nVidia blocks Hardware Unboxed due to rasterization focus. Update: nVidia retracts.

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BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
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LTT coverage


My thoughts

I think this is wrong and to be completely fair, I called out this behavior when AMD played similar shenanigans with TPU and Tech Report.

As for the "gamers" comment above, as of right now I don't give a crap about ray tracing, and even less of a crap about DLSS. I own a 2060 Super and never use any of those features by choice, for various reasons. Perhaps in 3-5 years with 2-3 new generations of cards, my opinion might change.

Rasterization is by far the most important feature for me, and I'm not a minority by any stretch of the imagination:

Survey.jpg

Update: nVidia now retracted


I'm not surprised they retracted but I expected it to take longer along with a "it was an internal draft that was never supposed to be released", or similar.
 
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MetalH2600

Member
Dec 12, 2020
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Nvidia had to lower clocks on the 3080 after launch because they were unstable.
There were also tons of issues with the 2080ti and "space invaders":

Also supposedly killing GPUs:

I know that the 5700xt really had issues in the beginning, and it took them a few months to sort it out. However, I've been using a 5700xt for more than a year, and have only had minor problems with two specific games, but definitely nothing major.

It's nice that Nvidia cards have a fix, 5700 XT's still go on black / green screening to this day.
 

KompuKare

Golden Member
Jul 28, 2009
1,010
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nv has abused aib partners, foundries, console makers, laptop makers, tegra customers, and even customers directly(remember the driver update that fried gpus)
Don'ts forget that all those millions of laptop and desktop parts where they choose the wrong solder back when the transition from leaded to lead-free solder was going on. Think they were eventually to set aside $250 million for that in NA, but customers in the rest of the world got nothing unless a laptop OEM offered them something (kudos to Apple who did swap out a lot of logic boards for 8400gm or whatever it was; sometimes multiple times as the replacements had the same fault).
 

KompuKare

Golden Member
Jul 28, 2009
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I know that the 5700xt really had issues in the beginning, and it took them a few months to sort it out. However, I've been using a 5700xt for more than a year, and have only had minor problems with two specific games, but definitely nothing major.
Strange how some people experienced no problems at all, while for others the problem was never solved at all.
Either there was/is some config which had an incompatibility they can't work around, or there is a hardware reason. Maybe a silicon stepping, or a change in the receive design, or something.
 

linkgoron

Platinum Member
Mar 9, 2005
2,283
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It's nice that Nvidia cards have a fix, 5700 XT's still go on black / green screening to this day.
I like how you ignore the drivers killing cards parts. Just out of curiosity, did you try to RMA your card (i.e. were all of your issues from the same card, or did you try to replace it and see if it's defective and had issues with another card)?

Strange how some people experienced no problems at all, while for others the problem was never solved at all.
Either there was/is some config which had an incompatibility they can't work around, or there is a hardware reason. Maybe a silicon stepping, or a change in the receive design, or something.

His card is newer than mine (8 months, per his other thread). It doesn't necessarily mean that it's newer, but its likely. I agree, however, that it looks like there might have been a bad batch or some other issue somewhere.
 

JustMe21

Senior member
Sep 8, 2011
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Well this is unwarranted but you can't deny that they are among the most pro-AMD reviewers out there. It is factually true that they never focus much on RT or DLSS - when they do show benchmarks of RT to compare against AMD, they chose the worst implementation of it by showing Dirt 5 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. They have the lowest gap between the 3060 Ti and 5700 XT among most of the reviews and they were constantly trying to undersell the 3060 Ti by stating that it's not enough of a performance uplift over the 5700 XT.

Currently, Rasterization is still more important. Ray Tracing is more of a casual user feature and still a few generations away from being very common place. Any competitive pro gamer would never be using ray tracing because of the impact to FPS. People should also be aware that DLSS has an image quality price for its performance. Also, look at Hardware Unboxed's 6900 XT review as they didn't recommend the card at all. They do talk a lot about their Patreon members, so they probably do gear their reviews more toward what their members want to see, which is probably rasterization performance.
 
