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Tom is an A$$!

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Originally posted by: Thor86
I agree, Tom's (p)reviews are biased and crap. Everyone else's preview were pretty much the same with nothing spectacular to say about the FX, but Tom's site claims it is now the NEW champ. Makes me laugh.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA takes the crown! No question about it - the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster than the competition from ATI's Radeon 9700 PRO in the majority of the benchmarks. However, its lead is only slight, especially compared to the distance that ATI put between its Radeon 9700 PRO and the Ti 4600. Still, when compared to its predecessor, the GeForce4 Ti, the FX represents a giant step forward.

Based on Tom's benchmarks, the GF FX is the new champ in terms of framerate scores. And as the review states, "its lead is only slight."

Please explain why the FX is NOT the new champ. If an athlete beats the world's record by only 0.01 seconds, he's still the new champ, isn't he?

If you are questioning Tom's benchmarks, you need to explain further. If not, then why is this review overly biased? Did you actually read any of it?
 
You know what, though... You can find that kind of wording in pretty much anyone's comparison reviews.

Not to mention msg board posts. 😉
 
Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Check this out:

In this series of benches, Toms concludes, In Serious Sam 2, the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is clearly superior to the Radeon 9700 PRO when the difference between the two cards is approx. 10-14 FPS.

When the Radeon 9700 PRO beats the FX by approx. 25 FPS in the first bench of this page, Tom concludes, Here, the Radeon 9700 PRO is a nose ahead, as was indicated in Sharkmark.

Urggg
Click to expand...


yep, THG always does that. That and the van smith authorship incident convinced me to never visit that POS site ever again.
 
Originally posted by: Kinesis
OK, I agree Tom's reviews have growingly become sporadic and lack-luster, so my question is where would you all recommend one to go to review various Products?

not including our lovely domain - AnandTech - Please Moderator I beg forgiveness!
Click to expand...
Among others mentioned, Xbitlabs.com is a good site.
 
I wouldn't call Tom biased, but he has demonstrated a slant towards nVidia since the introduction of the TNT II way, way back. Granted, that was a great card at the time, but he was really gushing over it.
 
Am I the only one that noticed that in one graph (where the Radeon is a "nose" ahead) he is comparing vertexshader speed (Mtriangles/s) and in the Serious Sam graph he is comparing FPS. GTaudiophile is trying to get a rise by relating two very different things, a hypocritically alarmist tactic. In my opinion, the actual game performance (FPS in a benchmark game) is more significant than what 3Dmark may have to say, as is shown by how Tom did not make a big deal of the FX being 32% faster in pixelshader speed.

Moreover, the %gain in FPS by the FX is higher than the %gain in Mtriangles/s by the Radeon. That being said, the %change for each is quite similar, and does not justify refering to one as "clearly superior" and the other "a nose ahead" (which in my opinion is indicative of bias); nor do I think it is reasonable to call someone an ass (or A$$) because of it.

For reference: %change= [(value being compared) - (reference value)] / (reference value)

Radeon 9700Pro vertexshader advantage: 14.8%
GeForceFX 5800 Ultra pixelshader advantage: 31.8%
GeForceFX 5800 Ultra FPS advantage in SS2 @1024X768, 32bit: 16.1%
GeForceFX 5800 Ultra FPS advantage in SS2 @1280X1024, 32bit: 18.2%
GeForceFX 5800 Ultra FPS advantage in SS2 @1600X1200, 32bit: 15.7%

How about we look at the graphs before we scream bloody murder and make slanderous comments?



Edit: for typos
 
the other problem i have with tom's is that they don't bother to, in the high IQ tests, determine whether the IQ is the same or not, like anand has. so hes not really even comparing apples to apples.
 
Originally posted by: tk149
Originally posted by: Thor86
I agree, Tom's (p)reviews are biased and crap. Everyone else's preview were pretty much the same with nothing spectacular to say about the FX, but Tom's site claims it is now the NEW champ. Makes me laugh.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA takes the crown! No question about it - the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster than the competition from ATI's Radeon 9700 PRO in the majority of the benchmarks. However, its lead is only slight, especially compared to the distance that ATI put between its Radeon 9700 PRO and the Ti 4600. Still, when compared to its predecessor, the GeForce4 Ti, the FX represents a giant step forward.

Based on Tom's benchmarks, the GF FX is the new champ in terms of framerate scores. And as the review states, "its lead is only slight."

Please explain why the FX is NOT the new champ. If an athlete beats the world's record by only 0.01 seconds, he's still the new champ, isn't he?

