AMD Nano Blacklist Situation

[coercitiv]

Meanwhile, one of the blacklisted sites does exactly what I wrote about earlier in the thread, publishes opinion pieces to tarnish AMDs reputation: it's a straight up attack against both a person and his employer, which ironically shows AMDs PR having a firm yet non-combative attitude.

Short term, PR disaster for AMD. Long term, business disaster for [H] and any other publishers who follow suit with this kind of extortion.

 

[96Firebird]

Could someone clarify what aspect of not providing sample card to a review website is anti consumer? Is it because the review website itself is considered a consumer? or are consumers suffering harm because they will miss the review that would have happened if the card were given for free?

I'm struggling with this because I could see one side being that it's preventing biased review, which helps the consumers? Like stopping a bad surgeon from killing patients, or a bad teacher from mis-educating children... aren't those pro consumer?

Review sites that received the cards may be swayed not to give a negative review, even if it is deserved, for fear of not receiving a card in the future.

Not a good move.

 

[Glo.]

AMD blacklisted sites because of their deliberate shills, and trouncing AMD for... everything. AMD does not provide any "specific" guide for reviewers that they have to strictly follow or they will not get another sample of AMD GPU. All AMD wants is fairness. And that is not the case of Techpowerup, HardOCP, and the rest.


They are not Nvidia .

 

[coercitiv]

Review sites that received the cards may be swayed not to give a negative review, even if it is deserved, for fear of not receiving a card in the future.

Not a good move.

It doesn't work that way.

• If they give AMD unworthy positive reviews, Nvdia will take notice, and react. STRONGLY.
• If all they do is give positive reviews so that both companies are happy, readers will take notice and react (leave)

This measure, the way it is applied right now, resets the relationship between GPU manufacturers and online publishers: the only way left to have a positive relationship with both companies is to review them fairly, otherwise either one of them may end up cutting you out from early reviews.

PS: sure, combined with enough financial pressure, this kind of tactic can also be used to sway reviews in your favor. But AMD and financial might... is an oxymoron.

 

[BFG10K]

Could someone clarify what aspect of not providing sample card to a review website is anti consumer? Is it because the review website itself is considered a consumer? or are consumers suffering harm because they will miss the review that would have happened if the card were given for free?

It's a form of media censorship. The newly created artificial barrier for those sites (i.e. normally they get a card, now they don't) means they're less likely to produce a review. No review = silenced.

If they do produce a review (i.e. they buy a card) and it's bad, their credibility is automatically questioned ("you're just mad because you didn't a free sample!").

I'm struggling with this because I could see one side being that it's preventing biased review, which helps the consumers? Like stopping a bad surgeon from killing patients, or a bad teacher from mis-educating children... aren't those pro consumer?

"Bad / biased" is opinion and should be up to the consumer to make their own choice using as much information as possible. Stopping a surgeon from killing someone is not opinion, it's a universal fact.

 

[96Firebird]

It doesn't work that way.

• If they give AMD unworthy positive reviews, Nvdia will take notice, and react. STRONGLY.
• If all they do is give positive reviews so that both companies are happy, consumers will take notice and react (leave)

This measure, the way it is applied right now, resets the relationship between GPU manufacturers and online publishers: the only way left to have a positive relationship with both companies is to review them fairly, otherwise one will end up cutting you out from early reviews.

Nvidia would not react at all. They are not a reactionary company, and they rarely publicly speak about their competition.

If they were to react to unworthy positive reviews, they would be seen as whining.

And I believe you don't understand how review sites work. They work on page hits. They don't get most of their hits from regular members. People "leaving" a review site don't actually leave, they still read the reviews. Sometimes, as seen on this forum, people claim they don't like a review site for whatever reason, and then they are seen linking to a review from that site that just so happens to agree with their opinion. Crazy how they found it, even after leaving. :sneaky:

In other words, it doesn't work the way you believe it does (or should).

Edit -

PS: sure, combined with enough financial pressure, this kind of tactic can also be used to sway reviews in your favor. But AMD and financial might... is an oxymoron.

