AMD sent Techreport an Intel system to test their GPU's

[Lonyo]

Thinking they knew they didn't have any consistent microstutter issues on that particular hardware platform.

Yeah.

AMD PR Guy #1: "Hey guys, there are dozens of hardware review sites out there. Lets send some mobile GPUs to Techreport, guys who are all about microstutter, but lets make sure to send them a platform that we've rigged to reduce microstutter, that way when they detect there's still microstutter people will think we're awesome".

AMD PR Guy #2: "Great idea! Lets send samples to TR instead of one or more of the dozens of OTHER review sites that don't talk about microstutter at all. That way we can try and hope to hide the issue by sending cards to a place which talks about the issue, rather than hiding it by sending cards to sites which have never mentioned it. That's a surefire way to cover up the issue, send samples to sites which report on it, rather than those which don't".

AMD PR Guy #1: "I know. I'm incredibly clever. Lets hope that no one picks up on this cunning plan to hide microstutter issues by sending hardware to the microstutter focused review site rather than other sites which don't talk about it."

 

[Idontcare]

Yeah.

AMD PR Guy #1: "Hey guys, there are dozens of hardware review sites out there. Lets send some mobile GPUs to Techreport, guys who are all about microstutter, but lets make sure to send them a platform that we've rigged to reduce microstutter, that way when they detect there's still microstutter people will think we're awesome".

AMD PR Guy #2: "Great idea! Lets send samples to TR instead of one or more of the dozens of OTHER review sites that don't talk about microstutter at all. That way we can try and hope to hide the issue by sending cards to a place which talks about the issue, rather than hiding it by sending cards to sites which have never mentioned it. That's a surefire way to cover up the issue, send samples to sites which report on it, rather than those which don't".

AMD PR Guy #1: "I know. I'm incredibly clever. Lets hope that no one picks up on this cunning plan to hide microstutter issues by sending hardware to the microstutter focused review site rather than other sites which don't talk about it."

LOL, that was good

But I don't know which is more absurd, that AMD did send an entire review platform to reviewers instead of just the specific hardware that was to be reviewed, or the fact that there is so much seemingly silly "outrage and backlash" towards Techreport over their seemingly helpful efforts to enumerate and characterize microstutter

When Anand did it for SSDs, and rocked the proverbial boat in doing so (and to the benefit of us ALL), it was a fairly unanimous "thank you" from the enthusiast community. But when Techreport does the equivalent in the GPU market it becomes some bitter sore-point division between the enthusiasts themselves.

It is odd in ways I have yet to fully grasp.

 

[mrmt]

When Anand did it for SSDs, and rocked the proverbial boat in doing so (and to the benefit of us ALL), it was a fairly unanimous "thank you" from the enthusiast community. But when Techreport does the equivalent in the GPU market it becomes some bitter sore-point division between the enthusiasts themselves.

It's because this is putting AMD products in bad light, and once you do that, you get throngs of fanboys complaining about bias, about how unfair the review are and about the conspiracy of the tech media to disavow AMD products.

It was the same with Bulldozer, when AMD shock troop tried to discredit every single analysis out there that antecipated the Bulldozer debacle, it was the same when people didn't buy Randy "40%" Allen claims about Barcelona, it was the same when Toms fried Athlons to show that they didn't have good thermal protection, and it was the same when people started to complain about AMD touting OpenCL as an alternative to CUDA when they didn't even working functional OpenCL drivers.

 

[Lonyo]

LOL, that was good

But I don't know which is more absurd, that AMD did send an entire review platform to reviewers instead of just the specific hardware that was to be reviewed, or the fact that there is so much seemingly silly "outrage and backlash" towards Techreport over their seemingly helpful efforts to enumerate and characterize microstutter

When Anand did it for SSDs, and rocked the proverbial boat in doing so (and to the benefit of us ALL), it was a fairly unanimous "thank you" from the enthusiast community. But when Techreport does the equivalent in the GPU market it becomes some bitter sore-point division between the enthusiasts themselves.

It is odd in ways I have yet to fully grasp.

It might be because they had some sort of custom MXM to PCIe adapter board and wanted to have a verified PCIe3 platform, to eliminate any chance of incompatibility.

