Spin Off: AT's Testing Methods & Uber Mode

[AnandThenMan]

How many times can one person try to make the same point?

 

[SiliconWars]

Basically it boils down to demanding a better product as a consumer. Apparently, some of you dont' want better products, and are happy that AMD is forcing this compromise. Now, I think the 290 is a heck of a card performance wise but the throttling and noise compromise is complete nonsense. This compromise has NEVER existed on any prior card.

And obviously we're all too thick to work out the difference between quiet and uber modes. It's not like there is a giveaway - I can definitely see how people might get seriously confused over the similarities between "quiet" and "uber". Those two words have been linked together all throughout history.

Demanding a better product my ass. You get a choice of product with this. Should AMD have spent another $20 on the Titan cooler instead, and charged a thousand bucks? Would that have been a "better product"?

So much BS my brain is bleeding reading this thread.

 

[Vesku]

Basically it boils down to demanding a better product as a consumer. Apparently, some of you dont' want better products, and are happy that AMD is forcing this compromise. Now,

So your entire basis for trying to make your comments on topic is that the inconsistent testing methods and odd conclusion writing are some sort of pro-active consumer advocacy? If so it is over the top for a review and should have been some sort of editorial post.

Please follow the previous suggestions and create your own thread about the 290 and 290x cooler. Better yet find one of the existing threads and post there. Or perhaps start a thread suggesting an editorial section be added to AnandTech.

How many times can one person try to make the same point?

I think we are up to 4 or 5 in this thread alone. If we include the 290 review thread it would probably break double digits. At least it was on topic in the review thread.

 

[Subyman]

The most common sense thing would be do the review in regular mode against the stock of the other card. Then, at the end of the review do an additional review with the other feature with the caveat that this is not the default mode and this is why the scores are listed separate and alone, and maybe those scores should be best compared to OC 780 models.

It is pretty obvious that AMD was targeting the 780 in quiet mode and the Titan in Uber Mode...trying to kill two birds with one stone (which is why they tried to trump it up as the Titan Killer). The problem is Nvidia dropped the price of the 780 negating the advantage, so AMD then updated the driver of the 290 to try to put heat on the 780 because in it's regular profile it (the 290) was up against the $329 770 which would have had it over priced.

Basically, Nvidia just out played AMD with this, and even though AMD does have some great great cards at killer price points...they both come with very big drawbacks as the cards were made to operate at their threshold by default rather than have them run cooler with more potential to overclock.

I cannot emphasize enough that AMD fans trying to nitpick AnandTech and Ryan about this is one of the worst cases of sour grapes I've ever seen. Just admit that while AMD has some great cards, they just got outplayed by Nvidia because they did not have the foresight to put a better cooler on their card after deciding to allow it to run at it's peak threshold.

Why would a reference feature be compared to an OC model? Both modes should be shown in the graph with the caveat of higher noise expressed during the analysis in the noise section. Its really that simple. Omitting a major feature from comparison or making a special case where it is only tested against aftermarket OC models is just asking for more confusion and trouble.

 

[SiliconWars]

How many times can one person try to make the same point?

I can't figure out if you're talking about Carfax, OCGuy, Teizo, Blackened or whoever else. They are all spewing the same bs over and over and ignoring every factual counterpoint.

Not one of them has answered the RAM or turbo points brought up by Terry. Not one of them as answered flynnsk's Titan DP point. This is what matters - the double standards shown, but they are trying to deflect the issue on to the crappy 290 cooler instead of answering the actual crux point.

 

[AnandThenMan]

It doesn't make a rats ass difference if a reviewer likes a feature, or doesn't like noise, or doesn't like the colour of the fan shroud. An objective, informative review doesn't arbitrarily exclude because they have a personal view of how things should be.

That's not a review, it's an opinion piece.

 

[Leadbox]

Believe me. It happens. Most GPU buyers dont' spend their times on forums like this and just want to know the frames per second. You guys need to demand better products as consumers. A GPU that requires the user to compromise between noise and performance isn't kosher - like I said, there has never been such a GPU, ever that i'm aware of. What GPU required a 20% drop in performance for quiet operation prior to the 290? Name one. Please. This is new territory and it isn't good territory at that.

A consumer demanding a better product would ask for a shroud that didn't require a BIOS switch for maximum performance and good acoustics - the Titan uses about 10 watts less than the 290X yet the acoustic quality is leaps and bounds better. If AMD had decided to put some effort into their shroud engineering, this would be a non issue. We would have uber performance without uber noise. We would also have quiet mode with uber level performance.

