Should AT include OC'd Cards in Reviews?

[Arkaign]

Are people retarded? Anyone reading the content of the review would know that the 460 OC edition does not represent standard 460 performance. They also note quite clearly that the 6870 is the clear winner when compared against the much more widely available standard 460 models.

AT did us a service by including more info. If there is a roundup of cards in a particular price range, it's more of a dis to the community to just not mention something when it might be a compelling option. I wouldn't feel comfortable however if the product was vaporware. I see 460 OC models at Fry's all day long though, so they can't be that rare.

 

[Sickamore]

Factory OC with nvidia's blessing is essentially stock. Also you said:



If that were true, everyone would buy a GTX 480.

People will consider some or all of price, performance, power, heat, noise when choosing a card, not just raw performance.

I was talking about the card in that catergory.

 

[cplusplus]

Looks like anand finally took note of the critisim and made a new post on the main page. Hopefully he will make the reviewer take the oc results and even the mention of it from the original article.


Jason

That would be the absolute worst possible solution in my idea. The card does exist, you can buy it, it has been out for quite some time, and is a competitor to the 6800 series. To me, the best solution would probably be along the lines on stating exactly what the OC for that card is, stating the price, and making sure the card is explicitly labeled as overclocked (in addition to the EVGA FTW labeling already in the graph), just to make as absolutely sure as possible that no one confuses the EVGA 460 for a stock one. Pretending the card doesn't exist does a disservice to anyone looking for the best possible card between $200-$250.

 

[*kjm]

As long as you can get them in volume why not? I own both Nvidia and AMD so I have no bias..... My work/job requires me to know what is out there so I buy Nvidia for my wifes system and AMD for mine.

Back on topic.... as long as I can get the card online it should be in the review.

 

[Hard Ball]

If AT knew what it was doing, I fail to see it.

Did anyone read any other reviews from any other sites including 460 OC? What make AT think it should do this? I wonder..

If you want to see a really biased review, you can find one here:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/6/
In this review, stock GTX 460 with 1GB or 768 was not included here. And the 1GB FTW edition was not even mentioned to be OC anywhere in the article that I can see.

At least Ryan gave a thorough rebuttal of what nVidia did here, which was to intentionally try to influence and skew the first slew of results from the reviewers. I don't think I have seen other sites calling NV out like this. Even if you disagree with him and AT for including the OC version, you should still give them kudos for this.

 

[crislevin]

Do you have something against additional choices being benched/tested?.

I stated clearly, it has been a tradition in most sites, that they do a bench for general reference card, and then they bench specialized cards.

There are places to compare OC cards, and I know that place is not review article of a new launch of a reference card.

General users are easily confused. To put an OC version in there, emphasis neither the price, nor the clock, is plain irresponsible.

Again, what AT did is unique, with no comparable action from any other credible review sites.

If this sort of action doesn't invite questions, I dont know what does.

 

[crislevin]

If you want to see a really biased review, you can find one here:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/6/
In this review, stock GTX 460 with 1GB or 768 was not included here. And the 1GB FTW edition was not even mentioned to be OC anywhere in the article that I can see.

At least Ryan gave a thorough rebuttal of what nVidia did here, which was to intentionally try to influence and skew the first slew of results from the reviewers. I don't think I have seen other sites calling NV out like this. Even if you disagree with him and AT for including the OC version, you should still give them kudos for this.

being 2nd worst means little, take a look at Toms, Hardocp, techpowerup, guru3d, even kitguru. Who did this?

if AT has a stand, then stand firm, retreating like that when NV "insisted", what does AT expect to hear from fair-minded people?

 

[Arkaign]

being 2nd worst means little, take a look at Toms, Hardocp, techpowerup, guru3d, even kitguru. Who did this?

if AT has a stand, then stand firm, retreating like that when NV "insisted", what does AT expect to hear from fair-minded people?

I'm a fair-minded person, I happen to have AMD GPUs in both my desktop and my notebook, but I think they were 100% correct to give us a more comprehensive look at the midrange options in this review. It's available, it's in the price range, and it's a warrantied factory OC. All of this is clearly described multiple times in the article.

