Why are reviewers so recommend happy?

[SlickR12345]

I haven't read one review of a graphic card where it hasn't been recommended to purchase.

Sure there has been some mild criticism over certain things at certain times, like power consumption or cooling, but it almost always ends up in a big recommendation.

Lets take the newest GTX 980 example. Sure the card itself is really good, good build, good cooler, looks nice, performs nice, but its pretty much the same performance as the GTX 780 TI. Most of the statistics show a small 5-10% performance increase over the 780 TI.

Sure the power consumption is good, but it ultimately doesn't matter. At that type of high level, 250W or 300W isn't important, paying 50 cents less in a month due to electricity bill is hardly noticeable to make a difference.

Why are these recommendations happening all the time? Is it because they get advertisement revenue from the companies they are basically reviewing, are these reviewers too biased and unprofessional, maybe bringing their personal bias and/or excitement into the reviews, is it subconscious thought of its newer so its better?

I haven't seen any real complaints and criticism of prices for example, when Nvidia announced the Titan-Z it was reporting like infomercial from Nvidia, no review website criticized the absurd pricing, in face some reports praised Nvidia for its "boldness" and said this card is the next best thing since the invention of sliced bread.

AMD's 295x2 is no better either, sure its $1500 cheaper than Titan-Z, but its about $700-$800 more expensive than previous such cards. Dual cards have always been created from the 7990, 690, etc... and they've always cost between $500-700. This generation though they cost $1500 and $3000, absurd amount of money. No way you look at this and not think its absurd, twilight zone, cuckoo land.

Is the relationship between reviewers and the companies products they are trying to review too close, too personal, for reviewers to provide unbiased, objective and consumer oriented reviews?

These reviews should serve the consumer, they should point out bad products from good products and point out if something is worth it or not.

It seems to me though, that they serve more the company with the product, rather than the consumer with open and full fledged recommendations.

Of course this happens with other reviews as well, from other hardware like smart phones to software reviews, etc... But since anandtech is a PC generally review site and I'm posting this in the GPU section, lets keep the discussion around GPU's and their reviews.

 

[96Firebird]

I haven't seen any real complaints and criticism of prices for example, when Nvidia announced the Titan-Z it was reporting like infomercial from Nvidia, no review website criticized the absurd pricing, in face some reports praised Nvidia for its "boldness" and said this card is the next best thing since the invention of sliced bread.

Are we reading the same reviews? I haven't seen any such report...

And that I am afraid will be the conclusion of this article, I cannot in good conscience recommend the GeForce GTX Titan Z. If it had been priced at the 1500 EURO mark things would have been very different, even then it would still be too expensive, the reality is that it remains to be an impressive product. But that price... it just doesn't make any sense.

Source

 

[DaveSimmons]

Reviews generally end by recommending the specific conditions under which it makes sense to purchase the card, which is very different from a blanket recommendation.

For example a 980 review will recommend it to those who do not already have a 780ti and want the fastest single card for gaming. That's not recommending it for those who have a 780ti or are happy with SLI/Crossfire, or who are on a budget.

I think you need to give more concrete examples to support your point, since my experience of reading reviews has been different from yours.

 

[bystander36]

^ +1

It seems some people seem to only think in terms of upgrading their existing top in card and aren't considering that there are many people who haven't upgraded in a few years. That is what these recommendations are for, those in the market to upgrade, not those who already own 780ti's.

 

[dualsmp]

There has always been back scratching going on between the hardware manufactures and reviewers. The thing is some sites do actually tell their readers whether the hardware is worth buying or not, but what happens is the hardware manufactures do not give anymore review samples to whatever site was critical of their hardware before. Some sites compromise and give softball reviews rather than a hardball truthful opinion. It's up to the discretion of the reader to figure out what sites give worthy reviews and which ones are in the hip pocket of hardware manufactures.

 

[weevilone]

So then would you recommend that folks needing an upgrade purchase a 780ti now?