 

[BrightCandle]

LOL, that was good

But I don't know which is more absurd, that AMD did send an entire review platform to reviewers instead of just the specific hardware that was to be reviewed, or the fact that there is so much seemingly silly "outrage and backlash" towards Techreport over their seemingly helpful efforts to enumerate and characterize microstutter

When Anand did it for SSDs, and rocked the proverbial boat in doing so (and to the benefit of us ALL), it was a fairly unanimous "thank you" from the enthusiast community. But when Techreport does the equivalent in the GPU market it becomes some bitter sore-point division between the enthusiasts themselves.

It is odd in ways I have yet to fully grasp.

I think at this point everyone owns a GPU, whereas when the Anandtech article was released most people didn't own an SSD. Buyers bias is colouring the discussions in a big way for GPUs.

 

[Idontcare]

It's because this is putting AMD products in bad light, and once you do that, you get throngs of fanboys complaining about bias, about how unfair the review are and about the conspiracy of the tech media to disavow AMD products.

It was the same with Bulldozer, when AMD shock troop tried to discredit every single analysis out there that antecipated the Bulldozer debacle, it was the same when people didn't buy Randy "40%" Allen claims about Barcelona, it was the same when Toms fried Athlons to show that they didn't have good thermal protection, and it was the same when people started to complain about AMD touting OpenCL as an alternative to CUDA when they didn't even working functional OpenCL drivers.

Ah, I see now. I had not connected the dots like that, despite knowing of all those events on an individualized basis.

Yes, what you say makes sense. In this light there is a pattern to the "disavow, discredit, deny" brigade.

What I guess I don't get is why people wouldn't want to see the products improved upon if such opportunities for improvement really do exist.

Take the more recent "high speed camera" video work published by TR. To be honest I saw hitching and stuttering from both video cards, more-so from the AMD card though, which I would hope Nvidia and AMD figure out a way to eliminate in future driver or hardware revisions.

If the customer willingly ignores the product deficiency, as they did in the early days of SSD adoption, then what company is going to intentionally spend money to shore up such deficiencies in future products?

It reminds me of the 24fps issues with Intel iGPUs when used as HTPCs...the "feature" is there, and it will always be there until Intel feels it necessary to spend the money needed to have its engineers fully, and finally, address the deficiency. Who doesn't want that happen? How is it going to happen if review sites do not put a spotlight on the existence of the issue in the first place?

These sorts of "consumer reports" ought to find unanimous common ground across enthusiasts in all segments IMO. It is when they don't that I become perplexed. As you rightly point out this is not an isolated incident when it comes to AMD products in general, for some reason AMD products are supposed to be granted immunity from scrutiny I guess.

Sad, really, because we all stand to benefit from an AMD that fields improved products, and who better to tell them what needs improving than the very people who are saying "I won't buy your product because of deficiency xyz"?

 

[mrmt]

These sorts of "consumer reports" ought to find unanimous common ground across enthusiasts in all segments IMO. It is when they don't that I become perplexed.

That's my opinion too. If you really don't care about the stuttering, at least this is more info available for your purchase decision, and more information here does not hurt. A purchase is always a compromise, and if you are willing to compromise on stuttering, that's really your problem, not of the review site that is posting the information.

As you rightly point out this is not an isolated incident when it comes to AMD products in general, for some reason AMD products are supposed to be granted immunity from scrutiny I guess.

I'm impressed by the credibility AMD still enjoys among sectors of the tech community, even after actively deceiving the community in every single one of those debacles I mentioned, the fanboys still take their statements as holier-than-thou when they should take the statements with a mountain of salt.

It is AMD who should step forward and tell everyone why their cards stutter more than NVDA's and, if they are going to do something about it, give a deadline to solve the problem. Yet what we got is the company mum and the fanboys jumping in defense of the company when they didn't really deserve any defense.

 

[Ferzerp]

As you rightly point out this is not an isolated incident when it comes to AMD products in general, for some reason AMD products are supposed to be granted immunity from scrutiny I guess.

Your 8350 thread has been pretty telling about some things that are just plain odd about AMD stuff (the power issues, the memory timing loosening you had to do over your intel, the crashing instead of throttling, etc). It just seems a far less polished platform overall. AMD gets a free pass though from its fans.

Oh, and don't mention SLI vs CFX performance and how the raw average framerates don't really tell the real story on how it is to game on the two on VC&G, you just get attacked.

 

[2is]

Or that's what spare coolers AMD happened to have kicking around their lab.