Basically it boils down to demanding a better product as a consumer. Apparently, some of you dont' want better products, and are happy that AMD is forcing this compromise. Now, I think the 290 is a heck of a card performance wise but the throttling and noise compromise is complete nonsense. This compromise has NEVER existed on any prior card. IMHO, AMD needs to get this message and if anything they should start work on a "B" revision of cards that has a much more versatile shroud. That would be a better product. That would be a more balanced product. That would completely eliminate the quiet mode throttling and the uber mode noise - this would give consumers a better product, which is what AMD should do.

There isn't a single soul who is not demanding a better cooler for these cards
The Powertune tech itself is quite something, hell even AT's very own Ryan reckons nVidia will probably come out with a similar variation.Some review sights think the noise issue is overstated, what does that tell you?

 

[KingFatty]

Basically it boils down to demanding a better product as a consumer. Apparently, some of you dont' want better products, and are happy that AMD is forcing this compromise.

We all agree with the ideal of wanting better everything.

But better stuff usually costs more.

So, you can continue to make your point over and over as an ideal, but it seems like you are omitting the point that demanding higher quality means expecting to pay a higher price.

Are you saying we should just pay higher prices - that top-tier video cards *SHOULD* cost $1000 and should come with the very best coolers that technology can muster?

I'm not sure, but I think you are arguing for doing away with the concept of low price (that entails a noisy cooler), because (sort of like the review) you are allergic to noise?

We should reject lower price and all value segments, and only accept luxury tier products and high prices?

That's my long winded-way of saying that I think you are simplifying the situation by failing to acknowledge low-price as part of the equation, and that it's unlikely that a high-quality cooler can magically appear without increasing the price.

 

[AtenRa]

From my perspective, the Reviewer should sent the message to his/her audience and not to the Manufacturer of the Product.
You point out the Pros and the Cons to your readers, you help them decide if the product of the review is good for them or not.

The manufacturer will receive the message from the sales report at the end of the month

ps: Nobody send a message to NVIDIA about the 1K price of TITAN :whiste:

 

[cmdrdredd]

We all agree with the ideal of wanting better everything.

But better stuff usually costs more.

So, you can continue to make your point over and over as an ideal, but it seems like you are omitting the point that demanding higher quality means expecting to pay a higher price.

Are you saying we should just pay higher prices - that top-tier video cards *SHOULD* cost $1000 and should come with the very best coolers that technology can muster?

I'm not sure, but I think you are arguing for doing away with the concept of low price (that entails a noisy cooler), because (sort of like the review) you are allergic to noise?

We should reject lower price and all value segments, and only accept luxury tier products and high prices?

That's my long winded-way of saying that I think you are simplifying the situation by failing to acknowledge low-price as part of the equation, and that it's unlikely that a high-quality cooler can magically appear without increasing the price.

The 780 still retains the same cooler and is not $1000

 

[blackened23]

Demanding a better product my ass. You get a choice of product with this. Should AMD have spent another $20 on the Titan cooler instead, and charged a thousand bucks? Would that have been a "better product"?

No, they should have charged another 20-30$ on the cooler on charged 20-30$ more for the SKU. Period. Then we wouldn't have this controversy over Ryan Smith and uber vs quiet mode testing, we wouldn't have the Toms controversy, and we wouldn't have forums filled with complaints of noise vs throttling compomises. This could have been prevented with a better cooler, Ryan Smith wouldn't even have to mention this had AMD installed a better cooler - I can't stress enough that user experience matters, and this should not have been an issue in the first place.

Apparently, asking for a better and more complete product as a consumer is too much for you guys. I'm just lost for words. After all the controversy around the web and every single review hitting the noise vs throttling issue, you'd think that everyone would admit that "AMD screwed up". Apparently not? Price isn't everything. I freaking guarantee you, for every 1 person that bought the 290 based on performance and price alone, another 2 people didn't buy based on reading the reports on throttling and noise. You can take that to the bank. And that could have been ENTIRELY prevented by AMD.

