Anandtech GPU reviews

[AiponGkooja]

They hardly ever seem to compare different cards at the SAME clock speeds, so what the hell is the point of their tests that say "The card that we overclocked more does better than the ones that we didn't overclock as much"

Just something that has been bothering me about all of their 7800gtx reviews, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Peace,
Aip

 

[imported_Kensai]

Meh. I like them. Quality source.

 

[AiponGkooja]

Why don't they just get the cheapest 7800gtx, overclock it more than all the other ones they have and say "this one's the best and it's also the cheapest." That would make everyone, that doesn't notice what they did, really happy and go buy the cheap cards. Or are they being paid by the manufacturers to show that each of their cards are the best? I dunno, just doesn't make sense to me

 

[danklumpp]

For the most part, anandtech reviews are pretty helpful to me.

I also like the techreport.com reviews. Just my opinion, though.

 

[overclockingoodness]

I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising. If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

Is this fact so hard to grasp?

 

[Marsumane]

I dont see the problem in it. They show u what it can do not oced, then for us ocers they bump it up to test the heatsinks and fan on the core/mem to show us which design typically oced the highest for them. Then they also compare it to other cards at stock speeds in various games. I wouldnt do it any other way.

 

[Dman877]

Anandtech has good reviews but I have to agree that the vendor reviews of various cards (7800 GTX's most recently) are pretty useless. Personally, I liked it better when nvida forced card vendors to ship cards at the specified clockspeeds. I think if companies want to differentiate their products more, they should work on unique cooling solutions and smaller designs, not overclocking the card.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

 

[sundev]

Originally posted by: overclockingoodness
I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising. If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

Is this fact so hard to grasp?

Well they wouldn't have to pay ALL hardware review sites... if they actually did pay sites to write good reviews, they would probably only choose the top say 10 hardware review sites in North America, the top 10 in Asia, Europe, or wherever they want. Paying 20-30 sites wouldn't be THAT much.

 

[Killrose]

I don't care at all for AT Video card reviews. They take a super-high end system which not many people own, and run the cards at super high resolutions and don't show last gen cards like the 6800U and X850XT.

I can't afford an FX-55 processor and 2-gigs of high-end ram. We are left with no real idea of what kind of up-grade path this truely is on an average joe system. Pathetic, IMHO.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Killrose
I don't care at all for AT Video card reviews. They take a super-high end system which not many people own, and run the cards at super high resolutions and don't show last gen cards like the 6800U and X850XT.

I can't afford an FX-55 processor and 2-gigs of high-end ram. We are left with no real idea of what kind of up-grade path this truely is on an average joe system. Pathetic, IMHO.

Thats' because half hte reivew sites show 1024x768 wherre all cards are even. Once you bump the res up, you see t he cards separate. What do you think a review showing the 6800U as fast as the 7800GTX will cause? Who the hell plays at 1024x768 when they get these cards anyways..

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: AiponGkooja
They hardly ever seem to compare different cards at the SAME clock speeds, so what the hell is the point of their tests that say "The card that we overclocked more does better than the ones that we didn't overclock as much"

Just something that has been bothering me about all of their 7800gtx reviews, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Peace,
Aip

Because we all know the perform equal at same clockspeed. Only thing that differ on the cards, are cooling, o/c possibility, warranties etc. and softwarebundle.

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: overclockingoodness
I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising. If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

Is this fact so hard to grasp?

It's hard to grasp becasue what you say doesn't make sense. If that were the case then how do they have a budget left with ALL the magazines and TV stations that exist? They must advertise in ALL of them, right?

I dont' think they pay the review sites either. The mags.... eh well some I think they may other's, I'm sure they don't.

 

[KristopherKubicki]

I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising.

The advertising on AnandTech is handled by a completely different company. We just get a check from them at the end of the month, and other than that the two companies rarely have much to do with each other. We piss off advertisers constantly, (how often do we slam Prescott, leak roadmaps, and *strongly* recommend against buying things in our buyers guides?) but you forget; in PR bad press is good press. The marketing company just gives the advertiser a hug and everyone moves on.

If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

This just doesn't make any sense. Are you saying these companies don't have enough money to pay for reviews, so they pay for advertising instead?

With some websites and magazines, it's generally understood that you won't get a review unless you advertise. Anandtech is the exact opposite; we review anything we want; completely independent of what the marketing company would like to see.

Regardless, you'll notice a lot of the advertising on AnandTech has nothing to do with computers or hardware. For example. we have advertisers like Verizon (how many Verizon phone reviews do we do?), Google (um... yeahhh), NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, etc, etc. Since the bulk of our advertising hardly crosses over with the stuff we review, it's really difficult to accuse a site like AT of accepting advertisements for review.

Anyways, that wasn't really directed at you overclockingoodness, I just felt like ranting I guess.

