I miss Tom and Anand

[Topweasel]

Where have all the great English reviewers gone. I really miss Anand and Thomas from Tom's hardware. The state of most review processes are so terrible today. Even if they were skewed to their favorites from time to time their processes were so impeccable.

Between what Adore brought up today and just now seeing a reviewer actually thinking a slide for "visibility" that had one set up look 200% better for two FPS. It occurred to me that whether or not Adored is right, this review cycle would never have happened. I might have had an issue with Tom being so sure early in the Athlon vs. PIII fight constantly stacking the deck in favor of the PIII or ignoring problems with the 1.13GHz PIII that had to get recalled. But his testing methodology was impeccable. Anand was so in depth in arch analysis you almost never had to read the review to see what the performance was going to be like because you would already know what the performance would look like in tests. There were others like Overclockers.com and Arstechnica (which is still good in overall tech understanding but not as great they were.

These guys would realize issues like the DX12 results while testing and would tell us the results but caution us to not to use the results to come to any kind of consensus. When Anand would be contacting every manufacture and software companies in the tests and get to the bottom of a bench that looked off and if he was under the gun he would table it for a part II where he would dig into the corner cases. They used to actually drive companies to fix problems before release and it was near impossible to disregard their results.

Now almost no one spends the time on the reviews any more. Adore whether right or long brings up a good point. AMD being not having a high end GPU makes it hard to use their cards in tests. But at least in Anandtech CPU reviews they would tell us when they expected to see a performance difference with different video cards and such severe differences in a DX versions like 11 and 12 (or in this case 8 and 9) wouldn't be written off.

I just wish we were back in the mid 2000's. It was just so less flash and so much more depth and instead of taking a random small time webpage a month to dig through the results due to lack of both time and equipment resources to bring these issues to light. Instead we would have known day 1 and by 3 we would know why and within a week we would know if the problem was going to get fixed or not.

 

[formulav8]

Its true that Anand, Tom, and Kyle were beasts in their time. Its also true that some newer sites are failures with content and quality.

I'm from way back when and also see some reviewers/techs today doing bad. I think, for the most part Anand selling his IP to Ryan wasn't a bad move in itself. He did what he thought was best for himself.

The larger problem is all of the newer, and especially many YouTube based reviewers that have what looks to be lower standards. But Tom selling to a bigger company years ago I think was more of a bad move. Kyle at least has a decent hold on his site even after all these years.

But the hey day of years ago, is unfortunately long gone. Most sites that are bigger appear to rely to much on individual sponsors, and care whether their words would have an influence or not on their sponsorship.

Some reviewers would sell their final words to the highest bidder these days. Anyways, its true integrity and honesty is not the most important for quite a few. I still hope Ryan and Ian would try to do their best to help their readers.

 

[Thunder 57]

I can somewhat relate. I miss having Anand do CPU reviews in particular. Ian has been doing well, and probably did the most in depth review of Ryzen, but it just feels different. But things change and people move on.

I still think this is the go to site if you want to understand things like architecture rather than just some simple explanation, marketing slides, and benchmarks. Please keep it that way, and thank you.

 

[chucky2]

I miss the old days too but I can't help but wonder if that's because the Internet as it were was fresh and new, that hardware had so much more room to grow that advances in performance was met with real enthusiasm, that stability like we have now wasn't taken for granted so quality hardware - and thus the reviews that led to their purchases - was a godsend, etc.

Now even the most basic rigs deliver acceptable consumer stability and speed. Yes, we have a ways to go before we hit a wall where human visual acuity is reached with fast (>120fps) speeds, but we're getting there. Maybe another 20 years (and that's not that long even in human geek terms).

What does one review when the 12 bit, 240 (or greater) FPS, 16K per eye, OLED (or better) VR rig is commonplace? The only thing that could ecplipse that in my view would be a completely realistic VR holo or projection setup so not even glasses would need to be worn. Long term, what will be left for the reviewers to review?

 

[Topweasel]

I can somewhat relate. I miss having Anand do CPU reviews in particular.Oh Ian has been doing well, and probably did the most in depth review of Ryzen, but it just feels different. But things change and people move on.

I still think this is the go to site if you want to understand things like architecture rather than just some simple explanation, marketing slides, and benchmarks. Please keep it that way, and thank you.