 

[crislevin]

I'm a fair-minded person, I happen to have AMD GPUs in both my desktop and my notebook, but I think they were 100% correct to give us a more comprehensive look at the midrange options in this review. It's available, it's in the price range, and it's a warrantied factory OC. All of this is clearly described multiple times in the article.

by clearly, you mean in the last page, among all the words, mentions once there is a $30 premium? didn't even bother to say its $230? Since they immediately followed up by saying 460 1G can be get for $180, its effectively misleading users to think the OC card is only $210 (this is getting into the field of deception, if somebody want to take it seriously).

The more I look at their wording and sequence, the more suspicious I got.

How about following the tradition and say no to the outside pressure? afterall, most other sites stand up to the pressure just fine. why AT can't?

 

[Hard Ball]

by clearly, you mean in the last page, among all the words, mentions once there is a $30 premium? didn't even bother to say its $230? Since they immediately followed up by saying 460 1G can be get for $180, its effectively misleading users to think the OC card is only $210.

The more I look at their wording and sequence, the more suspicious I got.

How about following the tradition and say no to the outside pressure? afterall, most other sites stand up to the pressure just fine. why AT can't?

I think you may have missed this part in Ryan's article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/6

As a matter of editorial policy we do not include overclocked cards on general reviews. As a product, reference cards will continue to be produced for quite a while, with good products continuing on for years. Overclocked cards on the other hand come and go depending on market conditions, and even worse no two overclocked cards are alike. If we did normally include overclocked cards, our charts would be full of cards that are only different by 5MHz.

However with the 6800 launch NVIDIA is pushing the overclocked GTX 460 option far harder than we’ve seen them push overclocked cards in the past –we had an EVGA GTX 460 1GB FTW on our doorstep before we were even back from Los Angeles. Given how well the GTX 460 overclocks and how many heavily overclocked cards there are on the market, we believe there is at least some merit to NVIDIA’s arguments, so in this case we went ahead and included the EVGA card in our review. As a reference point it's clocked at 850Mhz and 4GHz memory versus 675MHz core and 3.6MHz memory for a stock GTX 460, giving it a massive 26% core overclock and a much more moderate 11% memory overclock.



However with that we’ll attach the biggest disclaimer we can that while we’re including the card, we don’t believe NVIDIA is taking the right action here. If they were serious about having a higher clocked GTX 460 on the market, then they need to make a new product, such as a GTX 461. Without NVIDIA establishing guidelines, these overclocked GTX 460 cards can vary in clockspeed, cooling, and ultimately performance by a very wide margin. In primary reviews such as these we’re interested in looking at cards that will be around for a while, and without an official product from NVIDIA there’s no guarantee any of these factory overclocked cards will still be around.

If nothing else, pushing overclocked cards makes for a messy situation for buyer. An official product provides a baseline of performance that buyers can see in reviews like ours and expect in any cards they buy. With overclocked cards, this is absent. Pushing factory overclocked cards may give NVIDIA a competitive product, but it’s being done in a way we can’t approve of.

 

[crislevin]

I think you may have missed this part in Ryan's article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/6

I do not believe thats the right course of action. plain and simple. I highly doubt nVidia only put pressure on AT, and yet, AT is the one that bow to it.

one line of disclaimer can compensate for tens of bar graphs? Lets get real here.

It didn't clearly state the price of 460 FTW even once in the whole article.

I can not guess what AT was thinking, but the behavior is suspicious enough.

 

[Arkaign]

^^ All the info is right there. I don't know how it could have been said any clearer. In fact, I think Nvidia probably wishes that AT wasn't so honest about how they feel about them pushing factory OC cards when they are so varying and unpredictably priced.

More info, when presented honestly, is a good thing.

 

[Arkaign]

AT bows to no one. The whole conclusion of the article is that the 6850 and 6870 are clear winners that dethrone Nvidia in the midrange market. The price cuts on the super power hungry 470 can't change that, the GTX460 stock isn't quite fast enough, and the GTX460 OC is not representative of more than a fraction of GTX460 products.

 

[Attic]

I don't think its wise, simply because this card cost $230.

OC has higher prices, including it in a official review gives users wrong impressions. A site like this should know better.

You bring up what I consider the most important point.

I thought the inclusion was way out of character for anandtech.com.

