TomsHardware has left the building.

Marketing is what makes or breaks a company these days. I just wish Tom's would hire Kirstie Alley.

I first visited Tomshardware.com back in 1998. Sure a lot has changed. Back then it was far more of a hardcore enthusiasts' site. Nowadays, it's a lot tamer. Then again times has changed, THG has transformed to appeal to a much larger audience. That a good way for the site to get more traffic.

The ads help pay for bills. Get over it, maintaining a website costs money. I'm sure the staff would also like to get some money as well with all the time and effort that they put into their work.

If THG no longer appeals to you then good riddance. There are plenty of other hardware site for you to visit out there on the internet.

Yes there are too many ads. but thats life.

I'm more concerned about the slow down in proper hardware reviews. 7900GS released without a whisper of a rewview or benchmarking. The VGA charts take months to update, its only in last 2 months that they have been including 7900GT/GTX.

Sure there are ads. But don't forget that in addition to those prebuilt reviews, THG still provides comprehensive hardware reviews of new equipment very frequently. Best of all, they do this all for free. I can live with some ads in exchange for this great resource.

In a way, the commercialization of the site is partially our fault. As the site got more traffic, it had to pay for more bandwidth.

Though I do agree those Video Card charts took way too long to update .

I have read THG since its inception. I find it still entertaining and still informative.

The site has MORE content now some layman and some more detail specific.

THG has evolved and you no longer have to read those articles if you do not wish. It is rather easy you see. I skipped that article and went straight to this rant.

I agree that the site is now more diverse with its several different areas of focus. I also agree, that focus in those areas have slacked off a bit.

BUT, in general THG still finds some heavy hitters from time to time and I find the forums a welcome diversion "to not from" the differing technologies.

What I would "NOT" like to see is THG become a brainless activity like CNET.

I get more info off of my morning cereal label than off of CNET .

IN their defense they (because of size) do tend to get the early grab on some interesting info.

Basically if you do not like it "LEAVE".

I agree with some of what "Oncoi" said.
I've been around THG since day #2. I've seen their greatest moments & they have been slacking off a bit.
But, hey, look what happened to the Romans.
I remember the no ads era. That's HISTORY. But the bills have to get paid in one way or another.
Legal prostitution is out, & user dependent donations are out, so I guess that leaves the ads.
I was a forum virgin in early 2005. In the last 1.5 years, I've only began to participate in the forumz which was a first for me in my 15+yrs of PC upgrading, tweaking & builds, thanks to THG. Now I'm on a bunch of other forumz and have learned a greater deal more of micro techy stuff I wasn't aware of.

I think it's bad advice to scare off newbies & their opinions that may be easily intimidated by things like "ads". Ad's don't bother us cuz we've learned to maneuver around 'em. Newbies to THG should be heard, too. We, members of THG, users of these forumz, don't need to be known as a bunch of conceited geeks on "That Web Site where your black listed for voicing your opinion" or anything else that may be of a negative nature.

Speaking of ads, if it weren't for THG I wouldn't have learned of places like NEWEGG.COM, ZIPZOOMFLY.COM, BUY.COM or PRICEWATCH.COM, just to name a few. Nor would I have been able to build my 1st upgrade in 3 yrs which the specs are listed waaaay @ the bottom for under $1000.

If we keep on blasting newbies or anyone in general for voicing their opinions, then eventually all there will be left are old techy farts like myself which will eventually die off.
New blood is always welcome because even in some sort of way they always have some tid bit to contribute. Remember, "WE DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING", not THG not Microsoft nor AMD nor INTEL (aka G.O.D. D. - Great Overnight Double Duos), NOVELL, nor Banyan (remember them?), nor, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, etc...
PS: <=- I like AMD's, too, wink, wink. -=>

We can humor them, the Newbies, by introducing them to other lesser quality web sites (take a pick) & they'll come back to THG once they've had a good dose of crap & trux load more of ads elsewhere.

For the Newbies:
Ads are a necessary evil these days, like it or not. Ever hear of a BBS, N-O-T!!! I used to run one of the biggest on the east coast & there were 5, Guess what? No ads & now no BBS'. If you need me to spell out what a BBS' stood for, my point has been made.
Later guyz. Now lets see if my new RMA return RAM from OCZ works in my P5B Mobo.

I agree that Tom's has gone commercial, but they still have good reviews.
I’ve started supplementing Tom's with Anandteh, another good review site and better for OCing reviews.

i like techreport too
it somewhat resembles what tom's was at the beginning

it,s ur first post? and u've surfing THG from the start?

how anti-social are u?

i'm on the field of creative advertising, and to tell you.

AD COUNTS.

if u don't like them, use firefox and get extension for blocking pop-ups.

THG had and always been helpful to me..

if you like great content, never mind the interface.

it's what THG is for!

LONGLIVE THG!!!

I agree with aequalsb...if you get used to skipping over the ads you won't give them a second thought. Besides, how else is Tom's Hardware supposed to generate revenue? Anyways, they may be slow to update their VGA charts but at least they have the best formatting of all the benchmark sites (those line graphs that some other sites use suck the big one), their articles have a lot of analytical detail, and they at least explain what things like pixel shaders are/do to newbies.

What's annoying are sites that don't tell you how they benchmark, like not giving you the system specifications or what quality settings are used in their game tests. I hate that.

Yes im also like that my brain just miss's em i dont even pay attenion 2 em

I actually don't mind the design. The ads don't really bother me. I don't read every article, but 80% are worth reading. It will be hard to find a website where 100% of the articles are worth reading.

Anyway, take any hardware site, most of the enthusiasts hang-out in the forums. Which is fantastic as non-enthusiasts get to learn a lot more in the forums than reading the articles. This is how i started.

If Toms was just for enthusiasts, it would be hard to get new readers to the website. I think Toms has done a gr8 job and are probably the most popular hardware site.

Well done guys, Keep up the good work.

[quote="0zzy"]

There are plenty enough enthusiasts out there and not enough good websites for Toms to have to go mainstream. I agree with the original poster, Tom's has sadly become less hardcore compared to a year or two ago. Having said that, the new Quad-core review is a good article.

It seems Anandtech is filling the harcore/gamer hole that Toms is leaving.