Should AT include OC'd Cards in Reviews?

[crislevin]

right, successfully hit at the issue of price/performance, with ZERO statement of how much 460 FWT actually costs.

Successful alright. lol

 

[Attic]

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*

What will happen is the uniformed reader will associate the 460 with the EVGA FTW 460, most informed readers do the same thing, they are after all both 460's. I'd like a 460 for less than 200 dollars, and oh look it competes directly against the 6870.

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?

The reivew, graphs essentially, became about the stock 6870 vs one of the highest if not highest overclocked cards in the 460 lineup. The entire 6870 distribution put up against a limited availablity super OC'd EVGA FTW card. It's not right. I don't think it needs any explanation to be honest.

The EVGA FTW card should be reviewed in it's own article and then its merit gets placed on the uniqueness of it's improved performance vs it's competition. Pitting a limited availability card against the entire distribution of the 6870 is misleading.

I just think the reference 6870 should be compared to the reference 460 because that's what is most valid and true. Then talk about the overclock considerations and their effect.

 

[psoomah]

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.

Bullpucky.

Here's REALITY.

Nvidia KNOWS there is a percentage of gamers that just skim the graphs and will see > wow! the 460 whups @$$ on that new 6870!!! < and that's what they'll walk away with, and if they go to buy, they'll see '460' $40 cheaper than '6870' and buy a 460.

That's what IS.

Politicians aren't trying to snowjob the alert and well informed. Neither is Nvidia. The regular posters on this GPU forum aren't the target.

Guess that leaves Kyle standing alone.

 

[crislevin]

What will happen is the uniformed reader will associate the 460 with the EVGA FTW 460, most informed readers do the same thing, they are after all both 460's. I'd like a 460 for less than 200 dollars, and oh look it competes directly against the 6870.
.

yeah, and then they get blamed for being stupid.

reference card benchmarking is a tradition for good reasons. Defending indefensible is just wrong.

Nobody is against doing round up of available options in the market, OC or not, but everything has its rightful place, and this is definitely wrong place.

 

[tviceman]

This is different than taking a random gtx460 and overclocking it and then throwing it in the review. This particular card comes overclocked to an exact frequency, is fully warrantied, is guaranteed by the manufacturer to work, and also carries a higher price tag than standard, non-overclocked cards.

I don't see a problem with it. It is a card you can go out, buy right now, and use as is directly the same as it was in the review.

 

[crislevin]

This is different than taking a random gtx460 and overclocking it and then throwing it in the review. This particular card comes overclocked to an exact frequency, is fully warrantied, is guaranteed by the manufacturer to work, and also carries a higher price tag than standard, non-overclocked cards.

I don't see a problem with it. It is a card you can go out, buy right now, and use as is directly the same as it was in the review.

read above post by Attic, these things confuses people and misleads them.

How many launch reviews did you see that add OC cards into the mix? factory OC or not? how about almost never? Because they knows general population aren't as smart as some people would like them to be, and information can be wrongly received very easily.

 

[AnandThenMan]

If allowing overclocked cards in reviews is such a great idea, why did Anandtech have a strict review policy against it all this time?

 

[formulav8]

People, its not simply that anandtech included a oced card. Its the fact that they LOWERED their standards/ethics by including the oced card. They gave in to the nvidia pressure and included the card even though it was against their long established ethics. There is no reason they couldn't have waited and included the oced card in a video round up or something.

Stop looking at this from a stupid fanboy pov already.

The ONLY reason this was disappointing to me is I highly value integrity. Most people could care less from that point of view of course but its important to me.

 

[Hard Ball]

read above post by Attic, these things confuses people and misleads them.

How many launch reviews did you see that add OC cards into the mix? factory OC or not? how about almost never? Because they knows general population aren't as smart as some people would like them to be, and information can be wrongly received very easily.

I hope that no one actually was confused about the choices because of the inclusion of the OCed board.

IMO, it's probably unlikely that many cared enough to read the review's benchmarks but neglected the setup page where ryan explained the issue thoroughly, but that's just me.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I find the article contradictory

Let's start with the obvious. NVIDIA is more aggressive than AMD with trying to get review sites to use certain games and even make certain GPU comparisons. When NVIDIA pushes, we push back. You don't ever see that here on AnandTech simply because I don't believe this is the place for it. Both sides (correction, all companies) have done nasty things in the past but you come here to read about products, not behind the scenes politics so we've mostly left it out of our reviews.

From my standpoint, having more information never hurts. This simply provides another data point for you to use.

