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

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BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
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Full letter
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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.
 
Last edited:
Mar 11, 2004
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Did I just step into an alternate reality? What is going on? Nvidia has been playing dirty pool for as long as I can remember but somehow now people are just noticing? And make no mistake this back stabbing win at all cost gaslighting predatory corporate culture comes straight from the top.

Apparently you did as this thread is full of people mentioning past bad behavior by Nvidia.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
8,104
6,735
136
OK so you find RT massively overblown. Fine. But why then state things like 1080p is outdated just because he personally doesn't use that resolution?

That's just another opinion. I also disagree with it and one only need look at data about the resolutions that many gamers are playing at to see that there are presumably a good number of people who'd probably also agree with it as well. However, there are some people who already have 1440p or 4K monitors and for them 1080p is essentially outdated as far as they're concerned.

Everyone has different opinions about what's most important. For some people, the highest resolution is what's important. For others it's the fastest frame rate. Some want the best possible image quality. No matter what you prefer, there's no way to have them all at once.
 

coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
6,626
14,039
136
You're smarter than this. I'm disappointed.
Imagine my disappointment to see you out of all people endorse a company's strategy of bartering free video cards in exchange for positive coverage of their technology.

You champion facts and objective purchase decisions, yet on this occasion you endorse a company which is attempting to morph reviewers into this:

1607802661529.png
(Spoiler: he got a free card and more)

1607802757911.png


Discussing qualitatively the effects of RT and DLSS is not the same as stating subjective opinions on resolutions and frame rates.
It is the exact same thing, you're asking them to tell you how nice RT visuals are while not telling you how nice 1440p or 90FPS is. You want to pick and chose which subjective benchmarks are allowed.

Nvidia's main gripe with HUB is about them not focusing on qualitative data such as perception of RT effects and focusing on quantitative data such as the low number of games with RT and DLSS support.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,110
1,260
126
I think RT is relevant, nowhere near as much as rasterization, but if you care about the games where it's done well; it's an impressive effect. DLSS should be left out of reviews. I don't understand the benches I've seen at 4K with nvidia running DLSS vs AMD. It's just not a fair comparison, nvidia is literally runnning a lower resolution and upscaling it, while AMD is running at 4K. Plus the image degradation with DLSS, whether quality mode or not, is really noticeable to me.

Granted it's nice to have. You couldn't even run 4K in CP2077 at playable frames without it, but it should be kept in context. It's not true 4K or 1440p or whatever.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
8,104
6,735
136
So many "reviews" anymore, across multiple hardware review sites, have simply become an ad thinly discussed as an "article". It's like they don't even try to hide that aspect, as I believe the younger readers can't tell the difference since all the other major websites do some form of it.

Just take a look at all the "best of" and "lowest price ever" posts at places like Tom's, Anandtech, etc. It's all about money from referral links and the manufacturers, so I'm not all surprised Nvidia took this stand. That doesn't mean I like the direction everything is going, it's just something I've noticed since corporations began buying all the hardware review sites.

How many of those "reviews" to you read or watch though? I think most people start to gravitate away from that kind of content because all it doesn't actually inform them of anything. The problem is ultimately self-correcting and maybe there's some money to be made in the short term, but you can only sacrifice your credibility so many times before it and any audience it gained you is gone.
 
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UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
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How many of those "reviews" to you read or watch though? I think most people start to gravitate away from that kind of content because all it doesn't actually inform them of anything. The problem is ultimately self-correcting and maybe there's some money to be made in the short term, but you can only sacrifice your credibility so many times before it and any audience it gained you is gone.
It's not that I read them, but those type of "reviews" are fast replacing any real reviews.

The old style, objective hardware reviews are mostly dead. Just look how inactive places like the tech forums here have become over the last 10 years. Most of the current generation wants to watch a 3 minute YouTube video where an "influencer" tells them what to buy. YouTube gets its ad revenue, and the company only had to send a free product for the person to tell everyone how awesome it is. Cheap and effective.
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,440
5,429
136
nVidia doing its best trying to live up to its Corpo rep.

Few leave the corporate world with their lives - fewer still with their souls intact. You've been there - you've bent the rules, exploited secrets and weaponized information. There's no such thing as a fair game. Only winners and losers.
-Cyberpunk 2077
 

Glo.

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2015
5,802
4,776
136
The downvotes of my comments from a person who opened their account here in 2020 and has only interest in AMD products speaks to me that people like to just be extremists in their views, but there are people expressing how wrong it is too, a mix that is bad and rather it don't matter... the discussion of it really leads no where, other than ego baiting, ego upholding, skewing it to the common power held at the time and that power right now is that Nvidia are the devil and AMD are saints, this is how narrow minded people think and work. Power always changes hands...

When a lashing of truth is factored in and we bring it in with common sense, you get posts like mine.

But truthfully a lot of people are not for common sense or truth as it's far more personal to them.
In every single thread that points out stupid, uncompetitive, dishonest behavior of Nvidia, that were in the past multiple times, already, there is always plenty of people who want to defend Nvidia, who want to talk only about AMD, and their mistakes(drivers? Seriously? In a thread discussing disgusting hit job over Independent Outlets?). You are one of those that have appeard PRECISELY when stuff like this has appeard online, and started being discussed.