 

[DominionSeraph]

So what you want is for someone who thinks exactly like you to review products and to make your decision for you.
So, how old are you?

 

[Teizo]

OP is obviously unaware of the fiasco that erupted after Ryan did not recommend the 290X at launch.

 

[SlickR12345]

So what you want is for someone who thinks exactly like you to review products and to make your decision for you.
So, how old are you?

How old are you? I read tens and tens of hardware websites and this is why I mean for reviewers being too product oriented and not enough consumer oriented, not all are like me that visit tens and tens of review sites for the same product and do probably 10+ hours of researching even when not planing on a purchase.

Most people are not hardware savvy, most people don't read tens and tens of websites for the reviews and info. People would probably read one website, likely directed from Google, most people don't know about anandtech or any other hardware website, so most will get redirected by a search engine.

They will read one review which is almost always "recommended" and will basically give false advice to the consumer.

 

[PenguinJim]

I researched tens and tens of reviews before writing this post, and it's true that within those tens of tens of words written for each review, there's was generally a recommendation across all the tens of tens of reviews I read.

But surely reviewers are limited to reviewing tens of tens of products each year? And while manufacturers have tens of tens of new products every year on the market, surely they will choose their fastest and bestest to send to just a few tens of tens of reviewers, meaning that the tens of tens of other products reviewed will be paid for out of the reviewer's own pocket. In that case, the reviewer will naturally try to purchase something with reasonable specs, because they will be out tens of tens of dollars.

 

[Annisman*]

Maybe because mostly every card released replaces another in a certain slot. Such as the <200$ card market which is usually the most important. What I am trying to say is usually it goes like this: Video card x is released a year ago for 200$, video card y is released a year later for 200$ with +25% performance improvement. Now so long as video card y doesn't have glaring drawbacks it will of course be easy to recommend.

Now there are sometimes shake ups, like when one camp such as Nvidia or AMD release a card in a certain price slot that clearly outperforms the other camp's offering, then usually the inferior card gets a price drop anyways, and once again becomes a good purchase.

So long as this model continues to play itself out there won't be many 'bad' video card releases, and subsequent reviews not recommending it.

 

[BrightCandle]

To some extent its inevitable they will review well, every two years we get a decent improvement in features and performance along with our ever increasing transistor budget.

But review sites on the internet have a conflict of interest. Along with free to us delivery they needed to find a new way to make revenue, and its via ads. Internet ads don't give them enough money to buy everything they review, and worse than that companies give samples out to review earlier, so unless you take a sample your review wont net as much revenue.

So what ends up happening is there is a limit to how far you can go in biting the hand that feeds you. A few review sites heavily slammed the 290/290X on launch and a few also slammed it on the 7970 launch day as well, and some of those can no longer get review samples from AMD for anything at all. AMD knows that its the one that holds the cards, if it doesn't send out samples then the site will die, hence its only the somewhat corrupt ones that can survive.

This is kind of what #gamersgate in essence is about for gaming reviews, but it applies equally to any review site that works this way, which is basically all of them. The survival bias is towards a level of corruption which means that these sites don't report on bugs because the companies require them not to, which they have to comply with. Review sites in essence aren't about us, they are marketing pieces for the big companies that feed them reviews and those people are just trying to make a living. With the death of the magazine its all they can do to continue to do tech journalism.

 

[cboath]

Maybe because mostly every card released replaces another in a certain slot. Such as the <200$ card market which is usually the most important. What I am trying to say is usually it goes like this: Video card x is released a year ago for 200$, video card y is released a year later for 200$ with +25% performance improvement. Now so long as video card y doesn't have glaring drawbacks it will of course be easy to recommend.

Now there are sometimes shake ups, like when one camp such as Nvidia or AMD release a card in a certain price slot that clearly outperforms the other camp's offering, then usually the inferior card gets a price drop anyways, and once again becomes a good purchase.

So long as this model continues to play itself out there won't be many 'bad' video card releases, and subsequent reviews not recommending it.

I think that's most of it right there. You don't tend to replace a card with an inferior version of that card. When the next in line is better, it's a natural recommendation.

