Should Tomshardware be called Toms_way_its_meant_to_be_played ?? - Page 2

I agree with greatgrapeape. i bet the moment the nda lifts. toms will have a 446 page review. it will cover the chemistry of the dyes in the pcb and God's entire aurgument of why he uses amd gpus. im sure it will be epic. and what with the op do when he realizes that toms was just waiting for the lift? i vote he get banned for being an impatient idiot but that's just me.

I'm not asking numbers, I'm asking composition/function, as in SPU functions are have they changed the number of transcendental units per other SPUs.
If it were simply numbers then why does does the HD4K outperform the GTX280 in FP16 texture fillrate with far fewer Texture units and then drop below once billinear and higher filtering is used? What's changed in the RBE end of the equation, from the way it handles full hardware AA resolve (if it now does) how have the MRTs changed, and how has the crossbar been changed and how does it benefit things like the buffers and crossfire performance?
If these are the latest next gen, I'm not really that interested in the last gen of some of these benchies, especially any Bunghioliomarks.

Nah it was already in reviews last Friday (FiringSquad , PcPer, etc.) so.... no cookie for you.

You can conclude that if you want, however you could also conclude that ATi shot themselves in the foot by making people sign an NDA delay the launch, and then reverse their decision and up the launch.

So sure, it's all for nV, must be some interesting campaign though, maybe it works on the persecution conspiracy idea as well placing the GTX+ as the underdog to increase sale, right? And immature drivers on a 55nm shrink of the GTX?

Anywhoo, if the German review is all we end up with it'll be disappointing, especially compared to the GTX280 review as well as even the HD3870 refresh which had more technical details. SO to me they could just skip that preview and focus on an in depth review, because that German one is no different that the list of 40 previews sofar, and no more insightful. But obviously that would've just fueled the fire of this pro-nV / anti-Ati angst.

Anywhoo, it's obvious that THG is in nV's pocket by that review, I don't know why anyone doubt it.

I didn't questioned Tom's grammar. I am from Greece and English isn't my main language.

Now this is something! You're right! I am so wrong guys... Those guys to Tom managed to get the results of HD4850 finally! Although there is the "nowhere_to_be_found_for_at_least_a_month" 9800GTX+ in this review as well... NVidia released this card a day after HD4850. A card that nobody knew about. But Tom got this card, tested it and posted the results against HD4850. No, they weren't waiting for 9800GTX+ to be paper-released to post the article... You will tell me that other sites have reviews of 9800GTX+ as well. Yes they do, but they didn't forget to write anything about HD4850.

And one last thing. Tom is against posting just plain benchies, right? Just full reviews! Now is this any kind of full review? Why couldn't they post benchies like those when HD4850 was released and everyone was doing so? They're against posting "another" set of benchmarks when they concern ATI's products but it's ok when they include NVidia's products as well?

Oh, an nVidia bias on Tom's? IMPOSSIBLE! And it'd not be like we've NOT had a history of poor English/potential nVidia bias... I remember that when the Radeon 9700pro came out, and Tom's was heavily criticized over the naming of their review article, in spite of the card WTFpwning anything nVidia had to offer... so it's not like this would be the first time.

But seriously, my main complaint is that the card has been out for quite some time, and due to a whacked NDA that's pointless, the media are forbidden from talking about the card in DETAIL. Sheesh, this is disappointing; AMD brings us a whole new GPU design, yet we're forbidden from hearing about it? I guess it's a good thing that The Inquirer never gets invited to any of the shows, which means that their hands aren't legally tied when it comes to whatever they do manage to figure out...

So in your eyes, people only ever try to argue something if it's the utter truth? And hence people can't be wrong? I'm not sure I can follow your logic there...

People like you make me really wonder if I'm of a dying breed of enthusiast that cares to actually know how their hardware works, rather than just reading the number of stream processors, and then jumping right to the benchmarks so that I know how much bragging rights I'm buying...

So if they paint ATI in a good light? Youre on the record here. What then?

There still is no 4870 review.

More damning is that they didn't include Bioshock in their review, the game that everyone else's 4800 series reviews show the AMD cards dominating even the 280.

And of course, that article doesn't have quite as much information as it shouldve... As one part notes, in a most (in)famous language, "I can has cache size?"

Not really... It's an Xbox 360 port, which means that it's pretty worthless as a benchmark, given that any decent card will get 60+ fps at it. Not really "damning" that they don't include a benchmark that most people won't need, especially when UT3 provides a better example of stresses brought by the exact same engine; Tom's, if you ever bothered to notice, prefers to only benchmark one example of each engine.

So really, its exclusion is HARDLY evidence of an anti-AMD bias. Its INCLUSION, however, *IS* strong evidence of a bias in favor of AMD.

Where? The only 4800 card I see reviewed on Tom's is the 4850.

The 4870's vastly increased bandwidth help it to compete with the 260 and sometimes even the 280!