If you are questioning Tom's benchmarks, you need to explain further. If not, then why is this review overly biased? Did you actually read any of it?
Click to expand...

Well, to explain to you why I wrote what I wrote was because I feel that the overall performance would be the better judgement of a card, and since the FX only beats the Radeon without AA/AF turned on, this doesn't make it an overall champ. Who plays games these days without AA/AF and shell that kind of money for a video card? Your analogy may be somewhat valid, but try using it in a decathalon analogy, it doesn't work.

And yes, I did read the review, thanks for asking.
rolleye.gif

 
Yesterday when all the reviews came out Tom's was the only one I couldn't get to load. The only page that did load was conveniently enough the conclusion section. Just reading these 2 quotes from there makes me think someone's been bought:

"It will be difficult for NVIDIA to push its GeForceFX 5800 Ultra. Radeon 9700 PRO cards are only slightly slower, and, because they've been out on the market for months now, they're much less expensive."

And then this:

"Still, despite expectations to the contrary, the official price for the FX 5800 is $399 plus tax and that seems pretty aggressive and attractive."

So the Radeon's are only 'slightly' slower yet the FX @ $399 is an aggressive & attractive solution?!?!?!?
 
Originally posted by: human2k
its bad to call people names.
Click to expand...
It's pretty hard not to call people names . . . 😉

rolleye.gif



Oh . . . you mean rude names.

But "ass" just may fit . . . from the dictionary:
A vain, self-important, silly, or aggressively stupid person.
Click to expand...
I'd say we have (at least) 2 outa 4. 😉 😀
 
Originally posted by: Thor86
Originally posted by: tk149
Originally posted by: Thor86
I agree, Tom's (p)reviews are biased and crap. Everyone else's preview were pretty much the same with nothing spectacular to say about the FX, but Tom's site claims it is now the NEW champ. Makes me laugh.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA takes the crown! No question about it - the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster than the competition from ATI's Radeon 9700 PRO in the majority of the benchmarks. However, its lead is only slight, especially compared to the distance that ATI put between its Radeon 9700 PRO and the Ti 4600. Still, when compared to its predecessor, the GeForce4 Ti, the FX represents a giant step forward.

Based on Tom's benchmarks, the GF FX is the new champ in terms of framerate scores. And as the review states, "its lead is only slight."

Please explain why the FX is NOT the new champ. If an athlete beats the world's record by only 0.01 seconds, he's still the new champ, isn't he?

If you are questioning Tom's benchmarks, you need to explain further. If not, then why is this review overly biased? Did you actually read any of it?
Click to expand...

Well, to explain to you why I wrote what I wrote was because I feel that the overall performance would be the better judgement of a card, and since the FX only beats the Radeon without AA/AF turned on, this doesn't make it an overall champ. Who plays games these days without AA/AF and shell that kind of money for a video card? Your analogy may be somewhat valid, but try using it in a decathalon analogy, it doesn't work.

And yes, I did read the review, thanks for asking.
rolleye.gif
Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying, however:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the athlete who wins the most decathlon events (even by only a little bit in each event) becomes the champ. How does this make my analogy invalid? The GF FX edged out the Radeon in the majority of benchmarks shown on Tom's site, thereby winning most of the events.

You can argue which benchmarks are more important to you, but the fact remains that the FX is marginally faster in "overall performance" according to those benchmark tests. Just because Lars decided not to weigh AA/AF tests more importantly than others in his review doesn't make him wrong or overly biased. And, since he was unbiased enough to include the results of those tests, you and me and everybody else who reads the review is free to draw his or her own conclusions. Hardly a "crap" review.
rolleye.gif


That being said, I'm thinking about getting an AIW Radeon 9700 Pro, unless nVidia seriously increases FX performance and decreases the noise level in the next two months.
 
Remember, Tom didnt write this article (per say). I have met Lars several times (comdex, ect) and on the general he seems to be a nice guy. Im not really sure why his article seems so far off this time.

I stopped reading THG because of Omid.

Kristopher
 
This is my favorite Tom's Review, but its been pretty much the same level of crap for the last 3 or 4 years:

Detailed 8 RAID controller round-up

Needless to say that review made no influence at all on my latest RAID purchasing decision. The "detailed test results" and "overral performance and feature comparison" are my favorites though, not a single graph 🙂

Chiz

Edit: I try not to doubt the test results they come up with, but sometimes I think they write the story before they benchmark, ie. they already have come to preconceived conclusions, for good or for bad.

 
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