This is why I'm starting to like [H]ardOCP more and more. When companies try to pull crap, Kyle calls them out on it, and has no problem writing a quite article about it to let everyone know. The attitude from Anandtech seems to be the opposite.

 

[Hard Ball]

This thread is begging for a poll;

it seems that it's taken over by many on the extremes of the spectrum of opinions, with not too many that are rationally thinking it through.

 

[Arkaign]

People, its not simply that anandtech included a oced card. Its the fact that they LOWERED their standards/ethics by including the oced card. They gave in to the nvidia pressure and included the card even though it was against their long established ethics. There is no reason they couldn't have waited and included the oced card in a video round up or something.

Stop looking at this from a stupid fanboy pov already.

The ONLY reason this was disappointing to me is I highly value integrity. Most people could care less from that point of view of course but its important to me.

Eh? They didn't lower ethics, anyone with reading comprehension can see why it was included. If anyone looks bad in the context of the article it's Nvidia, lowered to only having a somewhat rare OC card to compete against superior new products. The review even clearly names the 6850/6870 as winners and the new midrange kings.

I'm not a fanboy whatsoever. I am a happy owner of a 5770 (and now a mobile 4650), but I do respect honesty and integrity. The inclusion of the OC card doesn't have anything to do with ethics. It's a pretty unique card that might make sense to some folks. I'd probably avoid it personally, even if it has a factory warranty I would rather have lower power draw, and the 6870 for the same price range looks much more appealing.

If they just put the thing in there without going through hoops to make it crystal clear that they think it's kind of desperate for Nvidia to rely on such an outlying option, and without a lot of explanation about why it was included and what exactly it is, then it might be worth a big fuss.

Giving into Nvidia would have been to just look at the benches and say GTX 460 is the clear winner, or trying to tie the OC edition clearly to the regular version, which it's clearly not. Re-read the article, if anything they're extra harsh on Nvidia, and for good reason imho.

If some people are retards and get confused by such clear writing, then that's on them, they're probably the type of person who can't differentiate 'push' or 'pull' written on doors.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Eh? They didn't lower ethics, anyone with reading comprehension can see why it was included.

So then the same question comes up. Why is it (or was?) against policy to do so?

 

[blastingcap]

How about this solution: you can include as many oc'd cards as you want, but you must also include the price of the card in parentheses for every card tested **in ALL of the performance charts themselves**. Either that or a mandatory price/performance chart at the end of the review.

 

[Arkaign]

So then the same question comes up. Why is it (or was?) against policy to do so?

Because they're typically gimmicks that don't exhibit truly unique performance. You typically see 5-10% performance in best case scenario, with availability being a little questionable. In this case there is a giant performance difference, and AT makes clear that there really should be a different model number for such an extreme difference in performance. The fact that in this case this specialized OC product IS available for prices competitive makes it worth mentioning, along with the obvious drawbacks. If an AMD OC edition hits the streets with a compelling boost, I fully expect, in fact demand that both this article be updated along with a new roundup.

Attempting to equate special OC editions to run of the mill standard product would be offensive and misleading, and I would have been out with a pitchfork had that occurred. This is not the case.

 

[Arkaign]

How about this solution: you can include as many oc'd cards as you want, but you must also include the price of the card in parenthesis for every card tested. Either that or a mandatory price/performance chart at the end of the review.

Now that I can definitely get behind. They did mention the thing commands a premium price, but I would have liked to have seen greater detail given (eg; we checked retailer X, Y, and Z, and only X and Y carry them, and they are currently at X price).

the price/performance chart would be a nice touch as well.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Because they're typically gimmicks that don't exhibit truly unique performance. You typically see 5-10&#37; performance in best case scenario, with availability being a little questionable. In this case there is a giant performance difference, and AT makes clear that there really should be a different model number for such an extreme difference in performance. The fact that in this case this specialized OC product IS available for prices competitive makes it worth mentioning, along with the obvious drawbacks. If an AMD OC edition hits the streets with a compelling boost, I fully expect, in fact demand that both this article be updated along with a new roundup.

Attempting to equate special OC editions to run of the mill standard product would be offensive and misleading, and I would have been out with a pitchfork had that occurred. This is not the case.

Ah, got it. So only if an overclocked version has performance above a certain threshold, will it be allowed in the review.

Yea that makes perfect sense. And naturally it's up to the reviewer to decide if a certain card deserves a new model number. Right.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Because they're typically gimmicks that don't exhibit truly unique performance. You typically see 5-10&#37; performance in best case scenario, with availability being a little questionable.

