Should AT include OC'd Cards in Reviews?

[GaiaHunter]

That was my take on it too. Folks are acting like AT is clubbing baby seals or something scandalous like that has happened. Much ado about nothing.

From what I understand Ryan included a disclaimer about the use of the OC GTX 460 before any folk had the chance to act whatever way.

Many people that are stating reasons on these threads are doing so because they were asked to.

Is it really important? No.

But is anyone overreacting?

Was there people screaming bloody murder on the 6870/6850 review thread here?

Was the forums flooded with threads about this until the moment that article asking readers opinion appeared in the front page?

I don't see, do you?

It was the anandtech staff that decided to bring this up and justify themselves.

Maybe it was them overreacting. People liked or disliked or were indifferent but didn't say much.

The most interesting thing, for me, about anands reviews is that the GTX470 always seem to perform better than in many other sites.

 

[n0x1ous]

Anandtech this smells of nvidia favortisme...

I mean you wrote 460 (oc), thats it? you think people will notice this? avg. joe will look at it and walk away with 460 is almost as fast as the 6870 (which is totally wrong).

A few chips hand picked by nvidia, sent to EVGA can do this, hardly all.

Also did you mention that the 460 EVGA uses like 50 watts more than the 6870 BECAUSE its heavily overclocked? or that it ll have a shorter life than the avg 460?

Maybe you should actually read the whole review before jumping to conclusions.

you should have 460@core/shaders/mem on every benchmark where you use the EVGA 460.


you screwed up, caved in to nVidias demands, in order to make AMDs launch look bad/confuse people/help nvidia sales. Thats what it looks like to me.

The EVGA FTW has a full warranty from EVGA so your "claim" that it won't last as long is ridiculous. Its fully tested to run safely at that speed. They included the power consumption number.

Anandtech isn't about catering to uninformed people that buy computers or upgrades at Best Buy, its for enthusiasts and hence they handled it properly by giving us more information with plenty of disclaimers.

 

[veri745]

OC cards belong in a roundup article, just like they've done in the past. They have no place in the official launch review.

 

[Attic]

Anand's and Ryan's response makes the most logical sense:

"At $179 buy the 6850. At $239 buy the 6870 for best performance/power. If you want the best overall performance, buy the GTX 470. However, as long as they are available the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 FTW is a good alternative. You get the same warranty you would on a standard GTX 460, but you do sacrifice power consumption for the performance advantage over the 6870."

Consumers are happy with the choice at the same price point. The cards come AS IS factory pre-overclocked w/ warranty. It's not the same as overclocking the card in MSI afternburner yourself...

That's not entirely accurate. The EVGA FTW 460 clocked at a ridiculously high 850mhz core out of the box is one of the only 460 1gb models that EVGA offers that only carries a 2 year warrenty. 2 years. The other models in the lineup offer either a lifetime warrenty or a 2 year warrenty. TR= 2 years, AR= lifetime regarding the model numbers.

I don't blame anandtech for missing, misrepororing this information. But it should definatly be noted that the card is only available with a 2 year warrenty and not the lifetime warrenty that the rest of EVGA's lineup offers. The very high OC of the card is the reason for the shorter warrenty.

This is the kind of stuff that is going to get confused when you are reviewing limited, special addition, small sample'd cards against the reference of a competitor's. Again it's not right.

Yes the EVGA FTW is very fast, yes it has substandard 2 year warrenty. Ok, lets get the facts straight and review it in it's own article and not include it at nVidias command in the review of AMD's new GPU's.

 

[Attic]

The EVGA FTW has a full warranty from EVGA so your "claim" that it won't last as long is ridiculous. Its fully tested to run safely at that speed. They included the power consumption number.

Anandtech isn't about catering to uninformed people that buy computers or upgrades at Best Buy, its for enthusiasts and hence they handled it properly by giving us more information with plenty of disclaimers.

The EVGA FTW 460 used in the review of the 6870/6850 article only comes with a 2-year limited warranty. It's not available with the lifetime warranty that the rest of EVGA's 460 lineup offers.

 

[Attic]

The answers should simply be Yes or no. The additional commentary "More Information is Good" "It reeks of Bias" prejudices the responses. It's obvious which response the OP was going for. Even with that 1/3 of those responding don't think it should have happened.

I thought the exact thing.


Simple yes or no would be better.

 

[hdfxst]

I voted no.Anand is obviously having second thoughts about including the card and no matter what they decided someone was going to complain.But if they told nvidia no and didn't include the card everyone would have respected that decision.And i think that's what people here expect from anandtech.Also i agree the poll should have been a simple yes or no

 

[Leyawiin]

The EVGA FTW 460 used in the review of the 6870/6850 article only comes with a 2-year limited warranty. It's not available with the lifetime warranty that the rest of EVGA's 460 lineup offers.