More than likely this is the case. I doubt it's a marketing move. I don't know anyone that is going to buy or not buy a card because it has an ATI sticker.

 

[Rvenger]

Yeah.

AMD PR Guy #1: "Hey guys, there are dozens of hardware review sites out there. Lets send some mobile GPUs to Techreport, guys who are all about microstutter, but lets make sure to send them a platform that we've rigged to reduce microstutter, that way when they detect there's still microstutter people will think we're awesome".

AMD PR Guy #2: "Great idea! Lets send samples to TR instead of one or more of the dozens of OTHER review sites that don't talk about microstutter at all. That way we can try and hope to hide the issue by sending cards to a place which talks about the issue, rather than hiding it by sending cards to sites which have never mentioned it. That's a surefire way to cover up the issue, send samples to sites which report on it, rather than those which don't".

AMD PR Guy #1: "I know. I'm incredibly clever. Lets hope that no one picks up on this cunning plan to hide microstutter issues by sending hardware to the microstutter focused review site rather than other sites which don't talk about it."

Funny







Seriously though...
It will either MS or not. Its not magic. If AMD has a solution then they would be sharing to all Bios manufactures. I have a Gigabyte Z77 mobo and don't notice any MS issues at all either.

 

[Chiropteran]

Someone call me when nvidia starts running their GPUs on tegra systems in benchmarks, rather than using competitor's CPUs.

 

[Keysplayr]

Someone call me when nvidia starts running their GPUs on tegra systems in benchmarks, rather than using competitor's CPUs.

Why?

 

[ocre]

hmmm....interesting!

We all know its odd and with good reason. I can paint a picture out of this i find interesting. intel platform sent from AMD's gpu division may be odd on its own but when you add in the ATI logos i start seeing a pattern. Lets say there is some thought behind this, some meaning that could be read. Perhaps its signs of something much deeper.

I can imagine a scenario where AMDs gpu division is unhappy with AMD. The graphics division used to be a successful and promising ATI which AMD acquired some years back. As AMD continues to with missteps and mishaps you can only imagine there is a graved disappointment within especially the in their graphics division which has a history of just raw greatness. If i try to read into these things being discussed i could offer the possibility that perhaps this is a sign of their graphic division's protest towards AMD. That they are not happy with their performance and would rather showcase their new GPU in the best light with an intel CPU. To further shove it in they shipped ATI logos which can be read like a big middle finger to AMD. We all know AMD decided that thier graphics cards no longer carry the ATI logo but somehow the ATI logos appear to be pop up somehow. Apparently some people at the gpu division still feel attached to their ATI roots.

I really would consider that there is turmoil between the GPU division and AMD. Their future is in AMDs hands and things really havent been looking so good. One could only imagine how tough the ride has been. All of these signs are interesting and i think there is some underlying reasoning.

 

[Puppies04]

Why?

Because AMD using an Intel CPU in their test system is obviously just as bad as Nvidia not using their own CPUs when they send test rigs out.

 

[BrightCandle]

Because AMD using an Intel CPU in their test system is obviously just as bad as Nvidia not using their own CPUs when they send test rigs out.

NVidia makes arm processors, the games their GPUs are made for obviously only run on x86....they don't run on ARM. That is a huge difference making using a tegra somewhat of a technical impossibility.

 

[Keysplayr]

Because AMD using an Intel CPU in their test system is obviously just as bad as Nvidia not using their own CPUs when they send test rigs out.

This has what to do with anything? Let alone Nvidia designs ARM, not x86?

 

[mrmt]

Your 8350 thread has been pretty telling about some things that are just plain odd about AMD stuff (the power issues, the memory timing loosening you had to do over your intel, the crashing instead of throttling, etc). It just seems a far less polished platform overall. AMD gets a free pass though from its fans.

There is a reason that AMD chips are cheaper and it is not because AMD is a nice company, but because you have to compromise on somethings. It is the sum of the compromises that IDC pointed out, such as slower performance in a few apps, slower SATA performance, no CPU throttling, higher power consumption, higher thermal dissipation, higher noise levels, the slower RAM performance and even poor packaging that makes AMD chips cheaper.

There is nothing wrong in buying AMD processor. There is something wrong when AMD fanboys talk like AMD processors are on par with Intel processors when they clearly aren't in a lot of disciplines other than performance in MT scenarios. Whenever they do that they are unaware of the compromises or think the compromises are irrelevant for everyone else, which is not always the case. ("I know it is slower but you can overclock", what if the guy does not want to bother to overclock or does not want to buy a new PSU just for AMD's sake?)