Review sites don't need financial pressure. Like I said before, they work on page hits. That is why getting a review up as early as possible is best for them. And another reason why not getting a card to review is detrimental to them. Which is, I suspect, why each site that didn't get a card have put up some article on the Nano. So when people do a search, their website comes up with a hit.

 

[Goatsecks]

I wonder if anandtech had to negotiate to get 1920x1080 results in there.

Offtopic: is AMD in a position to licence HBM? Is that not the privilege of SK-Hynix since it is their tech (but with AMD hardware first showcasing it)?

 

[BFG10K]

Freesync makes perfect sense since it's easy to adopt and as a result many monitor makers have done so which is a further incentive to purchase an AMD product now since you have tons of monitor options.

Uh-huh. So what happens if nVidia decides to suddenly support freesync? They can do so at any time as they have zero barrier to entry. The tech is available on a silver platter.

Then they can market "more options" by supporting gsync and freesync side by side. AMD can't because gsync isn't free or open.

So once again AMD loses while nVidia continues to profit from gsync while getting freesync for free.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

The strangest thing is they did give pcper a sample, but not techpowerup, techreport and hardocp.

 

[Spanners]

Meanwhile, one of the blacklisted sites does exactly what I wrote about earlier in the thread, publishes opinion pieces to tarnish AMDs reputation: it's a straight up attack against both a person and his employer, which ironically shows AMDs PR having a firm yet non-combative attitude.

Short term, PR disaster for AMD. Long term, business disaster for [H] and any other publishers who follow suit with this kind of extortion.

Seems in the light of that rant disguised as an article they made the right call not sending them anything. I was a bit embarrassed reading it to be honest.

 

[coercitiv]

Nvidia would not react at all. They are not a reactionary company, and they rarely publicly speak about their competition.

If they were to react to unworthy positive reviews, they would be seen as whining.

Who said anything about public reaction?

And I believe you don't understand how review sites work. They don't get most of their hits from regular members. People "leaving" a review site don't actually leave, they still read the reviews. Sometimes, as seen on this forum, people claim they don't like a review site for whatever reason, and then they are seen linking to a review from that site that just so happens to agree with their opinion. Crazy how they found it, even after leaving. :sneaky:

In other words, it doesn't work the way you believe it does (or should).

If you ever want to know what I believe, why don't you just ask instead of projecting? So far you've just told me review sites make the same amount of money whether they make up reviews or they publish honest data. Is this truly your stand?

Review sites don't need financial pressure. Like I said before, they work on page hits. That is why getting a review up as early as possible is best for them. And another reason why not getting a card to review is detrimental to them. Which is, I suspect, why each site that didn't get a card have put up some article on the Nano. So when people do a search, their website comes up with a hit.

You just described one mechanism a review site gets to feel financial pressure: getting cut out from early reviews diminishes their revenue stream and decreases their relevance.

But just as I said, AMD cannot afford to do this long-term in order to sway reviews in their favor without merit: they can only do this to level the playing field, anything more woud end up hurting them (lack of exposure).

 

[Genx87]

Nope: http://wccftech.com/amd-squashes-rumors-hbm-ip-licensing-fees-memory-standard-free/

• “AMD is not involved in collecting any royalties for HBM,” said Iain Bristow, a spokesman for AMD. “We are actively encouraging widespread adoption of all HBM associated technology on [Radeon R9] Fury products and there is no IP licensing associated."

Giving stuff away for free so competitors can take advantage of it is great for consumers. Meanwhile, AMD continues to bleed and shrink. So from a purely business standpoint, it's an extremely poor decision.


My argument is that all of them should be getting a cut, just like nVidia gets a cut from gsync.

I dont think it is as bad a business decision as you may believe. AMD needs more than AMD to adopt HBM for the cost of the product to drop as more manufactuers jump on board. If only AMD used HBM, the range of manufacturers would be less, production would be less, cost would be higher.