There isn't a single GTX 460 1GB with a reference cooler in EVGA's lineup that has a lifetime warranty. There are more models (768MB & 1GB, EE and reference) that don't have a lifetime warranty than do.

EVGA is quietly moving away from its lifetime warranty products almost across the board. The FTW models aren't unusual in that regard.

 

[Lonyo]

That's not entirely accurate. The EVGA FTW 460 clocked at a ridiculously high 850mhz core out of the box is one of the only 460 1gb models that EVGA offers that only carries a 2 year warrenty. 2 years. The other models in the lineup offer either a lifetime warrenty or a 2 year warrenty. TR= 2 years, AR= lifetime regarding the model numbers.

I don't blame anandtech for missing, misrepororing this information. But it should definatly be noted that the card is only available with a 2 year warrenty and not the lifetime warrenty that the rest of EVGA's lineup offers. The very high OC of the card is the reason for the shorter warrenty.

This is the kind of stuff that is going to get confused when you are reviewing limited, special addition, small sample'd cards against the reference of a competitor's. Again it's not right.

Yes the EVGA FTW is very fast, yes it has substandard 2 year warrenty. Ok, lets get the facts straight and review it in it's own article and not include it at nVidias command in the review of AMD's new GPU's.

2 years is substandard?
I wish AT had told me that many HD6870's come with a substandard warranty too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-373-_-Product
2 year warranty HD6870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-909-_-Product
2 year warranty HD6870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-530-_-Product
3/2 year warranty HD6870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-349-_-Product
2 year warranty HD6870.

There si a single lifetime warranty HD6870, XFX. Two with 3 years, one with 2/3 (above) and most have only a "substandard" 2 year warranty.

You seem to be really overdoing this. So it 'only' has a 2 year warranty, compared to the lifetime standard on many other EVGA cards. That's still entirely comparable to the majority of HD6870's, the cards it's being compared to.

 

[DaveSimmons]

In the end, what AT did is out there for people to see, a benchmark of a newly launch product filled with competitor's OC products? yeah right, thats gotta help users and AT's credibility.

Yes, showing readers the performance of a card they can buy at retail for $230 instead of the 6870 does help them.

Defends all you want, there are lines you can't cross. You guys standing in the NV camp and find various excuses for this, the truth is this gonna confuse users and this is biased in favor of NV. all you guys can say here, is to blame the readers.

"Reality has a liberal bias" as they joke in P & N.

I'm not in either camp, I just want to know what cards to buy, and what cards to recommend to others. This review did a good job of showing the performance while including the right disclaimers.

If readers are as easily confused as you think, they will already be confused by the two different stock 460 models on the charts. They will buy a 768 MB thinking it has the same performance as the 1 GB, so they are already doomed to suffer.

This is just plain ridiculous, anand actually wrote a post to defend this? its just sank to a new low.

Not a new low, just explaining things to oversensitive Team Red supporters.

Choice is good, competition is good, and this was a good review.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

This is Not right. How about at nvidia's next launch Amd drops the prices across the board then hand picks some extreme overclocked cards to compare against it? This was Amd's time to shine. Amd is the one showcasing new architecture and Anand lets nvidia bully him into pushing an extreme overclock review into the mix. This site has been the one and only site I've read when it came review time. I don't even bother with other sites because I figured they were biased and Anand would give it to me straight. What a crock of crap that was.

 

[rgallant]

RS -"If you can't buy a $239 FTW edition card in your area, the stock results are also in the charts"
-if not everyone can buy one , it shouldn't be used in a review period.
-when the 68xx get factory OC's , will every card be reviewed ? and the benches updated , I think not.
-why are the GTX 285 FTW's not in the old\current benches\charts?
-this is moving the goal post from past reviews on new GPU's . why ?
-when nv releases it's next line up will AMD's factory OC cards be used?
-unless the current data base can be made to include all the buying options in real time , how can this card be sampled for this review ,at this time.

 

[shangshang]

I see more AMD fanboys wah wah wah'ing

 

[mosox]

- Almost nobody reads the disclaimers, also most people link or present directly the results.

- The new cards (Barts) were not overclocked. For the GTX 460 review the cards reference cards were overclocked and the results presented in the article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3809/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-the-200-king/18

- There are no ATI/AMD OCed cards in any general reviews. No OCed HD 5850 in the GTX470 review. No OCed HD 5850 in this review.

So the bottom line, what are the standard guides to a review?

- Do you overclock the reference cards and show the results? If yes, do it for all the cards.

- Do you include non-reference cards from the competition or from the reviewed manufacturer? If yes, do it for all the cards.

But the inclusion of non reference cards and of very specific benchmarks is a slippery slope. One can design a circuit in which a Mini Cooperis faster than a Ferrari or a Porsche 911. One can pit a heavily tuned BMW M3 against a stock Ford GT. A woman dressed for a cocktail with a woman that just got out of her bed.

