mentioned specific instances that they thought Kitguru was unfairly biased and left it at that. That they would even mention they want reviews to be positive to get samples is a big no-no in my book.

 

[xthetenth]

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

Lol. Take a second to look at Apple. Now there's a big company that puts huge effort into image control.

Or do me a favor and find the FCAT reviews from [H], PcPer and other sites on Maxwell SLI and come up with the solitary Guru3d review that claims technical errors caused the same things AMD got pilloried for.

AMD's also a bunch of bad evil corporate jerks which is hardly new or unusual, but they're just not good at it.

 

[Keysplayr]

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.

 

[ocre]

I wonder if techpowerup will get anything, since they are the ones that consistently put out those nice perf/watt charts. I bet AMD favors the sites that put out fps/dollar charts. Too bad there arent many of those...

That would be pathetic. Really freaking pathetic.

I trust the review sites which scrutinize the things that are important to me. Everyone is different, with different most important features and most annoying problems. All these sites focus on different things, and it is up to us to know what things matter to us. Noise, performance, ease of use or lack of certain types of broken features matters to me. Some people worry about TDP, and could care less about noise.

I personally want to see reviews from all types, even those who are biased. As you read them all, you can get an overall sense on where a card stands with what matters to you.

+1

Exactly!!!

I really wonder about people who don't do this.

U have to look at the good and the bad and draw your own conclusion.
AMD is trying to control the media. Cherry picking.
Yet people will go on and pretend that AMD is noble and all things good.

 

[Pariah]

Dumb move to do this to any site big enough to be able to source the hardware from somewhere else. They won't have it launch day, but I'm sure they'll be able to get a sample from someone. Then half the review will be trashing AMD for their marketing tactics and the review of the hardware itself will likely end up even more harsh than usual. AMD gains absolutely nothing positive from this.

 

[Keysplayr]

You would not be. Its far more like that they do than that they don't. If you are willing to claim nvidia sends out samples to every single site out there that might review a card then go ahead. If you agree that they don't then there must be some method they use to decide which ones not to send to.

You are wrong... basically. Cry.

nvidia does something "wrong" in the sense that its morally wrong or unfair or something. Being bashed for those things is fine.

Hmm. Lets examine your theory here. Can you name some sites that usually write favorable reviews for AMD?

 

[xthetenth]

I really wonder about people who don't do this.

U have to look at the good and the bad and draw your own conclusion.
AMD is trying to control the media. Cherry picking.
Yet people will go on and pretend that AMD is noble and all things good.

Yeah, this is really scummy and bad. It's a good reminder that just because NV continually does shady things, they don't have a monopoly, and every company given the chance will try and pull one over on the consumer.

One side's misdeeds do not excuse another, and two wrongs don't make a right especially when the customer gets the worst of it each time.

 

[Azix]

Hmm. Lets examine your theory here. Can you name some sites that usually write favorable reviews for AMD?

I don't know any. But not sure your post is relevant to what I said.

For people saying its a bad move, I think their mistake was giving a reason rather than just some canned excuse. Neither AMD nor nvidia have samples for every site and if a site loses trust then they get kicked. AMD was being too nice giving a reason like that. Maybe in the hope of the site improving its objectivity, but THAT can backfire.

The actual decision to withhold a sample and send elsewhere is not shady in the least. It's simple common sense to do that if a site is not objective.

 

[Elixer]

If you are giving out samples then influence is a factor. Review sites are not guaranteed anything from any hardware manufacturer. If they don't want AMD or Nvidia pulling their gear because of their reporting they have to option to go out and buy the gear themselves. Consumer Reports buys 100% of the items they test so there is no actual or perceived taint of bias/influence. That's the way rigorous science needs to be done. All of the computer hardware review sites out there can have their integrity challenged for this reason.

Exactly.
Right now, all these "review" sites make their $$$ by getting clicks, and they want all the freebies they can get so they can have more clicks, and generate more $$$.

If they were forced to *gasp* actually go out and buy the products they "review", then, they wouldn't feel like they have to make excuses on reviews (*cough*970*cough*memory) to keep the company that sent them said product happy to keep sending them more free stuff, and instead, would lay it out like it is--well, that is if they are being honest.

Crying about not getting XYZ for free is pathetic, go out and buy it and then do a proper unbiased review.

 

[Mondozei]

There was a reddit thread about this on r/pcgaming.

Basically KitGuru pre-emptively decided to trash the R9-300 series as a joke. It turns out that the top card ran even with GTX 980 and sometimes even beat it. In some games it was a 20% improvement over 290X, something that can't only be nailed to "overclocking".

But KitGuru was lazy and didn't want to wait for hardware, they bashed it ahead of time.

Honestly, AMD's move is not a good PR move but KitGuru are absolutely guilty of excessive and frankly just plain lazy negativity of a product that they didn't even test before.

 

[bfun_x1]

Dumb move to do this to any site big enough to be able to source the hardware from somewhere else. They won't have it launch day, but I'm sure they'll be able to get a sample from someone. Then half the review will be trashing AMD for their marketing tactics and the review of the hardware itself will likely end up even more harsh than usual. AMD gains absolutely nothing positive from this.

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.

 

[Keysplayr]

I don't know any. But not sure your post is relevant to what I said.

For people saying its a bad move, I think their mistake was giving a reason rather than just some canned excuse. Neither AMD nor nvidia have samples for every site and if a site loses trust then they get kicked. AMD was being too nice giving a reason like that. Maybe in the hope of the site improving its objectivity, but THAT can backfire.

The actual decision to withhold a sample and send elsewhere is not shady in the least. It's simple common sense to do that if a site is not objective.

Ah, relevance. Nevermind. If you didn't know the first answer, then there isn't any point going on with this. Thanks.

 

[Jhatfie]

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.

 

[tviceman]

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.

I'm willing to bet that hardware review sites putting out 3-4 reviews per week on various hardware get the vast majority of all their review samples for FREE. If sites had to pay for all the hardware they review, there would be way less reviews and way less sites that review hardware.