^ the cards are also not usually the competitor's official response to your product, and often were not endorsed by the GPU maker.

In this case, nvidia itself is saying the 460-OC is their response to the 6870.

 

[taserbro]

I find the article contradictory


This is why I'm starting to like [H]ardOCP more and more. When companies try to pull crap, Kyle calls them out on it, and has no problem writing a quite article about it to let everyone know. The attitude from Anandtech seems to be the opposite.

I don't really see how that's contradictory.
Anandtech here is basically saying that while it's true that companies have interests in meddling with our reviewing process, they also recognize that their audience possesses the intelligence to discern the difference between stock, factory modified and user modified hardware and the implication it makes on whether their respective levels of performance can be expected consistently. Therefore, they'll include information about these different scenarios and let you draw your conclusions without dwelling into the politics of it.

As long as things are labeled clearly and important information such as clock numbers and prices are disclosed, I don't see a problem. In the case where a consistently attainable overclock makes a notable difference on a product, I would certainly not take it against it.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I don't really see how that's contradictory.

You don't find anything contradictory Anandtech telling us "having more information never hurts" and at the same time, telling us certain things they don't let us know about, because, uh, just because.

Fair enough. That's why sites like [H] have become a cut above this site. No BS, inform the person, let them make up their own minds about it.

 

[blastingcap]

I don't know if anyone posted this yet, but Tom's Hardware of all places seems to have a reasonable solution as well:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6870-radeon-hd-6850-barts,2776-8.html

"[NVIDIA] wanted us to know that the reference clocks for the GeForce GTX 460 are essentially obsolete, that the majority of manufacturers are overclocking their cards, and that we should be benchmarking the new Radeons against factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 460 cards. ...since it&#8217;s our duty to assess the market and compare prices and options, we spent some time investigating the claim. We looked at Newegg to see what the lowest-priced GeForce GTX 460 1 GB sold for, and then we catalogued the clock speeds of the cards within $5 of the lowest $220 price tag.

Out of the seven cards that fit those criteria, only two are equipped with the 675 MHz reference clock. The rest are overclocked between 700 and 765 MHz (core clock). With the vast majority of budget GeForce GTX 460 cards overclocked, the reference model doesn&#8217;t really give an accurate representation of the market. We decided the fairest thing to do was to average the clock rates of these cards. As a result, we are benchmarking the GeForce GTX 460 1 GB at 708 MHz for our tests, a 38 MHz increase over the original reference core clock. This increase is so low that, frankly, it will probably have no measurable impact on our results. It does seem like the fair thing to do, though. The memory runs at the reference 900 MHz GDDR5 clock, as even overclocked models tend to leave memory untouched."

Tom's, unlike AT, decided to leave the EVGA FTW GTX460 out of benchmarks except when comparing overclocking vs overclocking. Shame on AT that even Tom's Hardware had a fairer way of dealing with oc'd GTX460s! Maybe AT could've one-upped Tom's by accepting the EVGA FTW GTX460 from NVIDIA--and then DOWNclocking it to stock speeds when running benches! Hah.

 

[psoomah]

Are people retarded?

Do bears shit in the woods?

 

[Jules]

Lol some people are mad

 

[Hard Ball]

Since this controversy of including the evga heavily OCed version of GTX 460 in the 6800s' review have elicited a response from Anand himself, and that there are some rather heated discussions in the forums.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3988/the-use-of-evgas-geforce-gtx-460-ftw-in-last-nights-review

Since the other thread didn't have a poll, I thought that it might be good to see some quantitative representations of all AT members that frequent the VC&G forum. I hope the silent majority can bring a little more balance and sanity to the poll and dicussion.

-----------------------------------------------------
My own take: see post below:


Paratus and Hard Ball agreed to merge their threads, but we are keeping Hard Ball's poll (at the expense of Paratus's poll) per their request.

<--- This post was the original OP for Hard Ball's thread titled "AT members' opinions on graphics card reviews' standard of ethics and fairness"

Moderator Idontcare

 

[tviceman]

Anand did the best of both worlds - the included a reference gtx460 and a factory overclocked gtx460. They talked about the difference between the two cards (including the price difference) and they didn't emphasize any one particular thing about the evga gtx460.

If, in three weeks, Nvidia releases a 384 shader gf104 and Anand includes factory overclocked 6850 and 6870 cards along side reference models, I'm all for it so long as it's indicated and the price differences are mentioned.