And lastly. You are not the one to judge who is for/has common sense, and who is not/doesn't have it. Because you are making an argument in the same rhetoric that Apple fanboys used years ago: "You are holding it wrong".
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,380
146
The downvotes of my comments from a person who opened their account here in 2020 and has only interest in AMD products speaks to me that people like to just be extremists in their views, but there are people expressing how wrong it is too, a mix that is bad and rather it don't matter... the discussion of it really leads no where, other than ego baiting, ego upholding, skewing it to the common power held at the time and that power right now is that Nvidia are the devil and AMD are saints, this is how narrow minded people think and work. Power always changes hands...

When a lashing of truth is factored in and we bring it in with common sense, you get posts like mine.

But truthfully a lot of people are not for common sense or truth as it's far more personal to them.
But you've been here since.......today.

So what makes a brand new poster more credible than another brand new user? :rolleyes:
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
8,104
6,735
136
But you've been here since.......today.

So what makes a brand new poster more credible than another brand new user? :rolleyes:

Maybe MetalH2600 is a model number for a kind of black pot or something along those lines.

As expected it's been reversed:
o8kw83991u461.jpg


Epic stupidity from NVidia PR.

The damage this does to their reputation, will linger LONG into the future.

Glad to see they decided not to go forward with something that idiotic, but I don't think anyone was expecting them to stick to their guns here. I also don't think it's going to hurt their reputation all that much since it's just one more thing on a long list and it isn't as though they're the only company doing stuff like this.

Most people will never be aware that it happened or will have forgotten about it in a month from now. Besides, the only true sin Nvidia could ever commit in the eyes of the faithful is not having the top performing card.
 

maddogmcgee

Senior member
Apr 20, 2015
391
343
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I don't like internet drama, and I tend to stay away from the 'flashier' and gimmicky YT channels. This turned out well but it is a bit worrying that a solid and serious channel like HWUB seemingly needed shoutouts and engagement from the less so (but bigger) ones to get out of this kind of trouble.

Yeah it is. NVidia is just pushing the boundaries to see what they can get away with. They have done this to the really small reviewers and im sure still do. Hardware Unboxed is a decently large channel though so this was a clear escalation. If this massive drama hadn't been created by other reviewers I am sure this would have happened to other reviewers pretty quickly. In the end, this has done Hardware Unboxed a massive favour and given them a lot of free publicity.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,881
4,951
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My thoughts:

1. HWU has been dismissive of DLSS and ray tracing in most of their videos. I did think they've gone too far because you're not upgrading to the 3000 series just to play your old rasterization games. The 1000 series still play games very well.

A 2060 Super can play Cyberpunk at 1080p high settings with ray tracing and DLSS. That's impressive. Nvidia's RTX and DLSS tech is really really good and they're clearly here to stay for all future AAA games.

2. I don't disagree with Nvidia's decision to stop supplying cards to them. But I disagree with the way they did it. Why not just silently not send them any cards? Why explain it to them? That's just asking for trouble. I would fire the PR guy.
Because this was also a message to everyone. Isn't it obvious.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,881
4,951
136
Well then I disagree with Nvidia if that's what Nvidia was trying to do.

Again, I think it was fine for Nvidia to not supply cards to HUB. I too have found HUB's DLSS and ray tracing dismissals annoying. I just think their PR guy was stupid for how he decided to do it.
I'm starting to think that maybe this was a directive from above, as Linus was shocked at this strange behavior from someone he knew and respected. Jensen Huang has exactly the personality to try this sort of ultimatum.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
2,995
126
OP updated with nVidia's retraction.

Also HWUB's RT analysis in Cyberpunk:

Even with minimum RT, 3070 has the same 1% low as the 3060TI and runs slower than 2080Ti at 1440p + DLSS (1080p actual). Add that to the pile where 8GB isn't enough.

2060 is an outright failure at 1080p + DLSS (720p actual), again with minimal RT. It's clearly running out of VRAM as the 2060S basically doubles it's score. If the 3060 arrives with 6GB it'll be DOA.

I still remember certain individuals on the internet telling us the 2060 was "future-proof" and "RT ready". Nope, not when minimum RT + 720p upscaled gives a glorious 23FPS 1% low.

There's a bizarre recurring irony here: RT has a voracious VRAM appetite, yet nVidia consistently underspecs their cards in that area, with the exception of the 3090.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
2,995
126
I did think they've gone too far because you're not upgrading to the 3000 series just to play your old rasterization games.
What utter nonsense, and reads just like the "we, gamers" in the OP letter.

Did you see the survey in the OP? At least 37,730 people don't agree with you, the 77% majority in that poll.

Next time use the word "I'm" instead of "you're" to more accurately reflect reality.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
2,559
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Well then I disagree with Nvidia if that's what Nvidia was trying to do.

Again, I think it was fine for Nvidia to not supply cards to HUB. I too have found HUB's DLSS and ray tracing dismissals annoying. I just think their PR guy was stupid for how he decided to do it.

HWUB has ENTIRE VIDEOS talking about DLSS and Ray Tracing, including for the 3080. AND they were even quoted ON nVIDIA's OWN WEB PAGE praising DLSS.

You sound as if you have never even watched their content, and you just want to be on nVidia's side.
 

AnandThenMan

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2004
3,980
595
126
I think Jensen has enough things to do at a 322 billion dollar company than to care about one slightly AMD-biased Youtuber. Come on now.
Because HUB didn't wave the Nvidia flag the way they wanted, Steve Walton is now a "slightly AMD-biased Youtuber"? BTW Jensen is 100% concerned or there would have been no retraction.