 

[96Firebird]

If you ever want to know what I believe, why don't you just ask instead of projecting? So far you've just told me review sites make the same amount of money whether they make up reviews or they publish honest data. Is this truly your stand?

Reading comprehension not your strong suit, huh... Try again, this time read and really try to comprehend what I said.

I believe you can do it!

 

[Headfoot]

If I sold products, and sent them to people, and certain people made demonstrably false conclusions about my products, I too would stop sending them free things.

I don't see how this is any worse than when nvidia threw that party on the aircraft carrier and buttered up all the reviewers. The stick vs the carrot. Its just part of business

 

[Genx87]

I dont know if this is a long term good idea. They are artificially limiting their exposure while pissing off the people who can promote their products the best.

And this can go the other way with the reviewers who recieve a free card. Their reviews are required to be glowing or the next cards don't arrive. It will create a cooling effect within the media. Do we want reviews of cards? Or do we want advertisements paid for by the manufacturers? I can go to AMD or Nvidia.com to read about how great their products are today. I dont need to read about it on some 3rd party review site.

Anyways feels like a cutting off the nose to spite the face reaction by AMD.

 

[geoxile]

Meanwhile, one of the blacklisted sites does exactly what I wrote about earlier in the thread, publishes opinion pieces to tarnish AMDs reputation: it's a straight up attack against both a person and his employer, which ironically shows AMDs PR having a firm yet non-combative attitude.

Short term, PR disaster for AMD. Long term, business disaster for [H] and any other publishers who follow suit with this kind of extortion.

Now, I think that explanation is a lie at this point given Roy Taylor’s public statements. I would go so far as to point out that AMD sampled a Nano card to HardForum member (Elmy) so that he could post the build in our own forums! (Which I have since removed. Given that our community does not have a Nano focus.) I was fine with our "Nano-less" review state before I read what Roy Taylor had to say this week. I asked and included Roy in on the email chain with Antal.

What in the world?

 

[AtenRa]

HOCP dug their own graves the moment they put the blame to AMD for the GW titles. And now they lost any credibility with that masterpiece.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Seems in the light of that rant disguised as an article they made the right call not sending them anything. I was a bit embarrassed reading it to be honest.

You should read the discussion at the H forums for good laughs too. I can't fathom what to make of it, are they all blind, just a bunch of teenagers, or worse - menchildren, it's rare to see such a cesspool outside of 4chan.

 

[Dribble]

Read the anandtech review comments, it's full of "I won't look at this card till I get a full set of reviews, especially the ones AMD didn't give cards too". This was a stupid by AMD :

1) their PR bloke basically saying sites are biased, way to upset a lot of journalists who sell your cards whether AMD like it or not. He didn't need to open his mouth like that, just don't give them the card and keep quiet.

2) do this for the nano. Of all cards why this one? They will probably only make about 1000 of them in total and they will have negligible influence on AMD's bottom line. Why burn all your bridges to get more favorable reviews out in the first week when you can only sell about 100 of them as that's all you have.

Really so obviously fighting all the people who help you sell your cards is stupid, it just means everyone assumes your card must be rubbish as that's why you wouldn't hand it out (because you know if nano had rocked AMD would have given everyone one). In addition you alienate yourself to fans of each of the forums you accused of bias, a significant % of the high end gpu community. Whether you think the [H] community are all *menchildren* or not they have deep wallets and buy gpu's - really really dumb then to make them all hate you, especially for such a minor niche card as nano.

Off topic: AMD charging Nvidia for HBM - they can't, they have a cross licensing agreement with Nvidia. This is exactly the sort of thing it stops.

 

[coercitiv]

I dont know if this is a long term good idea. They are artificially limiting their exposure while pissing off the people who can promote their products the best.

It's not a long-term idea, and it's not about strong-arming anyone. If anything, AMD will have to be very careful and patient.

They already patched up things with TR, and they will likely do so with anyone who doesn't outright attack them.

