Consider this: is NV's image something it can't affect? Do its detractors have a point? If NV had immediately recalled and refunded/replaced things w/r/t bumpgate; if its CEO were more respectful and didn't say stuff like how NV would open a "can of whoop ass" on Intel; if NV didn't apparently try to price-fix with AMD (which, to be fair, apparently agreed or at least didn't refuse outright); if that kind of stuff didn't happen, do you think NV's reputation would have been better or worse? You can point to AMD and say that it did bad stuff too, but that's fairly lame and inaccurate to boot: if you're going to compare ethics on a GPU forum then it's fairer to compare NV's ethics to ATI's ethics + AMD's post-merger ethics, else you are double-counting. (E.g., if NV merged with INTC, how fair would it be to bring up INTC's payola scheme as a criticism of NV's ethics, given that INTC's payola scheme would predate the merger?)
Also, a word about "emotion":
Although it's true that there are objective factors such as noise, thermals, performance, etc. that may be useful in educating consumers, ultimately it is THEIR decision how to use THEIR money, not YOURS. To say that they shouldn't use their emotions, or to "vote with their wallets" if they disagree with a particular company's policies, is arrogant and controlling, imho.
This transcends AMD vs. NV, by the way. It happens all the time all over the world.
Some people try hard to "buy American" or to avoid buying from BP*. There are mutual funds out there that specifically cater to clients who wish to avoid ownership of companies that profit from tobacco or petroleum or firearms sales, for instance. Some people avoid Nike or buy Free Trade coffee because they don't like the sweatshop reports or want to help the environment. Etc.
Personal example: I don't like Seagate. The only HDD I ever had fail was a Seagate 7200.11 a couple of years ago, after which I started reading up on their quality control and reliability more. I discovered that Seagate had incorporated in the Carribean in order to dodge income taxes, unlike Western Digital. I was already upset at Seagate's handling of 7200.11 issues, and the tax thing was the last straw. The next three hard drives I bought were from Western Digital, even though they cost slightly more than the competing Seagates. Why? In my eyes, WD was at least as reliable as Seagate, and it paid US income taxes.
Do you think these people are insane, or do you see my point?
The above applies to things like video cards as well. AMD and NV are rivals whose products both get the job done. Given that both companies produce very similar products, why is it wrong to use your opinion of their respective "morality" if you are deciding between comparable cards and don't need CUDA/PhysX/single-GPU multi-monitor? Is it also wrong then to choose the ASUS version of the GTX460 because you prefer its color scheme to that of the GIGABYTE, or something like that?
While you may ardently believe that people should buy brand X or Y, or take this or that factor into consideration, at the end of the day, it's their money, not yours, and they can justify their purchases however they wish, and I don't think it's proper to bludgeon people into using only the criteria YOU deem to be important.**
As for others of you whose problem isn't with people who consider things beyond the usual performance metrics when buying cards, but rather with what you perceive as an unjustified poor public perception of NV, consider this: reasonable minds can disagree, and some things are simply not quantifiable anyway.
Example: someone mentioned how NV has seemed less professional over the years. With JHH setting up sites like
http://www.intelsinsides.com/ and saying stuff like how NV's going to "open a can of whoop ass" on his competitors (his words, not mine***), is it so hard to see why NV has seemed less professional recently? Nevertheless, it's subjective opinion, not objective fact.
In other words, if someone deems NV or AMD unethical and even after hearing your arguments otherwise still thinks the same, so be it. Vote with your dollars, and let others vote with theirs. At some point you've just gotta let go.
* despite Scali's attempt to cast BP as if it were wholly a victim of RIG's incompetence, BP had say in the design and operation of its rig, not to mention principal-agent issues and how BP leaned on staff to get things done faster; if you take Scali's logic to the extreme, then a principal who hires an agent who then proceeds to commit crimes, can they absolve themselves of blame by casting all the blame on the agent). Disclaimer: I don't own stock in BP or RIG anymore, though I used to, many years ago.
** taken to the extreme, the arguments that some of you make would make it okay to support a company who polluted every river in the world with radioactive waste, blatantly violated anti-trust, child labor, and other laws, trafficked in sex slaves, used live babies as raw materials for its Soylent Green product, etc., and hired lawyers and bribed judges to get away with it (or to pay minor fines), just because that company's products performed better on your favored set of criteria. The sad thing is that I bet some of you WOULD support such a company and chalk it up to capitalism. The good news is that NV is not such a baby-eater kind of company.
***
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/10/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-part-lv-nvidia-ceo-says-were-going-to-ope/
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