Again, I was really really excited about the 290 series prior to launch. I'll go ahead and say it, I loved my 7970s when I had them - they overclocked like crazy and performed extremely well. Even though the software more or less was borderline quality at launch, I really liked the 7970. Based on this I had high hopes on the 290, I figured the performance would be where it should be relative to NV and I also figured AMD would make incremental improvements to acoustics. With that said, performance wise it delivers in spades (if you can stand high fan RPMs, and not everyone will accept this), but IMHO it compromises on the user experience too much. It shouldn't compromise on that area even if it the cost of the SKU raises a slight bit - price isn't everything. It matters, but it doesn't matter so much that shaving 20$-30$ for a far worse cooler is acceptable.. Nvidia sells cards based on user experience; AMD needs to take note of this.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

No, they should have charged another 20-30$ on the cooler on charged 20-30$ more. Period. Then we wouldn't have this controversy over Ryan Smith and uber vs quiet mode testing, we wouldn't have the Toms controversy, and we wouldn't have forums filled with complaints of noise vs throttling compomises. This could have been prevented with a better cooler, Ryan Smith wouldn't even have to mention this had AMD installed a better cooler.

Apparently, asking for a better and more complete product as a consumer is too much for you guys. I'm just lost for words. After all the controversy around the web and every single review hitting the noise vs throttling issue, you'd think that everyone would admit that "AMD screwed up". Apparently not? Price isn't everything. I freaking guarantee you, for every 1 person that bought the 290 based on performance and price alone, another 2 people didn't buy based on reading the reports on throttling and noise. You can take that to the bank. And that could have been ENTIRELY prevented by AMD.

What does all the nvidia backed controversy have to do with reviewers being blatantly pushed to publish needlessly scathing reviews of the 290 and 290x. It's ridiculous that the articles all seem to draw their conclusions based on uber mode noise, and quiet mode performance. It is true the cooler could be better and the cards quieter. That does not change the fact that the noise issue is being completely overblown.

Even full tilt in uber mode most users that actually own the cards say, it's not nearly as loud as they were expecting. I can take my 7970 turn the fan up to 60%, and turn on a game with my q701's (open backed) and not hear a thing. I don't have the volume cranked, I can clearly hear the wife talking to me in a normal voice from across the room. Reviewers and anti AMD crusaders would have everyone believe that your ears and face will be hit by a sonic bomb that causes them to look like the scene at the end of raiders of the lost ark with the melting faces.

So much FUD and sensationalizing. The worst part is that a lot of the reviewers didn't even question their review guides from nvidia telling them about the problems of their competitor. That type of behavior from nvidia is reprehensible and shows that they are starting to worry a little bit about AMD's GPUs. Instead of badmouthing the competition they could try just standing on the positive aspects of their own products.

Reviewers instead of running with Nvidia's badmouthing should just report the facts as they find them and leave it at that. Objective reviews, with objective conclusions. Your readership can drawn their own conclusions.

 

[Teizo]

No, they should have charged another 20-30$ on the cooler on charged 20-30$ more for the SKU. Period. Then we wouldn't have this controversy over Ryan Smith and uber vs quiet mode testing, we wouldn't have the Toms controversy, and we wouldn't have forums filled with complaints of noise vs throttling compomises. This could have been prevented with a better cooler, Ryan Smith wouldn't even have to mention this had AMD installed a better cooler - I can't stress enough that user experience matters, and this should not have been an issue in the first place.

Apparently, asking for a better and more complete product as a consumer is too much for you guys. I'm just lost for words. After all the controversy around the web and every single review hitting the noise vs throttling issue, you'd think that everyone would admit that "AMD screwed up". Apparently not? Price isn't everything. I freaking guarantee you, for every 1 person that bought the 290 based on performance and price alone, another 2 people didn't buy based on reading the reports on throttling and noise. You can take that to the bank. And that could have been ENTIRELY prevented by AMD.

Again, I was really really excited about the 290 series prior to launch. Performance wise it delivers, but IMHO it compromises on the user experience too much - and it shouldn't even if it costs slightly more. Nvidia sells cards based on user experience; AMD needs to take note of this.

Not worth any more of your time. Nor mine, really. They will just continue to ignore you and everything you say. That is why I took the gloves off earlier in this thread and posted what I did. They are basically littering the forum with nonsense. This probably has more to do with AMD launching a campaign against the bad review than listening to your advice. They don't want to hear what you have to say in rebuttal. They are right and you are wrong. They are convinced of this because Nvidia got the upper hand due to AMD's mishaps and they are angry about it because AMD has been walking an uphill battle this last year. They really needed Hawaii to make a big splash...and this puts a damper on an otherwise great product. And, the thing is..the more they keep on griping...the worse they look because it reeks of desperation. I think fair minded people with intelligence understand why Ryan did what he did and does reviews the way he does and understand that fault is not with Ryan or AnandTech and it's policies....but with AMD for not launching the polished product they should have.

