Should AT include OC'd Cards in Reviews?

[n0x1ous]

It's only $10 more than the NON-EE card, it still has a $10 MIR so it's still cheaper at the end of the day than an hd6870, the performance is pretty much split between the two, and you can buy it right now.

Your point will only be validated if neither of these cards are restocked soon and adequately. If the 6850's were selling out everywhere yesterday and today because of their incredible value, Nvidiots would be crying paper launch left and right even if that weren't true. Your complaints are similar in this regard. You have no idea how many FTW cards newegg sold and you have no idea how many more FTW cards EVGA will make.

this^^ just what i was thinking/posted but done much more elegantly!

 

[NoQuarter]

Ok but my pie chart shows the ratio of GTX 460's clocked at 850Mhz to all other GTX 460's available

 

[fuzzymath10]

I don't think having overclocked cards is a problem. Tech-savvy folks will complain because they know what's happening on the back end (i.e. overclocking) but it's important to consider the video cards as products. When I unwrap a product and use it as advertised and get a certain level of performance for a certain price, that's what's important. Additionally, if such factory overclocks are covered under the warranty, then it's different from a user overclock (also in that the overclock is attached to the product no matter what the user does). The guts might be the same but the product is different, and there's nothing wrong as long as these products are clearly marked as different.

Some computer sellers have extreme/black processors overclocked out of the box and they should be benchmarked as is because they were advertised and guaranteed to operate at that speed.

 

[Arkadrel]

Someone show me a pie chart of the 470s and 480s that are overclocked versions vs normal ones

 

[GaiaHunter]

If videocards are within 10% of each other in for the same price, will anyone notice the difference in gameplay?

Its not even 10%. Around 5% or so.

 

[3DVagabond]

Actually it is good.
There are many GTX460's. The slowest is the stock at reference clocks. The fastest is the one they sent to AT. All others fall pretty much between those two.

So you can easily tell what sort of performance pretty much any GTX460 will have by extrapolating between the fastest and slowest available cards. While it's obviously marketing from NV trying to promote their product, it also helps inform consumers, or at least ones who understand the products, because they get an idea of the two extremes of GTX460s.

While it may be disagreeable that NV sent in cards and tried to 'persuade' review sites to use them, at the end of the day it provides a valuable performance metric which is relevant to the cards in question (GTX460 and HD68xx) simply because there are so many GTX460s at various clocks, that just including a stock clocked one says nothing about 80% of the cards on the market.
By including both a high and low clocked one, you then become informed about where the other 80% will fall.

You may disagree with the NV element, but at the end of the day, it's pretty much essential to include the information in a review which seeks to inform consumers of what the options are, and allow them to make the best possible decisions based on useful evidence. It's damned good to me as a consumer, even if it's dodgy in many ways from a marketing/business practice standpoint.

I'm not after AT for any wrong doing, just being taken advantage of by nVidia marketing. At least we agree that it was dodgy marketing.

In the context it appears in the review, while it's additional info, I don't think that it's enough info to be certain that all readers don't just look at the name and fps and nothing else. People are also lead to believe that they can buy any old vanilla 460 and it will O/C to 850 with ease. The article doesn't say that, but there are those on this board, for example, who do.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Whats done is done. What it is , Is what it is. In future reviews of nv cards. we only need to hope AMD has manufactoring O/C cards that they insist be tested against Nvs referance card. Until that day arrives . This is what it is . Easlily seen for what it is.

 

[NoQuarter]

Someone show me a pie chart of the 470s and 480s that are overclocked versions vs normal ones

I would but they looked exactly like the 5770 chart, about 1/4 of each, but most of the OC's are only 25Mhz.

 

[Janooo]

Well, AT got tricked by NV. They did what NV wanted.
AT is under NV influence for some time already.

 

[HendrixFan]

Most cards don't have such words written about them.
Now for a visual demonstration of why it's valid to have overclocked cards included:

That image is further proof of why it wasn't valid to include the overclocked card. The vast majority of 460s come overclocked, and a casual reader won't know one overclock from the next. For once, Tomshardware did the right thing and not Anandtech. Toms went and averaged the overclocks being sold and put that in their review.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

FTW 850mhz GTX460 is out of stock@ newegg.com. Ringer card? You bet.

Excellent move by Nvidia, stuff the review with an overclocked card at a discount price that they have no intention of selling in any real volume. In fact Nvidia can't sell it in volume, it's a binned chipped. Anandtech plays right along. :thumbsdown:

FTW Edition

Wow just wow. The guys defending the shenanigans by AT and nvidia have also gotten strangely silent.

 

[epidemis]

I suppose,what matters are the specs and price. The OC'ed cards should be included, although it would still be slightly unfair since they would a completely different overclockability than stock cards.

 

[Attic]

FTW 850mhz GTX460 is out of stock@ newegg.com. Ringer card? You bet.

Excellent move by Nvidia, stuff the review with an overclocked card at a discount price that they have no intention of selling in any real volume. In fact Nvidia can't sell it in volume, it's a binned chipped. Anandtech plays right along. :thumbsdown:

FTW Edition

Yes. That puts into focus the problems with what nVidia is doing by manipulating reviews with seeding these kind of "ringer" cards to review sites.

2 Year Warrenty on the FTW is the very lowest of warrenties unless you go to refurb'd cards. The card isn't in stock. The card is clocked above and beyond, in a major way, the majority of the oc'd cards that make up the 460 landscape.