Oh I agree. I am here first and foremost because it's still a better learning center in its reviews that any other site. Ars was waaaay to technical and expected a certain knowledgebase to read which honestly made it extremely boring to read through. But Anand and even now with Anandtech by Ian and others, is able to deal with the tech in much more laid back way that can be both educational and informative. But without Anand they seem to have lost all the sway they used to have with the manufacturers which then turns them into another me too reviewer. Corner cases are written off and not analyzed.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I dont know how anyone can defend this site these days as far as the reviews go. I dont mean to personally attack any of the current reviewers, but the site is a shell of its former self. Late review after late (or promised but never materializing at all) reviews, and the gaming test suite, gpus used and the strange mix of preset quality settings make gaming benchmarks next to useless. I used to read the main site religiously, but now never even visit there. But if you want a review of a smartphone, you are probably in business.

I do visit the forums regularly, but even those have degenerated from great technical posts by the likes of IDC, (and a lot of others) a few years ago, into fanboy wars (and forum flooding to promote every new product) for the most part, with seemingly very little attempt to stop it.

 

[Elixer]

Thing is, people want reviews yesterday, and to do an actual review takes a long time so you can find all the quirks and so on, and report on them.

Now, it is basically, run X, Y, Z, benchmarks and push it out the door. No time to investigate further, must review something else now!

Then, it is up to users themselves to actually dig into things, and find things that reviewers completely missed (either by choice if something don't look right, or because of time), and then those reviewers go out and tell the people that actually find oddities that they are fanboys, and to go away.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Doesn't Kyle still do reviews? I never really followed too closely but he still carries that similar attitude as before, but I guess that's what makes him Kyle. The site still churns out regular reviews. If anything Anandtech has really backed away from the PC world. Remember the motherboard and DDR roundups we used to see here? I think a lot of that is no longer there.

 

[PhonakV30]

Ryzen Review from anandtech Is decent and well matured.

 

[flash-gordon]

It goes back to the phrase: "if you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing".

Most of the reviews sites today don't have a process so they can't truly understand what they're getting with benchmarks, nevermind explain what's going on.

Anand was in another level, he had authority on his reviews.

 

[Burpo]

I miss people posting in the right section. This is where we discuss CPU's and Overclocking..
Hint: See Forum Title..

 

[Atari2600]

Well, unfortunately folks get what the ignorant masses deserve.

You want something instantly? Fine, here is some thrown together pish that looks nice, but don't check for any substance underneath - you don't fit 2 weeks analysis into 2 days.

If you personally would wait, well, unfortunately there are 99 idiots who wouldn't.

Loss of clicks (=advertising =money) from being 2 weeks late relative to 1st day pish, even if you are the only reviewer in the world who does the job right, means you'll be closed down within a year.

 

[Topweasel]

I miss people posting in the right section. This is where we discuss CPU's and Overclocking..
Hint: See Forum Title..

I didn't mention CPU's enough in the OP? Or did I forget to mention that its the state of CPU reviews that brought on this thread?

 

[lak_rok]

Well, unfortunately folks get what the ignorant masses deserve.

You want something instantly? Fine, here is some thrown together pish that looks nice, but don't check for any substance underneath - you don't fit 2 weeks analysis into 2 days.

If you personally would wait, well, unfortunately there are 99 idiots who wouldn't.

Loss of clicks (=advertising =money) from being 2 weeks late relative to 1st day pish, even if you are the only reviewer in the world who does the job right, means you'll be closed down within a year.

I'm fine with having a semi sloppy review on day 0 but I would expect a much more thorough review on couple of weeks later.

 

[Topweasel]

I'm fine with having a semi sloppy review on day 0 but I would expect a much more thorough review on couple of weeks later.

Exactly call it a performance preview with a much more in depth review a week or two later.

 

[Tsavo]

It goes back to the phrase: "if you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing".

Most of the reviews sites today don't have a process so they can't truly understand what they're getting with benchmarks, nevermind explain what's going on.

Anand was in another level, he had authority on his reviews.

Also, if there was a viable market for high quality reviews, we'd have more of them instead of almost none. These days, you read one review and you've read them all, and most of them are just garbage.

 

[Hulk]

This is a tough one. I've been reading Anandtech since literally the beginning. Anand had a certain style and passion that is impossible to replicate. Fortunately the new crew in my opinion has carried on with Anands passion and dedication in their own unique writing/reviewing styles. In particular I think Ian has done a tremendous job taking over Anand's personal "baby," the CPU reviews.

And as one poster mentioned times are different now. 15 to 20 years ago the CPU world was on fire. Lots of players in the game, clockspeeds were racing to the moon, and probably most importantly software demands were outpacing hardware so there was really a need for the newest and fastest processors even for everyday users doing what are everyday tasks now like photo editing, vector illustration, and video editing which was then in it's infancy for non professionals.

Like most hugely successful endeavors Anand was the right person at the right time.

 

[dsplover]

Shimpli and Bennet were partners in a mag I read 20 years back.
I'm pretty sure we learned what we needed to from them.
Kyle Bennet just did a great review at his site.