And you do need to check the final sumnations because most I read (here at least) seem to say it's recommended under these conditions. They weren't recommending 750's for those who needed/wanted 780's for example. I also can't imagine a titan review that didn't evoke some kind of analogy to 'if you've got money to burn'

Ultimately, though, for a card to not be recommended in it's segment, it's got to have a pretty big deficiency in some regard, or the competitor's version has to be pretty much dead even in performance with a substantially lower price. Seeing as those conditions rarely occur at the time of launch/review, you don't see many bad reviews. That isn't to say some places won't risk a bad review over the fallout from the manufacturer, but generally, i'd think it be rare to have a card that falls into the area where it wouldn't be recommended for it's segment.

 

[sxr7171]

Keeping the system alive and money flowing to publishers and manufacturers keeps food on their table. They will only do a poor review every now and then to seem credible and they will pick the game or product that everyone else is pouncing on for being weak and that writing a negative review will have the least consequences to their own cash flow.

Pretty sure they even call their manufacturer rep and ask if it's okay to burn this one card to show credibility. They both know that every once in a while they have to burn one.

 

[Subyman]

OP is obviously unaware of the fiasco that erupted after Ryan did not recommend the 290X at launch.

Looking back, he made the correct choice. The 290/290X on reference cooler is not a very good card. I owned the 290 on reference and it was loud and throttled too much. The newer custom cards are nice.

I think it is a hard balance between being overly excited about a new technology and not trying to crap on something that others may find beneficial. From an objective reviewer's position, they have to consider numerous upgrade paths that people may be on and try to pick out the positives and negatives of choosing to upgrade to the reviewed product.

I do agree a little bit with the OP, a lot of sites nearly always stamp the recommended label at the end of the review.

 

[DominionSeraph]

How old are you?

Old enough to know that tech is progressive and that it doesn't serve progress to gate tech through some reviewer's opinion. Old enough to know that judgements are based on biases, and any system geared to narrowing things down to a single "correct" choice is going to be reliant on gating through strong biases. Old enough to know that there's no such thing as a universal set of values. Old enough to know that power corrupts. And old enough to know that a tech recommendation is only useful to someone who is about to make a purchase, while news is useful to anyone with an interest in the tech world.

 

[Techhog]

How old are you? I read tens and tens of hardware websites and this is why I mean for reviewers being too product oriented and not enough consumer oriented, not all are like me that visit tens and tens of review sites for the same product and do probably 10+ hours of researching even when not planing on a purchase.

Most people are not hardware savvy, most people don't read tens and tens of websites for the reviews and info. People would probably read one website, likely directed from Google, most people don't know about anandtech or any other hardware website, so most will get redirected by a search engine.

They will read one review which is almost always "recommended" and will basically give false advice to the consumer.

Maybe it's because pretty much all cards besides the Titan Z have some sort of redeeming factor that makes it a good choice for some part of the market? It seems to me that you go to reviews, Ctrl+F "recommend", then complain.

 

[bystander36]

While every card almost always gets recommended, if you read through the reviews, you can note the drawbacks. Even in the conclusions, it is rare they do not mention the drawbacks. Take notice of them. While some people might not care about noise or heat, if you do, take note. There was no way in hell I would have bought a stock 290/290x, because it was made clear they were loud and hot. Now things are better with aftermarket versions.

Just because a card is recommended does not mean it is perfect. Pay attention, and get what works for you, and don't be overly eager to upgrade. If you have a top end card, a recommendation on a new card does not automatically mean you have to upgrade. Use your head.

 

[AdamK47]

I remember some cards in the mid to late 90s not being so highly favored. S3 comes to mind.

 

[x3sphere]

Websites usually recommend cards under the assumption you are a new buyer in the market. Unless the product is complete bomb (like worse price/performance than previous gen) then it's going to be recommended. If you are moving from another recently released card, then of course you're going to have to do your oiwn due-diligence on whether a upgrade is worthwhile.