Also if AMD will send heavily overclocked cards for the GTX 4750/580 reviews will those cards be included? I don't think they should and the same goes for the other camp.

 

[shangshang]

lol of all things in life that relate to ethics, some people are dedicating their time to ponder link an AT's article about includcing an OC'ed gtx 460???

sigh... what has American society come to? Every time some fan disagree with something minute, it's an ethical question?? Sound like a bunch of crybabies.

BTW, I think at the end of poll should be an option to pick "This poll is pretty meaningless".

 

[Elixer]

If nvidia wanted a new version with the higher core, then they should have made them, and be widely available, instead of cherry picking for EVGA a limited amount of cards.

It clearly isn't possible to OC as much as EVGA did on stock 460's.

It is also clear that the nvidia people are very worried, and they tried to shove in cherry picked cards to throw a wrench into AMDs release.

This is all OK as long as it was disclosed fully, and make it well known that it isn't possible to OC the stock 460's as high as these cherry picked EVGA boards. Telling them about increased power draw, and temps, and all that good stuff as well.

The other question is, what happens if the OC card dies, will that ever be reported in a future article ? I have mentioned before that my friend's 460 cards died (stock 460 cards from 2 different companies) after only a few weeks of use, so I am a bit skeptical as to the reliability of stock parts, let alone OC parts.

 

[Lonyo]

Finally, NVIDIA has been taking an interesting marketing angle with the GTX 460. In our briefings with NVIDIA, they have been heavily promoting the overclockability of these cards, and their partners have been hard at work binning cards to take advantage of this.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3809/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-the-200-king/4

NVIDIA is emphasizing overclocking potential of the GTX 460, which is why we see so many different versions of the card on day one of availability. The focus on factory overclocked cards, custom cooling and custom PCBs is not a coincidence.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3810/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-part-2-the-vendor-cards

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:

 

[n0x1ous]

The EVGA FTW 460 used in the review of the 6870/6850 article only comes with a 2-year limited warranty. It's not available with the lifetime warranty that the rest of EVGA's 460 lineup offers.

I didn't say it had a lifetime warranty. Just because something has a two year warranty doesn't mean its not going to last. My car had a 3 year warranty when it was new, but I expect it to last much longer.

EVGa has plenty of stock models of 460's and other models with two year warranty's so that means those won't last past it either?

Most likely is that EVGA felt with the already higher price of the FTW model, that the extra cost of the lifetime warranty on that model didn't make sense from a pricing perspective as it would be getting close to 470 prices.

 

[DaveSimmons]

This is Not right. How about at nvidia's next launch Amd drops the prices across the board then hand picks some extreme overclocked cards to compare against it? This was Amd's time to shine. Amd is the one showcasing new architecture and Anand lets nvidia bully him into pushing an extreme overclock review into the mix. This site has been the one and only site I've read when it came review time. I don't even bother with other sites because I figured they were biased and Anand would give it to me straight. What a crock of crap that was.

Do you care more about making one side look good than about people being able to buy good cards?

AMD released some nice cards at attractive prices and forced nvidia to react, just like when the 4850 / 4870 forced nv to drop prices by $100+ overnight back in 2008. That was good for everybody then and now.

But nv prices have dropped, and the FTW card is in stock at newegg for $230. Pretending it doesn't exist or that stock speed 460s still cost $230 would not be helpful for what should be the goal of reviews like this: to help people to buy the card that's right for them.

With the 4850/70 nvidia was a little slow to react, so there was a period where their prices were absurd by comparison. They learned their lesson and this time they dropped prices before the 6850/70 launched. Did this steal some of AMD's thunder? Yes. But that's competition, and we all benefit from it.

 

[Madcatatlas]

This is Not right. How about at nvidia's next launch Amd drops the prices across the board then hand picks some extreme overclocked cards to compare against it? This was Amd's time to shine. Amd is the one showcasing new architecture and Anand lets nvidia bully him into pushing an extreme overclock review into the mix. This site has been the one and only site I've read when it came review time. I don't even bother with other sites because I figured they were biased and Anand would give it to me straight. What a crock of crap that was.

I agree with some of your points OIL, but i ask that you reconsider your position.

Anandtech is unbiased and still, along with Hardocp, has my eyes following reviews and other articles on tech. I belive they just made the wrong choice of their own accord here.

I read the review and thought it was a good review. With the right introduction and the right conclusion.

Looking at various tests, i came over results like this:

The GTX460 OC beating the GTX470.. how is the average joe supposed to interpret those scores?