The points have been brought up again and again about the negatives of what Anandtech did by playing into nVidia's game and the card being out of stock proves that these concerns are valid.

Now we have the new 6870/6850 as reviewed by anandtech being put up against a card that isn't even available at one of the largest e-tailers in business.

How many EVGA FTW cards are being made\sold? We know enough are available for nVidia to seed out to review sites, but it appears not much more. I know they aren't available at brick and mortor stores alongside the 6870 lineup. Is it right to put up a limited edition limited availabilty card in the review of a reference card with high volume and availability comparatively. A think a lot of people would say no to that.

One thing is certainly clear. The availibity of 460 cards clocked to 850mhz is not even in the same ballpark of the availibility of 6870's. What if nVidia decides to subsidize these ringer cards to even lower price points to further manipulate the landscape of reviews when its competitor releases new GPU's? It's a bad path to go down for reviewers to be following the lead of GPU makers for what to include in reviews, it makes for a mess. Obviously ringer cards sold in limited quantities don't have to adhere to the same market conditions that dictate price and availability for standard and widely available parts.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I suppose,what matters are the specs and price. The OC'ed cards should be included, although it would still be slightly unfair since they would a completely different overclockability than stock cards.

Does availability factor in it at all? Well I ask because the cherry picked extreme overclock $230 gtx 460 ftw edition is out of stock at newegg. So was it really fair for nvidia, with a handful of cherry picked 460's, to take a dump on Amd's parade with a card only a few people bought?

 

[Attic]

Ok but my pie chart shows the ratio of GTX 460's clocked at 850Mhz to all other GTX 460's available

Yes, that's the concern. Nicely puts into the perspective the viewpoint of the argument saying that the FTW card is just an OC'd card which is like a lot of the 460's available.

Oh really?

 

[notty22]

Wow just wow. The guys defending the shenanigans by AT and nvidia have also gotten strangely silent.

Actually I think its been vocally justified / defended ? Pick a word.
Is it that hard to believe or expect enthusiasts are capable of a little analytical thinking ?
There is clearly a o/c gtx 460 and a 'stock' gtx 460 in the charts, there is a wall of text devoted to it, because this is the card that Barts was made to compete with.
Lastly the FTW card ran cooler, idled with the same or less power draw than the new AMD cards and comparable to a 675 card.
This is a example of a fine running card, not a AMPED up, ragged edge ,o/c cheat ringer.

 

[frostedflakes]

There's a slightly more expensive FTW EE version that's still in stock. But yes, availability is important.

 

[SHAQ]

A lot of cards have been hard to get in the past. Let the consumers have the information and decide for themselves.

 

[Arkaign]

Well, AT got tricked by NV. They did what NV wanted.
AT is under NV influence for some time already.

If you believe that, you're a hopeless moron.

AT has rightfully blasted NV for bringing the 4xx series late, for the higher end models being power hungry, for many things. Even in this review they both give Nvidia a good bit of fair and honest criticism while naming the 6850 and 6870 as the clear winners.

AT under NV influence, that's a laugh. AT doesn't need anyone's 'influence', they've been fair and informative for years. They've picked the best hardware without fail for their entire history, and they pan fails equally (NV FX series, ATI 2900, etc).




Make your point without the personal attacks


esquared
Anandtech Administrator

 

[HendrixFan]

I would have been fine with a review of the FTW card on the main page, we see quite a few reviews of OC'd cards. But to include it, for the first time, in a review of the new AMD cards was poor judgement.

Anand needs to do the right thing and scrub the FTW card from the review and make a separate posting for it.

 

[HendrixFan]

Actually I think its been vocally justified / defended ? Pick a word.
Is it that hard to believe or expect enthusiasts are capable of a little analytical thinking ?
There is clearly a o/c gtx 460 and a 'stock' gtx 460 in the charts, there is a wall of text devoted to it, because this is the card that Barts was made to compete with.
Lastly the FTW card ran cooler, idled with the same or less power draw than the new AMD cards and comparable to a 675 card.
This is a example of a fine running card, not a AMPED up, ragged edge ,o/c cheat ringer.

The fact that it runs cooler and draws less power is proof enough that it is hand picked silicon. It is well known that the 460 pushes well with OC'ing but at a considerable heat/power expense.

 

[Evilhomer99]

Do some of you actually think Anand sits in a dark room petting a white cat in his lap plotting to mislead readers of this site with the invisible hand of NVIDIA guiding his motives?

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah I don't know how anyone could accuse Anand of not putting readers first. Just look at the whole fiasco with JMicron SSDs, Anand was very frank about their shortcomings and he certainly didn't make a lot of friends at OCZ and other companies that used these controllers in their SSDs. But it was the right thing to do, the controllers had some very serious flaws and readers had the right to be aware of them. AnandTech didn't just gloss over them like many other review sites.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Do some of you actually think Anand sits in a dark room petting a white cat in his lap plotting to mislead readers of this site with the invisible hand of NVIDIA guiding his motives?

Have any proof that they don't? Of course not, so your post adds nothing to the discussion.

 

[Attic]

Do some of you actually think Anand sits in a dark room petting a white cat in his lap plotting to mislead readers of this site with the invisible hand of NVIDIA guiding his motives?

No, but it is interesting to a lot of us here (on both sides of this issue) to debate the motivations and justifications for including certain cards and/or benchmarks based on the request of nVidia or AMD.