Also,

I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

We could do that, but when December rolls along everyone would claim "why haven't we seen a single retail card review yet!". The philosophy makes more sense for motherboards than video cards, but I do like to see cummulative sets of two or three cards at a time as opposed to a huge roundup four months after the launch at which time everyone who wanted a card already read a review somewhere else and bought it.

Kristopher

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki

I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising.

The advertising on AnandTech is handled by a completely different company. We just get a check from them at the end of the month, and other than that the two companies rarely have much to do with each other. We piss off advertisers constantly, (how often do we slam Prescott, leak roadmaps, and *strongly* recommend against buying things in our buyers guides?) but you forget; in PR bad press is good press. The marketing company just gives the advertiser a hug and everyone moves on.

If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

This just doesn't make any sense. Are you saying these companies don't have enough money to pay for reviews, so they pay for advertising instead?

With some websites and magazines, it's generally understood that you won't get a review unless you advertise. Anandtech is the exact opposite; we review anything we want; completely independent of what the marketing company would like to see.

Regardless, you'll notice a lot of the advertising on AnandTech has nothing to do with computers or hardware. For example. we have advertisers like Verizon (how many Verizon phone reviews do we do?), Google (um... yeahhh), NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, etc, etc. Since the bulk of our advertising hardly crosses over with the stuff we review, it's really difficult to accuse a site like AT of accepting advertisements for review.

Anyways, that wasn't really directed at you overclockingoodness, I just felt like ranting I guess.

Also,

I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

We could do that, but when December rolls along everyone would claim "why haven't we seen a single retail card review yet!". The philosophy makes more sense for motherboards than video cards, but I do like to see cummulative sets of two or three cards at a time as opposed to a huge roundup four months after the launch at which time everyone who wanted a card already read a review somewhere else and bought it.

Kristopher

QFT

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki

I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising.

The advertising on AnandTech is handled by a completely different company. We just get a check from them at the end of the month, and other than that the two companies rarely have much to do with each other. We piss off advertisers constantly, (how often do we slam Prescott, leak roadmaps, and *strongly* recommend against buying things in our buyers guides?) but you forget; in PR bad press is good press. The marketing company just gives the advertiser a hug and everyone moves on.

If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

This just doesn't make any sense. Are you saying these companies don't have enough money to pay for reviews, so they pay for advertising instead?

With some websites and magazines, it's generally understood that you won't get a review unless you advertise. Anandtech is the exact opposite; we review anything we want; completely independent of what the marketing company would like to see.

Regardless, you'll notice a lot of the advertising on AnandTech has nothing to do with computers or hardware. For example. we have advertisers like Verizon (how many Verizon phone reviews do we do?), Google (um... yeahhh), NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, etc, etc. Since the bulk of our advertising hardly crosses over with the stuff we review, it's really difficult to accuse a site like AT of accepting advertisements for review.

Anyways, that wasn't really directed at you overclockingoodness, I just felt like ranting I guess.

Also,

I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

We could do that, but when December rolls along everyone would claim "why haven't we seen a single retail card review yet!". The philosophy makes more sense for motherboards than video cards, but I do like to see cummulative sets of two or three cards at a time as opposed to a huge roundup four months after the launch at which time everyone who wanted a card already read a review somewhere else and bought it.

Kristopher

Ahh, it is always nice to see one of the big guys in the forums talking sense

Thanks, Kristopher!

I would like the vendor 7800GTX and future vendor reviews to come out compressed with 3 or more different ones in the future too. Otherwise, it is like reading the same review over and over, and I don't think that I even bothered reading the last one. The only nifty thing they seem to show is that the 7800 architecture has some quite obvious plateaus w/regards to core clock speed.

 

[xtknight]

Yeah, they really need to show last-gen/mid-range cards. I love the way X-bit labs does their graphics card reviews. I'd also like to see some different CPU/bottleneck testing (or at least once in a while).

 

[Rage187]

Originally posted by: McArra

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

or at least 3 or more as stated.

 

[UltraWide]

I rather Anandtech review more computer desks and chairs, etc.

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Killrose
I don't care at all for AT Video card reviews. They take a super-high end system which not many people own, and run the cards at super high resolutions and don't show last gen cards like the 6800U and X850XT.

I can't afford an FX-55 processor and 2-gigs of high-end ram. We are left with no real idea of what kind of up-grade path this truely is on an average joe system. Pathetic, IMHO.

Thats' because half hte reivew sites show 1024x768 wherre all cards are even. Once you bump the res up, you see t he cards separate. What do you think a review showing the 6800U as fast as the 7800GTX will cause? Who the hell plays at 1024x768 when they get these cards anyways..