And to those saying this is an opinion piece and not objective...Well, if you don't want the opinion of the reviewer...don't read the review. Just look at the pictures/graphs and make up your own mind. Pretty simple.

 

[Enigmoid]

There isn't a single soul who is not demanding a better cooler for these cards
The Powertune tech itself is quite something, hell even AT's very own Ryan reckons nVidia will probably come out with a similar variation.Some review sights think the noise issue is overstated, what does that tell you?

The problem is that powertune, as it is exists to solve a problem that should not exist in the first place. Powertune should never be throttling to reduce temp and noise. In principal its better than Nvidia's boost but its current implementation is broken.

Nvidia's way of having a base and boost clock and using GPU Boost to get a little more speed is much better than throttling from a boost clock. Its easier for the consumer and less shoddy marketing than saying that there is a boost clock that you will never hit even in Uber mode (toms asus and sapphire cards).

The best boost feature would be one where you have a base and boost clock and the card will boost automatically to levels dictated by power or noise (fan) levels.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Not worth any more of your time. Nor mine, really. They will just continue to ignore you and everything you say. That is why I took the gloves off earlier in this thread and posted what I did. They are basically littering the forum with nonsense. This probably has more to do with AMD launching a campaign against the bad review than listening to your advice. They don't want to hear what you have to say in rebuttal. They are right and you are wrong. They are convinced of this because Nvidia got the upper hand due to AMD's mishaps and they are angry about it because AMD has been walking an uphill battle this last year. They really needed Hawaii to make a big splash...and this puts a damper on an otherwise great product. And, the thing is..the more they keep on griping...the worse they look because it reeks of desperation. I think fair minded people with intelligence understand why Ryan did what he did and does reviews the way he does and understand that fault is not with Ryan or AnandTech and it's policies....but with AMD for not launching the polished product they should have.

And to those saying this is an opinion piece and not objective...Well, if you don't want the opinion of the reviewer...don't read the review. Just look at the pictures/graphs and make up your own mind. Pretty simple.

Who is they?

Also you seem to have missed basically every relevant point made in this thread.

 

[Imouto]

wow Blackened23. How many times have you posted the same about how much you hate the R9 290(X) cooler already since launch? As someone said already you should put it in your sig and save time every single time you post.

And stop that stuff about this card asking for plain bad journalism, that's not how it works. When a product is bad you label it as bad, you don't go further and make it look even worse because you want to send a message. That's propaganda and you should understand why it's out of the question in an objective review.

 

[GaiaHunter]

And to those saying this is an opinion piece and not objective...Well, if you don't want the opinion of the reviewer...don't read the review. Just look at the pictures/graphs and make up your own mind. Pretty simple.

Objective review.

Test uber mode.
Test silent mode.
Test overclocking to give an idea of how far the card can go and how it will overclock.

Provide power consumption, noise and heat for all the modes and overclocking.

Conclusion.

Say that you don't like the noise.

People will agree or disagree. No problem. Noise is subjective (although previous reviews might indicate a change in position, but hey, time goes on, people get older and maybe they care more for comfort over money).

Omitting a feature of the card because one decides the noise is too much in his own opinion - not objective.

 

[Abwx]

No, they should have charged another 20-30$ on the cooler on charged 20-30$ more for the SKU. .

Actualy another cooler is not even needed to gain as much if not more headroom than AMD s own driver update that did compensate cards with
non conform fan speeds...

Think a little before throwing unrelentlessly the never ending
crappy cooler argument.

 

[Vesku]

Apparently, asking for a better and more complete product as a consumer is too much for you guys.

The place for that, at least in the form of ranting, is in an editorial not in a review. Think it is too loud, say so. Rage against it to the following extent:

"it’s admittedly not very often that we write a negative video card review"

"great deal of confusion and a tinge of sadness"

"At 57.2dB the 290 is a loud card. A very loud card. An unreasonably loud card."

"this is one of a handful of cards we’ve ever had to recommend against"

"point where a video card is simply too loud"

"an unreasonable level of noise."

"the reference 290 untenable as a purchase"

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7481/the-amd-radeon-r9-290-review/17

Not appropriate for a regular review. A personality driven opinion/review or editorial? Sure. If AnandTech is changing up the tone and standard for reviewing they should probably let readers know. If we are to believe that at least some of the 290 owner posts around the internet are actual consumers, he was off the mark in terms of reasonable statements and strayed way too far into personal feelings.