The oc'd cards should be reviewed in their own article or their own round up as has been customary. Including a price premiumed oc'd card, and one of the absolute friggen fastest oc'd cards around at that, to compare to the stock version of a newly released card is wrong. The hint here is that nvidia was shipping the card in question out to all the review sites. I can't believe anandtech went ahead and gave into somekind of conversation where it made sense to include a price premium OC card of the same model lineup where nVidia has just slashed prices. It absolutely gives the wrong impression (Read: Cheaper 460GTX with 125% 460GTX performance), the cheap aspect gets full impact as well as the improved performance of the more expensive part against the competitors stock card.

The super OC'd card from EVGA if anything should have gotten it's own review against IT"S competition, and the GTX 460 (Read: Stock) should have been compared against it's competition. Frankly it makes me sick that nVidia is going out there and succeeding against the likes of Anand with antics like this.

Long time Anand supporter, but sorely disappointed with the decision made in this instance. The disclaimer was unforutnate too. Why take issue with what nVidia is doing if you are going to help them win at their own game (underhanded tactics used to misrepresent information to the consumer). It doesn't add up, the disclaimer was insulting.

 

[crislevin]

AT bows to no one. The whole conclusion of the article is that the 6850 and 6870 are clear winners that dethrone Nvidia in the midrange market. The price cuts on the super power hungry 470 can't change that, the GTX460 stock isn't quite fast enough, and the GTX460 OC is not representative of more than a fraction of GTX460 products.

fact is NV "insisted" to reviewers to use non-reference card, and only AT and LR did it. if thats not bowing to the pressure, I dont know what it is.

Its more about AT allow itself to carry out NV's desire at the expense of buyers.

on top of that, not even mention the correct price for the OC card once in such an important review (even potentially offering a deceptive price?)? Think about it.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The card is in stock at newegg. For someone deciding what to buy, it is a valid, warrantied choice in the same price range. There is a clear disclaimer about it in the article. At $230 it is the competition for the 6870.

My bias: I'm still happy with my 4870, just like I was with the nv 7900 I owned before it. I care about price, performance, power, heat and noise more than having either side "win" a round.

When considering what card to buy I care about what choices there are available right now, and the FTW is one of those choices.

 

[Attic]

^^ All the info is right there. I don't know how it could have been said any clearer. In fact, I think Nvidia probably wishes that AT wasn't so honest about how they feel about them pushing factory OC cards when they are so varying and unpredictably priced.

More info, when presented honestly, is a good thing.

The performance numbers shown in the graphs and the 460 being right neck in neck with the newly released 6870 is what matters and is what gets attention from the reader base. nVidia knows this, AMD knows this, anandtech knows this.

What also gets highlighted is the cheap price of the 460 given the recent price cuts. The price cuts have gotten TONS of attention.

What gets forgotten and glossed over in the multiple things going on here is that the 460 in the graphs isn't the 460 that nVidia has slashed prices to sub $200 dollar levels. See what happens here, it's all about the 460. The evga ftw doesn't really matter. It's the 460 vs the 6870. Only anandtech.com chose to help nVidia by sneaking in "an ultra premium 460" in the 6870 vs 460 contest.

At least all the reputable review sites didn't get duped by these kind of shenanigans.

 

[Voo]

fact is NV "insisted" to reviewers to use non-reference card, and only AT and LR did it. if thats not bowing to the pressure, I dont know what it is.

Well first of all they did say no to Nvidia but include the card because they thought it added value to the review.

And you know what? It does, I don't care if it's not fair or whatever, fact is that those cards are in the market and you can go and buy one. Also since it's still a GTX460 even if you get one from another company if it has comparable specs it will fare similar (we also don't have a problem with non-reference designs included in reviews who skew temperature/noise) and there enough contenders out there to be able to buy such a card.
In the end it just shows how a OCed 460 compares to other cards and after reading the review I can much better estitmate the value of OCed 460s on the market. Everyone who read the review also sees how the standard 460 fared and can compare prices - know what? AT has a international readership so newegg prices aren't that useful and MSRPs really aren't much better, so in the end you've got to look it up anyhow. How can someone be "deceived" if they've got all the necessary data?
Deceiving implies malicious intent, which we could argue about if they only included the OCed card or played around with the graphs, but by adding another graph you only get more information not less.