Same with stuttering. There is nothing wrong to buy a GPU that stutters. There is something wrong when because YOU think this is an irrelevant trade off, everybody should do the same.

 

[TerryMathews]

There is a reason that AMD chips are cheaper and it is not because AMD is a nice company, but because you have to compromise on somethings. It is the sum of the compromises that IDC pointed out, such as slower performance in a few apps, slower SATA performance, no CPU throttling, higher power consumption, higher thermal dissipation, higher noise levels, the slower RAM performance and even poor packaging that makes AMD chips cheaper.

There is nothing wrong in buying AMD processor. There is something wrong when AMD fanboys talk like AMD processors are on par with Intel processors when they clearly aren't in a lot of disciplines other than performance in MT scenarios. Whenever they do that they are unaware of the compromises or think the compromises are irrelevant for everyone else, which is not always the case. ("I know it is slower but you can overclock", what if the guy does not want to bother to overclock or does not want to buy a new PSU just for AMD's sake?)

Same with stuttering. There is nothing wrong to buy a GPU that stutters. There is something wrong when because YOU think this is an irrelevant trade off, everybody should do the same.

AMD was cheaper even when they held the performance crown.

 

[Keysplayr]

AMD was cheaper even when they held the performance crown.

Not for lack of trying though. We're talking near 1000 dollar FX-55. Remember?

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD was cheaper even when they held the performance crown.

Lets turn time back to may 2005.

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz 512KB $537
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz 1024KB $581
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz 512KB $803
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz 1024KB $1001

 

[mrmt]

Not for lack of trying though. We're talking near 1000 dollar FX-55. Remember?

See what I was talking about in the previous posts? We are talking here of a company that deliberately delayed a node introduction to milk their customers a little more, that charged A LOT for their processors when they had the performance crown, that a few months ago Toms could not find a single price point where AMD would be a better choice than Intel for a gaming CPU, that releases their 7000 series with sky-high prices and yet there are people with the illusion that AMD always charged less than Intel or Nvidia for that matter.

I bet I'll soon hear someone crying how AMD helps to keep Intel prices in check, when in truth the only company *desperate* for a price increase is AMD, not Intel or Nvidia.

 

[TerryMathews]

Not for lack of trying though. We're talking near 1000 dollar FX-55. Remember?

Lets turn time back to may 2005.

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz 512KB $537
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz 1024KB $581
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz 512KB $803
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz 1024KB $1001

And? http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides..._3/Weekly-CPU-Prices--Week-of-May-23-2005.htm

Two words: Emergency Edition.

 

[TerryMathews]

See what I was talking about in the previous posts? We are talking here of a company that deliberately delayed a node introduction to milk their customers a little more, that charged A LOT for their processors when they had the performance crown, that a few months ago Toms could not find a single price point where AMD would be a better choice than Intel for a gaming CPU, that releases their 7000 series with sky-high prices and yet there are people with the illusion that AMD always charged less than Intel or Nvidia for that matter.

I bet I'll soon hear someone crying how AMD helps to keep Intel prices in check, when in truth the only company *desperate* for a price increase is AMD, not Intel or Nvidia.

They're both guilty of it at various points. Remember Intel selling the same core twice as the Pentium 2 and iii? I mean it was even the same speeds.

 

[ShintaiDK]

And? http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides..._3/Weekly-CPU-Prices--Week-of-May-23-2005.htm

Two words: Emergency Edition.

Not sure what you are trying to say. Because your original statement is still invalid. AMD took all the money they could when they had the lead. And in no way did they give any "charity". It was first in july 2006 we got a huge price change when AMD lost the performance lead we got cheapish CPUs again with the E6600. And that was simply because Intel understood more sold CPUs was better than higher prices in terms of profit. And AMD had to cut prices in the following months with above 75%.

In 2006 a FX62 was 791$ and performned like a 228$ E6400 if you want to play the EE game. 4x4 was AMDs desperate move afterwards.

 

[Puppies04]

Because AMD using an Intel CPU in their test system is obviously just as bad as Nvidia not using their own CPUs when they send test rigs out.

To everyone who obviously missed the sarcasm in my response, please go back and realise I was answering keysplayr (post #62) in a tounge in cheek way....