I stopped buying on advice here after the AMD 785G "review" years back.
I do appreciate what AS & MB did for everyone.

Great guys I owe my DIY skills to....

 

[bononos]

.......
I just wish we were back in the mid 2000's. It was just so less flash and so much more depth and instead of taking a random small time webpage a month to dig through the results due to lack of both time and equipment resources to bring these issues to light. Instead we would have known day 1 and by 3 we would know why and within a week we would know if the problem was going to get fixed or not.

Maybe its because hardware wasn't so difficult to understand and diagnose/review. Now everythings so complicated and theres more bs. Like the micro-stutter graphics card problem where one company claimed to have 'hardware' frame pacing technology. And I think it was said that Anand flubbed at the end when he was reviewing Intel's sandforce ssds by accepting Intel's word that they doing their own customized tweaks on the firmware.

 

[Topweasel]

Maybe its because hardware wasn't so difficult to understand and diagnose/review. Now everythings so complicated and theres more bs. Like the micro-stutter graphics card problem where one company claimed to have 'hardware' frame pacing technology. And I think it was said that Anand flubbed at the end when he was reviewing Intel's sandforce ssds by accepting Intel's word that they doing their own customized tweaks on the firmware.

You obviously are forgetting the i820 chipset release, the debate with RDRAM and DDR, the PIII 1.13 release and subsequent recall, the times where ATI and Nvidia at separate times tried to sneak past reviewers performance "bonus's" that turned out to be them taking pulling a VW where they would lower PQ when the Driver sensed an exe name that was used for reviews at the time.

There has been more then enough complications and discoveries. Ones where these awesome popular reviewers would not only catch the issue but often find the issue before anyone else even had a chance to get the hardware and got the manufacturers to fix it quickly. The 820 almost was release with non-functioning Dimm slots, some companies like ECS taped over the slots, but for the most part reviewers like Anand found the issues before the boards shipped and most boards had those slots removed. The 1.13 barely made it past reviewers before it's recall. I think Intel only sold 100 or 200 in retail before the recall. This goes on and on. It didn't take a small barely known site a month to spend what would have taken days by larger guys to bring to light an issue first. Specially one a lot people seem to easily write off as a shill reviewer.

 

[NTMBK]

I miss the old Kanye

 

[Omar F1]

Lets not forget Anand's contribution to the early SSD reviews, exposing OCZ trouble for example, and the overall presentation of SSD basics to the average user.
CPU reviews, however, was a totally different story. Oh, the winter nights, prepare a tea, and forget yourself in a long and enjoyable read.

 

[thepaleobiker]

Lets not forget Anand's contribution to the early SSD reviews, exposing OCZ trouble for example, and the overall presentation of SSD basics to the average user.
CPU reviews, however, was a totally different story. Oh, the winter nights, prepare a tea, and forget yourself in a long and enjoyable read.

I am a relative newbie, but I stumbled upon Anandtech as a teenage undergrad in Mumbai in 2007 and wondered how someone named "Anand" (very Indian) had one of the world's best computer/tech review websites. Very soon though, I was convinced of AT's legacy as I got hooked on to the reviews/articles....and I began building PCs and following the Pentium/Core 2 vs AMD Athlon/X2 battles (relevant battles in my formative years)....

10 years later, I am still learning things from Anandtech. Even from my (newer/younger) perspective, I can easily put a finger on the tangible difference in # of reviews as well as "magic" in the AT articles...especially over the last few years.

This is a nostalgia thread . I do sense however, that with a resurgent AMD and an unexpectedly "caught-off-guard" Intel, we might have a renaissance in the PC tech space.

Sincerely,
Vishnu

 

[Atari2600]

I do sense however, that with a resurgent AMD and an unexpectedly "caught-off-guard" Intel, we might have a renaissance in the PC tech space.

We may. I hope we do.

Unfortunately, I fear - with any clown able to pontificate via youtube nowerdays (as opposed to taking the time to set up a proper site back then) - the quality of reviews will largely remain in the gutter - aside from a select few sites that make the time to do it right and can deal with being "scooped" by those that wouldn't understand the scientific method if it beat them around the head with a bat.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

We may. I hope we do.

Unfortunately, I fear - with any clown able to pontificate via youtube nowerdays (as opposed to taking the time to set up a proper site back then) - the quality of reviews will largely remain in the gutter - aside from a select few sites that make the time to do it right and can deal with being "scooped" by those that wouldn't understand the scientific method if it beat them around the head with a bat.

Bullseye.

Most are so controlled by the major companies that they are little more than propagandists for them. Their allegiances are obvious, and that includes Digital Foundry.