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MetalH2600

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Dec 12, 2020
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I like how you ignore the drivers killing cards parts. Just out of curiosity, did you try to RMA your card (i.e. were all of your issues from the same card, or did you try to replace it and see if it's defective and had issues with another card)?



His card is newer than mine (8 months, per his other thread). It doesn't necessarily mean that it's newer, but its likely. I agree, however, that it looks like there might have been a bad batch or some other issue somewhere.
Drivers killing cards...

2011? 590?

I am talking now, current trends...
 

tamz_msc

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2017
3,698
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Look at HUB dismissing raytracing altogether:

Try again? Yes/No.
Did you take a look at their 3060Ti review? This is the justification they give for why they don't consider RT important in case of the 3060Ti:
Personally gaming at 60FPS feels pretty sluggish to me, even games like Watch Dogs I like to play at around 90FPS - the input feels a hell of a lot better and I favour input over visual quality.
Of course he immediately afterwards says that for those who prefer 60FPS the 3060Ti delivers a good experience with DLSS.

This is the kind of messaging that they give - first it's always about Steve's personal preferences taking up most of the time spent on discussing ray tracing and its performance; that people have different preferences gets a secondary mention. Look at every review that has raytracing performance, the same pattern emerges. He even says that there is no game worth enabling RT in his 6800XT review.

Then there's the choice of games when it comes to comparing RT with AMD cards against NVIDIA, but that's another story.
 

linkgoron

Platinum Member
Mar 9, 2005
2,283
803
136
Drivers killing cards...

2011? 590?

I am talking now, current trends...
The 2080ti isn't that old. The 3080 cards crashing was also new.


Just this October Nvidia had black screen issues with gsync:

Still didn't answer if you RMAd your card or not. Are you 100% sure your card was not faulty?
 

MetalH2600

Member
Dec 12, 2020
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The 2080ti isn't that old. The 3080 cards crashing was also new.


Just this October Nvidia had black screen issues with gsync:

Still didn't answer if you RMAd your card or not. Are you 100% sure your card was not faulty?
If the card was faulty it would not be fully stable under load playing games which it was, it always did it just browsing Steam or a web browser even with HW accel off.

Considering most usage is not in video games, it's trashy drivers and i cannot see it any other way, some people can look over it if they only get a blank screen once per day but i can't because i use my computer for other things too.

Let us consider the mass amounts of people experiencing the same problems, it is highly doubtful it is the GPU considering it's across all AIB's too.

The Nvidia cards were fixed, that's the huge difference here. Sounds like fanboyism in here.
 

tamz_msc

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2017
3,698
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Currently, Rasterization is still more important. Ray Tracing is more of a casual user feature and still a few generations away from being very common place. Any competitive pro gamer would never be using ray tracing because of the impact to FPS. People should also be aware that DLSS has an image quality price for its performance. Also, look at Hardware Unboxed's 6900 XT review as they didn't recommend the card at all. They do talk a lot about their Patreon members, so they probably do gear their reviews more toward what their members want to see, which is probably rasterization performance.
Who's saying that competitive FPS users should turn on RT? Also DLSS depends on implementation, there are games like CoD: Black Ops Cold War which is a competitive game where you might want to enable DLSS at higher resolutions as its free performance with minimal loss in image quality because the DLSS implementation is very good in that game.
 

MetalH2600

Member
Dec 12, 2020
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AMD drivers really that bad? - Graphics Cards - Linus Tech Tips

Radeon VII, Vega's, RX 5000 all suffering the same fate, a lot of people do carry on with blinkers on.

My original point was, if AMD were much more on top of their game then it would give Nvidia no chance, but it's not the case.

How many people continue saying their 2080Ti is dying after the fix? None.... outside of a DOA card here or there.

How many AMD Radeon owners? a fair share saying all is sweet and perfect, some saying they fixed their issues and some saying they have never had it fixed, some who say that it blank screens once or twice per week but gloss over it and say it's fine too.


Practically and intelligently, it is dumb to go off of politics for your choice in buying a GPU as you end up doing yourself over when your main goal and aim was for a GPU in the first place.
 