The only difference is clock speeds; all architectural info is identical. Why is it ridiculous?

Then why review the 9800GTX?

I mean I see where you're coming from but the fact remains that benchmarks of the 4870 are nowhere to be seen on Tom's. I won't even speculate as to why this is because I have no idea.

The quality of Tom's reviews has actually gone up in my opinion lately and the stuff from Don is always good. Which is why I'm baffled that he would suggest that the 4870 isn't worth more than a passing mention 'cause it's the same as the 4850 but with higher clocks

But I agree that the 4800 series launch was kind of a joke..

TWIMTBP

As I said, for some theoretical info is more important (definately minority), for some performance (vast majority), everyone picks what they prefer and its nothing wrong with that. But to limit those who interested in performance to "Bungholiomark" or "carrot points" (how its refered in my country) fans is childish.

Thats arrogant, maybe you dont care in others opinions, why anyone should care what you think about that either?

I didnt said that, but PR pockets are influential and while I dont know or claim THG is influenced, I wouldnt be surprised if it would. To blindely deny such possibility just shows you are biased or naive.

Thats interesting how you turn you to "others" as if its majority, its not. Ask any end user about ins/outs of GTX280, how many will know that? Scrap that, how many will know 8800 tech which is here for several years? Pretty much no one except few %. Ask which is the fastest card, most even with slightest PC knowledge will say its Geforce series, like 8800 was for years. And I'm not limiting performance to launch time only btw, while 8800 series demolished oposition even with beta drivers, same like R9700 did at its time. You can mock it, but we already know pretty well how will fare GTX260/280 and 48xx series and whats the potential.

Lets take for example AMD's quad fiasco - Intel decided its not worthy to do native quad at 65nm, AMD risked it and burned hard. Or another example given to you by homerdog - TWIMTBP, even if you (lets imagine) would have inferior tech but idealy optimized by game makers, it would usualy fare better against slightly more advanced tech which doesnt have optimized games for it.

That would be true if they only used Bioshock exclusively for 48xx, but in Anandtech atleast, they've been using it for a while now, before anyone had an inkling the 4800s would be kick ass cards. Tom's is a sell-out site, it's not that hard to figure it out.

If the 4800s were nvidia cards Tom's and possibly even you would have been creaming your pants and trumpeting it.

That's the whole point of this thread isn't it, and to defend the 'ridiculous' statement takes the converse view. So supporting that, why should I care, it's equally arrogant from the other side of the fence, no?

No more so than to think that the OP and potentially you are paid trolls. But is that perhaps taking the 'to deny such a possability' idea too far?
I don't deny such things are possible, however to fabricate the conspiracy theory as if it has equal wieght as the more 'things being normal' hypothesis is more naive IMO.

I didn't say it was, however to discount it period is to say it doesn't exist which is obviously not the case.
Who said they must cater to the majority? IMO that's what fluff pieces are for as I mentioned originally. I prefer the economist not a tabloid, TopGear not American Idol.
I see no value in pleasing the majority except for that marketing/PR bent you and the OP seem to think is driving THG.

No I'll just simply mock that statement, especially after you Assasin's creed add-on afterwards. Because it reminds me of all the people who said "we already know that DX10.1 has little to offer.."
Yeah, what people think they know from benchmarks is hillarious. I believe the complete opposite, I think we know very little about the potential of either card, since neither is anywhere near being given situations that truly show off how different they are than their predecessors.
It's funny that you know the potential of the 48xx series, yet few people know anything at all about the X2, so I'd say that despite the boast, you're blowing smoke.

As for the explanation of company management, that's using a catch all that makes every other term you used redundant because it wouldn't matter what the changes were, 'company management' should've anticipated them, same with the competition's product, same with 'the behind the curtain' stuff, why didn't management get behind that curtain or pull the curtain, etc.

Management is usually seen as a strategic side of the equation not the product implementation and developer relations side of the equation those are function of others.
Company management says, "Quad's are the future design us some good quads", then the engineers decide on how to get there.
Management say "work closely with devlopers to ensure our hardware runs well on their apps/games", then the 'Get in the Game' folks see what they can do with develpoers.

You seem to be bundling two different functions under 'company management', it's a catch all that then loses it's meaning since it means everything in that implementation.

- M$' decision to change DX10 standard: "company management's fault" , reason the R600 suffers a greater perofrmance hit using AA than the G80: "company management's fault" , the cause of the the low yields of the G92: "company management's fault".

Very interesting.
Kinda backs up what was mentioned in the THG article, and the reaction of that Guru3D reviewer reminds me of the stand Lars took when this whole issue came up years ago.

They said at the time they would no longer review products that were handed to them at the last minute, and would wait for shipping hardware before reviewing.
That changed when Lars left, but it's a public statement that changed a few practices surrounding the paper launches at the time, something obviously the OP would prefer.