It's not just the resolution, it's the fact that if you don't own a A64 3500+ or FX-55 grade CPU, you might as well forget about the 7800GTX as a viable up-grade path because in certain situations it will not give you but 2-3fps over a 6800GT.

Firingsquad had a nice article using about 5 different CPU's and benched a 7800GTX and 6800GT (they really should have used an Ultra) to show how they scaled. These cards are very CPU limmited in some cases.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki

I love this stupidity that hardware review sites are being paid. Are people just stupid or do they not get the fact that hardware sites don't get paid jack unless it's advertising.

The advertising on AnandTech is handled by a completely different company. We just get a check from them at the end of the month, and other than that the two companies rarely have much to do with each other. We piss off advertisers constantly, (how often do we slam Prescott, leak roadmaps, and *strongly* recommend against buying things in our buyers guides?) but you forget; in PR bad press is good press. The marketing company just gives the advertiser a hug and everyone moves on.

If NVIDIA, ATI, Intel and AMD started paying for reviews (imagine the thousands of publications worldwide), they wouldn't have a budget to do any other marketing.

This just doesn't make any sense. Are you saying these companies don't have enough money to pay for reviews, so they pay for advertising instead?

With some websites and magazines, it's generally understood that you won't get a review unless you advertise. Anandtech is the exact opposite; we review anything we want; completely independent of what the marketing company would like to see.

Regardless, you'll notice a lot of the advertising on AnandTech has nothing to do with computers or hardware. For example. we have advertisers like Verizon (how many Verizon phone reviews do we do?), Google (um... yeahhh), NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, etc, etc. Since the bulk of our advertising hardly crosses over with the stuff we review, it's really difficult to accuse a site like AT of accepting advertisements for review.

Anyways, that wasn't really directed at you overclockingoodness, I just felt like ranting I guess.

Also,

I would prefer that they save all these vendor card reviews for one big roundup, myself.

We could do that, but when December rolls along everyone would claim "why haven't we seen a single retail card review yet!". The philosophy makes more sense for motherboards than video cards, but I do like to see cummulative sets of two or three cards at a time as opposed to a huge roundup four months after the launch at which time everyone who wanted a card already read a review somewhere else and bought it.

Kristopher

Keep up the good work. :thumbsup:

I have been coming here for a long time for a reason. The reviews are the best. I do check other sites but allways AT first. Who wants to see a brand new $500 video card tested on anything but a high end system? It would be pointless otherwise because your not seeing what the card is really capable of.
I understand wanting to see how it will perforom on "your" system and other sites do that once in a while I think.

 

[Kogan]

Didn't read the whole thing But yeah, they're not so useful to me since I'm a low-mid-range sort of video card person. And all they ever seem to review are the $400+ cards. It would be more useful if they had some sort of base system and tested all video cards on it, then just updated the video card chart over time. (hell, I still use a geforce 1 in one of my gaming computers and it plays most recent games fine - WoW for instance)

But hey, tomshardware has already has a chart like that so I suppose there's no need for AT to do it. It is nice though to see that many older-generation cards are cheaper and faster than current-gen cards.

Testing them at the same clockspeeds would be stupid. They're made to run at different clockspeeds and some have completely different architectures If you want to see video card overclocking reviews, just check the forums.

 

[AiponGkooja]

Btw, I wasn't talking about the review as a whole. I agree that they are very nice, complete reviews of each card. The only thing I don't like is how they compare the different manufacturers to each other. Just seems like a very unscientific way to do a comparison *shrug* If they had a whole new section in each review that was ONLY "This is how far we could overclock this card and keep it stable, and this is how it compares to the max overclocks of other cards" that might make more sense. But then also compare each at the same clock speeds for benchmarks and power draw and temp so we can see the slight variations of each card when it's doing the same job. Only then could they honestly say that one card is "better" than another.

Just my thoughts,
Aip

 

[overclockingoodness]

I never said AnandTech accepts money or ads for their reviews; heck, I was posting in your favor. It's the other stupids on AnandTech forums (and other forums) that think companies are paying review sites and magazines to do reviews. A company can buy the advertising, but it's can't buy the review without tarnishing the magazine/site's reputation.

If MaximumPC or AnandTech said that we won't review the 7800GTX unless NVIDIA advertised with us - that would somehow make sense. But just because NVIDIA is advertising doesn't mean AnandTech/MaximumPC is going to do a positive review, or else you can kiss your reputation goodbye. So, your logic doesn't make sense Kris.

While you did list certain advertisers, you forgot to mention ATI, Thermaltake, Gigabyte, MSI, OCZ, Corsair, NVIDIA, Crucial among others. And you do reviews these products, don't you? There's no need to go around the question by naming a couple of non-review related advertisers. AnandTech's bulk of advertisers are companies that also have reviews on AnandTech.

And I highly suggest you read my post again because I was supporting AnandTech.