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tamz_msc

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2017
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I guess they are so pro AMD that their Ryzen 5000 series review was one of the least favorable on the internet. Nonsense imho. HU guys are not the most technically proficient reviewers among their peers, they do the odd error here and there and they may have been too eager to throw elbows with others on twitter in the past. But as far as their content goes, they are as subjective as it gets in a reviewer scene marred by open or covert shilling. Branding them as pro AMD is absolutely unfair and more of a testament on how accustomed we are with sites catering to nvidia by default.
They forgot to include the 3060Ti in the cost-per-frame graphs for their most recent GPU review(6900XT) even though the 5700 and 5700XT were included. They have the widest gap (over 20%) between the RX 5700XT and RTX 2060 Super in their testing while the other reviews have the gap at around 10%. They use this "fact" to dismiss the RTX 2060 Super in the $400-category even though it used to be cheaper than the 5700XT. They also forgot to include the i5-10400/F in the cost-per-frame graphs in their 5600X review, even though the former costs half that of the latter.

They are not overtly pro-AMD by any stretch, just by omission of crucial information they present themselves as such.
 
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tamz_msc

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Nice to see that even the most pro-AMD reviewers out there are not overtly pro-AMD by any stretch.
There's a difference between being pro-something and being a shill. They're definitely not the latter. Oh and one video from Tim who is more neutral doesn't detract from the fact that Steve does very little to hide his AMD-bias.
 
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Glo.

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2015
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The fact that ANYBODY would try to justify Nvidia's actions is beyond stupidity.

Reviewers, independent media are untouchable by any company. First, Nvidia's action violates Free Speech, because their general thought from the e-mail is very simple: "Either you obey, and review our products WE want to be reviewed, or you do not get our hardware for reviews". That in itself violates Free Speech.

Secondly. Its not Nvidia's business the review methods any reviewer uses if the end result is fair for the product.

HUB's review methodology, setups doesn't point into picture that would the case for Nvidia product reviews.

Its genuinely disgusting.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,717
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Did you take a look at their 3060Ti review? This is the justification they give for why they don't consider RT important in case of the 3060Ti:

Of course he immediately afterwards says that for those who prefer 60FPS the 3060Ti delivers a good experience with DLSS.

This is the kind of messaging that they give - first it's always about Steve's personal preferences taking up most of the time spent on discussing ray tracing and its performance; that people have different preferences gets a secondary mention. Look at every review that has raytracing performance, the same pattern emerges. He even says that there is no game worth enabling RT in his 6800XT review.

Then there's the choice of games when it comes to comparing RT with AMD cards against NVIDIA, but that's another story.
That's why you have a choice in what to watch. Maybe, just maybe, there are some gamers who think like him and value a kindred mind before buying a card. Are you so narrow minded so as to not want any different viewpoint except your own? Isn't free choice to watch or buy, a desirable thing? Homogeneous thinking is our doom.
 

MetalH2600

Member
Dec 12, 2020
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That's why you have a choice in what to watch. Maybe, just maybe, there are some gamers who think like him and value a kindred mind before buying a card. Are you so narrow minded so as to not want any different viewpoint except your own? Isn't free choice to watch or buy, a desirable thing? Homogeneous thinking is our doom.
In answer to that person you answered what i thought...

This topic is fully useless since it creates no change.
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,782
6,186
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That's why you have a choice in what to watch. Maybe, just maybe, there are some gamers who think like him and value a kindred mind before buying a card. Are you so narrow minded so as to not want any different viewpoint except your own? Isn't free choice to watch or buy, a desirable thing? Homogeneous thinking is our doom.
What about free choice of whom to send a free card to?
 

tamz_msc

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2017
3,698
3,547
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That's why you have a choice in what to watch. Maybe, just maybe, there are some gamers who think like him and value a kindred mind before buying a card. Are you so narrow minded so as to not want any different viewpoint except your own? Isn't free choice to watch or buy, a desirable thing? Homogeneous thinking is our doom.
They'd be better off without including personal opinions on how a game's performance or visuals ought to be from the end-user's standpoint. Saying things like RT is not worth it in any game, or preferring 90FPS in a game like Watch Dogs, or saying that 1080p is not relevant because I've been using a 1440p monitor for a decade is not required at all.
 
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