Ill quote Ryan Smith (a good reviewer from everything ive seen/read)

Focusing on 1920x1200, we have a 3-way race between the GTX 470, EVGA GTX 460, and the 6870. The 6870 comes out ahead, with the EVGA and then the GTX 470 bringing up the pack at under a frame behind. Meanwhile near the 6850 is the GTX 460 1GB, and it’s 2fps behind; while even farther down the line is the GTX 460 768MB, which officially is only $10 cheaper than the 6850 and yet it’s well behind the pack. As we’ll see, the 6850 will quickly assert itself as the GTX 460 1GB’s peer when it comes to performance.

Ill leave it to Smiths and Anands editors to formulate a summary, but i dont see any word of there being an 850mhz overclocked GTX460 in that section (edited to section, not review /facepalm)
I also think this is the main reason most people are raising a shout asking for bias check. In my opinion, there isnt need for that, as proven by Anands frontpage disclaimer and prompt to get reader feedback.


back to the topic..
Now there are alot of such endings and summaries in Ryan Smiths review and i cant for the heck of my think that its intentional or ment to hide the fact that the EVGA GTX460 1GB FTW is one of the, if not THE highest OVERCLOCKED GTX460 1GB card on the market. It actually BEATS GTX470 in some tests.

Why would anyone consider a GTX470 when the GTX460 1GB at 850mhz core beats it in some, equals it in others and again loses in some tests, BUT at the same time is generally a more cool, silent and less powerdrawing card.

Price is still one of the main things to compare video cards at and in that regard, i think it was perfectly fine to include it. But then again, why dont you include more and not just this EVGA FTW edition? What about my card at 800mhz core? or the scores of cards just like it, those are way more popular and have deeper market penetration.

Overall, i think there is not enough to raise a storm for. Just look at Anands reaction to the little forumtalk about there being an issue. I follow the forums and most people were just interested in the conclusion, that it was infact the new king of the sweet spot and better performance/cost and /watt than the competition.


Looking forward to reading your AMD Radeon HD6950/70/90 review Ryan!

 

[blastingcap]

IIRC, this poll's wording changed overnight and should be restarted to zero votes for yes and zero for no, rather than someone potentially arbitrarily dumping responses into one category vs. the other.

Even if the poll was always so badly worded, the language needs to change (who wants to call AT biased, since we all read AT?!) and should be pared away from the voting options. In fact, if you want it to be simple then make it two choices:

yes
no

If you want to allow for gradations:

yes
no
maybe (e.g., in some circumstances yes, in some circumstances no)

No editorializing is needed in the poll itself.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Seeing the EVGA GTX 460 is beating the GTX 470, what is the point of the 470 at all? Shouldn't Nvidia just discontinue the 470 and replace it with 850mhz 460's? The chip is undoubtedly much cheaper to produce.

 

[blastingcap]

- Almost nobody reads the disclaimers, also most people link or present directly the results.

- The new cards (Barts) were not overclocked. For the GTX 460 review the cards reference cards were overclocked and the results presented in the article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3809/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-the-200-king/18

- There are no ATI/AMD OCed cards in any general reviews. No OCed HD 5850 in the GTX470 review. No OCed HD 5850 in this review.

So the bottom line, what are the standard guides to a review?

- Do you overclock the reference cards and show the results? If yes, do it for all the cards.

- Do you include non-reference cards from the competition or from the reviewed manufacturer? If yes, do it for all the cards.

But the inclusion of non reference cards and of very specific benchmarks is a slippery slope. One can design a circuit in which a Mini Cooperis faster than a Ferrari or a Porsche 911. One can pit a heavily tuned BMW M3 against a stock Ford GT. A woman dressed for a cocktail with a woman that just got out of her bed.

Also if AMD will send heavily overclocked cards for the GTX 4750/580 reviews will those cards be included? I don't think they should and the same goes for the other camp.

I think it would have been hilarious if AT had accepted the FTW card but then downclocked it to stock when comparing it against stock 68xx cards.

Seriously though this FTW shipping business is kinda shady and if everybody accepts it, then I can see AMD shipping another "press edition" card like the X800 XT PE that is rarer than platinum itself. If we embrace this kind of stuff, future reviews may be clogged with nothing but FTW and PE cards. Is that what we really want?

 

[n0x1ous]

Seeing the EVGA GTX 460 is beating the GTX 470, what is the point of the 470 at all? Shouldn't Nvidia just discontinue the 470 and replace it with 850mhz 460's? The chip is undoubtedly much cheaper to produce.

I agree with in some ways, but it probably won't happen as the 470 is a way to get money out of GF100 dies that would otherwise be discarded.

Now the 465 on the other hand, I don't see a point in that existing anymore....maybe it doesn't? did they can it?

 

[AnandThenMan]

I agree with in some ways, but it probably won't happen as the 470 is a way to get money out of GF100 dies that would otherwise be discarded.

But the card costs more, uses more power, and has slightly worse performance in some cases. Why would anyone buy it?