-edited for schpelleng-

I'm going to 100% agree, I have an Nvidia card and i think they are takin the long bone from Nvidia and posting everything from Nvidia. Nvidia Physics. Nvidia this, then Nvidia that. Did i Say Nvidia Enough or did this BIAS website post more Nvidias in a single Nvidia sentence. I can't stand to read another article about Nvidia...AH!!!!!!!!!!! I trust Anandtech over Tom's Hardware. this website is full of Bias BS. Hardware companies have to have a little pull in what gets published on websites. Especially one that so many people read daily...about NVidia! Considering how much has went on lately about NVIDIA with AC and Physics on Vantage this is BS!

Toms has always seemed impartial to me regarding ATI/AMD and Nvidia. I think the recent article written about Nvidia "cheating" at 3dmark Vantage is pretty strong evidence that Tom's is fairly objective.

I guess toms just doesn't receive free ATI samples. I have no solid proof but I think its fairly obvious that they had to purchase their own 4850 to actually review it.

I think it would be hard to be as positive reviewing a card you had to purchase as one you received for free.

The article about nVidia cheating concludes that ATI/AMD are being over sensitive, hardly in their favor.

Anyway, the 4850 review's out, and it got an award from Toms.

Its ridiculous to assume Toms cant be affected by PR money, I'm pretty sure they are, the only question if it happened in this case or not. You ofc exclude such posibility and it only shows how naive you are.

Actualy its not a secret more popular forums also visited by some companies workers who may troll or "leak" certain info, it does happen. But to put those few cases as if its equal with major flow of cash in adverstising, etc. which are getting popular review sites is absurd to say the least

Actualy any major review site is major because it has to offer something for majority, if its not - its a niche site, which are needed ofc as well. Another thing - popular reviews means more advertising cash flow, which is no doubt very important to any review site. How do you think Toms would do if it will be only dry tech info and no benchmarks? It would lose a lot of its viewers. And another thing - any quality review site should have all this info, not just "idol" or "topgear", its not mutualy exlusive Last note about similar sites - IT is a fast paced industry and review sites have to inform readers as soon as info arrives, or its too late a week or two after, since most readers will already know about that topic.

Actualy to mock benchmarks and stick to tech info only is even more absurd than to stick to benchies only. Both info should go hand to hand, but actual performance is more important than hypotetical performance, as we have saying: its better to have bird in the hand than deer in the woods 2900XT had great potential on paper, it didnt lived up to most of it. Yet less feature-packed but more brute force approach by nVidia plus TWIMTBP was the winner last round. Lets hope 10.1 will get to the masses sooner than 4xxx will become absolete, as it happened with 2900XT and 3xxx series.

Then you dont understand how TWIMTBP works. Its not like nVidia dev decides on his own to go to EA office and fine tune drivers/etc. Its management area - they decide to whom and how they should pay (exclusive, advertising, dev help, etc) to get what company needs - games optimized for their cards. Devs just do what they are told. It can be said that it was good management move by nVidia to implement TWIMTBP, and ATI lost quite a lot by not doingt such close dev relations with game makers.

MS change to DX10 was indeed management's fault, I dont think devs decided "lets cripple DX, because nVidia cant implement it right atm" R600's AA was devs fault and not managers, you are confusing deciding sides - its a fault (or win) of party who makes the decision which brings good/bad outcome for the company.

Oh god these huge posts just make my eyes glaze over

Have I mentioned how the title of this thread cracks me up every time I see it

Well nothing useful to say here so goodbye

Yep, just like your theory.
You can disagree too, but then again you would, because that's your style.

Same place you came up with your thread topic/theory, mine's probably closer to the truth though.

No, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's what you tell people online.

Now where's your source on that?
There's only one beneficary of the change. Not ATi, not S3 both of which were aiming for the original DX10 spec, and certainly not intel who does everything with hardware assist and would emulate either implemenation. So really whose decision do you think it was if not M$?

Actually that would be nVidia, or did you miss the class action lawsuit scandal?
The R600 supported DX10 features right out of the box granted with the typical glitches of any new launch, however they supported DX10 on launch day.
Maybe you missed those detailed reviews by the likes of Beyond3D and The Tech Report, let me guess you were just looking at benchies again.

Just now? HaHA!
Seriously, you really need to learn more about the industry if you think issue is new. It just makes me laugh that you picked THG as your target for 'pro-nVidia' , since everyone complained about the opposite last year and the year before. I think the last time THG was criticized as such was in the FX vs R300 era , and you missed the candidates who have a past of pre-launch info releases, public citicism wars and questionable benchmark omissions (within the same review).

Anywhoo, like Guru3D showed, the issue you complained about is pretty much brought on by ATi's own actions, not something limited to THG.

The ME II comment made we laugh. I don't get what everyone is so mad about, tom's did a review of the 4850. What more do you guys want?
^ and to dumbass johnie, if you read the actual article for the 2000, they explained why they didn't use ati.