Update 10:02 PM 9/9/25: I just received a very nice phone call from AMD's Roy Taylor. He apologized for his earlier comments on Twitter and says he doesn't think The Tech Report's reviews are unfair. He seems like a decent guy with perhaps a too-strong personality, and I can relate to that. So all is forgiven from my point of view. Thanks to everybody for their support. Here's hoping we can put this bit of unpleasantness behind us and move on to happier things.

Meanwhile, surprise surprise, other market players used the same tactic before:

Most recent high profile case is that Intel "cut us off" on the Haswell-E launch. I went ahead and sourced the hardware though non-Intel channels and did the review and published it 3 days before Intel's embargo date.

Intel pulled support on that CPU because it was very unhappy with the previous review of the predecessor CPU.

You would imagine [H] having a virulent reaction to that move as well...

The new Haswell-E processor is a great piece of engineering and technology from Intel. I am extremely happy to see that it did not let the marketing department run off at the mouth this time around as well. Most of Intel's technology does better at the introduction without a plume of BS being pumped in from behind. However, the most of us would never see an advantage to using it on our normal daily desktops, especially for gaming.


For those of us that crush and encode all sort of content, or get into all sorts of huge file image manipulation, we will likely see some noticeable improvements in our workflow times though. The new Haswell-E and X99 Express Chipset team up to make a formidable desktop computer system ready to take on just about anything you can throw at it. Of course, get ready to throw your cash first! And I will bet that your LGA 1366 guys that have been hanging on will be some of the first with your wallets out.

Editor's Choice. Gold Award.

 

[Attic]

Sounds like a consumer problem.



But I could be giving way to much responsibility/credit/value to the consumer. Ultimately they are spending the money.

It looks like manipulating the consumer, due to their willing ignorance, is the most profitable maneuver for these companies.



Truly independent review sites would help solve a lot of this by eradicating deceptions and misinformation pushed by the GPU makers along with bribes/threats/demands to review sites.



Hard to see how AMD's new method here benefits gamers, nVidia's methods have not IMO benefited gamers.

 

[sm625]

I dont know... it could be that AMD simply cannot afford to give away more than a few Nanos. Sorry to say it but at this point a single $600 card represents a significant portion of AMD's profits!

 

[R0H1T]

I dont know... it could be that AMD simply cannot afford to give away more than a few Nanos. Sorry to say it but at this point a single $600 card represents a significant portion of AMD's profits!

Yeah wonder why [H] & TPU didn't even consider that as a possibility, then they go on full rant mode the next day :awe:

 

[Piroko]

I'm sort of okay with them not sending everyone free review cards, based on a couple of points:

It's their decision whom to send stuff, it's free review stuff with a contract after all. If they go too far though we'll be seeing more sites buy their own cards and be very thorough with testing, which isn't that bad either. That's called independent review and is often the best kind of review.

--
Personally I've thought that the amount of free samples that both companies sent out got out of hands a couple of years ago. Especially Nvidia (and their partners), I've seen youtube reviews of free stuff that got barely 1k views in the first week. That's not going to impress me, that's not free stuff, those are items that the buyers have to pay for.

Especially the Titan Z did a full blown Ferrari launch (give away 150 Ferraris, sell another 150 for twice the price each). That may work with youngsters who need to impress folks at all costs, but not with me. Create value with your products' worth, not your marketings' worth. I'll only make fun of you, especially if your Ferrari gets outlapped by a much cheaper and, well, less vulgar car.

Drifted away a bit, I guess. But definitely relevant to both companies imho.

 

[Phynaz]

AMD blacklisted sites because of their deliberate shills, and trouncing AMD for... everything. AMD does not provide any "specific" guide for reviewers that they have to strictly follow or they will not get another sample of AMD GPU. All AMD wants is fairness. And that is not the case of Techpowerup, HardOCP, and the rest.


They are not Nvidia .

All the above is BS.

1. AMD certainly does include reviewer guides with their review units. Do you need me to post one?

2. You are saying Tech Report isn't fair. That's flat out wrong.

3. You're right, they aren't Nvidia. Which has nothing to do with this issue and is just trolling.