 

[Silverforce11]

Objective review.

Test uber mode.
Test silent mode.
Test overclocking to give an idea of how far the card can go and how it will overclock.

Provide power consumption, noise and heat for all the modes and overclocking.

Conclusion.

Say that you don't like the noise.

People will agree or disagree. No problem. Noise is subjective (although previous reviews might indicate a change in position, but hey, time goes on, people get older and maybe they care more for comfort over money).

Omitting a feature of the card because one decides the noise is too much in his own opinion - not objective.

That's all there is to it folks. Opinion pieces versus objective reviews. It's not a very fine line unless someone is clearly biased.

It's feedback for AT's review approach, stay objective. Heed it or lose readership, it's simple.

/thread

 

[Mistwalker]

Objective review.

Test uber mode.
Test silent mode.
Test overclocking to give an idea of how far the card can go and how it will overclock.

Provide power consumption, noise and heat for all the modes and overclocking.

Conclusion.

Say that you don't like the noise.

More information is better. We can all agree on that, right?

The card has two modes, one is quieter with slower performance, the other louder for more performance. Both enabled out of the box and fully supported by the manufacturer.

How hard is it to denote this, show both mode's results, point readers to the noise results alongside the performance so they can clearly see what the tradeoff is, done and done. Overclocking still has its own section for perf/noise/heat, and now everyone is as informed as they can be.

Honestly I don't have a problem with a reviewer mentioning other intricacies they observed (such as the noise profile, anomalies the numbers alone don't show, problems with drivers and so on). If Anandtech wants to give more weight to the subjective experience in their recommendations, that's their perogative--and the 290 review is the most subjective I think I've ever read on this site. Is that good or bad? I don't know, but it's hard to complain about too much objectivity.

 

[TerryMathews]

Just look at the pictures/graphs and make up your own mind. Pretty simple.

Welcome to the debate. Hard to do that if Ryan et al discards half of the test data, or never conducts the test in the first place isn't it?

Look at the article about the new fan control algorithm. Would it have been interesting to know what effect the algorithm made on uber mode? Better? Worse? Ryan will never know, evidently.

They are right and you are wrong.

Glad we finally agree on something.

 

[Will Robinson]

Not worth any more of your time. Nor mine, really. They will just continue to ignore you and everything you say. That is why I took the gloves off earlier in this thread and posted what I did. They are basically littering the forum with nonsense. This probably has more to do with AMD launching a campaign against the bad review than listening to your advice. They don't want to hear what you have to say in rebuttal. They are right and you are wrong. They are convinced of this because Nvidia got the upper hand due to AMD's mishaps and they are angry about it because AMD has been walking an uphill battle this last year. They really needed Hawaii to make a big splash...and this puts a damper on an otherwise great product. And, the thing is..the more they keep on griping...the worse they look because it reeks of desperation. I think fair minded people with intelligence understand why Ryan did what he did and does reviews the way he does and understand that fault is not with Ryan or AnandTech and it's policies....but with AMD for not launching the polished product they should have.

And to those saying this is an opinion piece and not objective...Well, if you don't want the opinion of the reviewer...don't read the review. Just look at the pictures/graphs and make up your own mind. Pretty simple.

I hate to break this to you but R9 290($400) owns all of NV cards from 780 down and R290X owns the NV flagship Titan as well.(remember the $1000 price tag Titan?)
780Ti barely scrapes past 290X and is SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS.
It's not AMD fans who are "angry"

 

[oleguy]

So, is anyone able to point out where in the after-market product documentation that the Uber switch is mentioned? I've tried reading through a few manufacture's documents, and they neglect to mention this BIOS switch in the manual, or list it as a feature on the 290X's product page. Perhaps this isn't so much of a documented feature as an Easter Egg?

Probably the issue is that they are named "quiet" and "uber" mode by the reviewers. AMD's own website doesn't mention this feature, nor names the modes. I'm honestly curious as to where this feature is documented in the actual end-user product, not the review sample with appended notes.

 

[railven]

Just read Ryan's post on what I think is his understanding of some people's issue.

Not sure if he's paying attention to the wrong crowd, but his article doesn't seem to address the concern I had with him omitting data he collected in his final conclusion of the 780 Ti review, not the 290 Review.

I had no issue with him not recommending the 290 for it's acoustics. I have a big issue with him presenting data in the 780 ti Article that he completely ignores in his conclusion.