And while the uninformed "reader" that just skims over the graphs may get a wrong insight, I can just say: Who cares? I don't think AT should cater to that specific usergroup, if they don't read the review nor the labels of the graphs and do something stupid they've got only themselves to blame *shrug*

The super OC'd card from EVGA if anything should have gotten it's own review against IT"S competition

Umn.. based on the price the OCed 460 was exactly reviewed against its competition. Who else do you think the card in that price and performance range should compete.. a 5970?

 

[crislevin]

The card is in stock at newegg. For someone deciding what to buy, it is a valid, warrantied choice in the same price range. There is a clear disclaimer about it in the article. At $230 it is the competition for the 6870.

My bias: I'm still happy with my 4870, just like I was with the nv 7900 I owned before it. I care about price, performance, power, heat and noise more than having either side "win" a round.

When considering what card to buy I care about what choices there are available right now, and the FTW is one of those choices.

Whats the point of benchmarking new product then? there are numerous OC cards out there on newegg, what kind of review would they do then?

if AT wants to "review all available cards", good for them.

There are proper place for everything.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm finding it hard to care too much about this issue.

I suppose it all hinges on whether you think the reviews should be about the GPU's or the cards. As this was the first look at the 68x0 I suppose you could argue it should have just been stock cards.

The only real issue I could see arising from this is if vendors start producing highly overclocked and very limited edition cards just for reviews, its not easy to know what the retail availability is going to be on newly released products.

I think ultimately, I'd rather see the review done with stock cards and put the factory OC'd cards in the part of the review about OCing. That way you also get to see if the factory OC'd cards are giving you anything more than manually OCing the cards yourself.

 

[Arkaign]

They gave nvidia a good blasting in the article for it, named the 6850/6870 the winners, and the word 'OC' is clear as day in the graphs, along with the description that this is NOT a regular 460 card. It's just another option out there.

I'll say it again, if someone got confused and thought that a stock 460 was magically superfast because of an OC edition, then they're an idiot and deserve to be disappointed.

Anyone with an IQ of more than two digits can figure out the article and the options with ease.

 

[crislevin]

And while the uninformed "reader" that just skims over the graphs may get a wrong insight, I can just say: Who cares? I don't think AT should cater to that specific usergroup

I doubt AT, NV, AMD doesn't know there are these people, and alot. That makes the actions even more suspicious.

There are enough review website to go around, Its disappointing one or two being irresponsible, if AT wants to be remembered that way, then it will be.

 

[DaveSimmons]

And while the uninformed "reader" that just skims over the graphs may get a wrong insight, I can just say: Who cares? I don't think AT should cater to that specific usergroup

Good point.

But since "lazy readers will be fooled" seems to be one of the two main objections (besides "nv is strong-arming sites"), how about if the charts themselves had an asterisk and note on them, like this:

----------------------------
[___________________________] 6870
[________________________] 460 FTW *
[______________________] 6850
[______________] 460

* factory overclocked, higher retail price
-----------------------------

 

[Mistwalker]

What the hell are some of you complaining about?

As a video enthusiast I want stock vs. stock comparisons to see how the base card models compare performance-wise.

As a consumer I want to see comparisons of what is available to purchase and those cards' price/performance ratios.

We got both. More information is better, period. Anand clearly explained the inclusion of the EVGA card, its price and OC specs, how it was a special exception, and included its benchmarks in addition to--not in place off--the stock cards. Due diligence done, we the readers should have enough brains to take what we need from all that information.

The only travesty here is that Anand felt the need to apologize at all. Clarify the decision, give us your reasoning, but please don't let zealots with their twisted ideas of what is "fair" or "selling out" dictate policy on this site.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Good word, people are throwing such a whine-fest over this.

The OC 460 is a valid competitor in the marketplace. Anyone can go and get one. It doesn't take special OC'ing skills to get it's potential. Whether or not it is a "stock" card is just a semantics game.

AT thoroughly explained this issue. There's nothing shady here. A buyer that gets "duped" plainly didn't do their homework.

AT successfully hit at the issue of price/performance. Hell, the practically laid out the best deals in the market by $20 increments. If I were buying a video card right now, that's what matters to me.