UPDATE: NVIDIA backtracks - Hardware Unboxed blacklisted from receiving GeForce FE review samples over “focus on rasterization over ray-tracing”

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

I disagree, so far looking pretty damn good for me, thank you very much.  Let's not nitpick words, please. You know what I meant. If it bothers you that much then fine, I will remove the "free" part. My point still stands, which proves that "free" was not the main point at all.

Yes it bothers me and a lot of other people, and I disagree with it being nit picking because free has a meaning and that meaning does not apply to review samples.

[Korben]

1 hour ago, Nex6 said:

1. Nvidia has limited number of free cards to send to reviewers. There are way more people asking for the card. That is a fact.

 

No, it's not, unless you can verifyt it with actual numbers. It's an assumption. A realitic one, but still an assumption. Just for the sake of "correctness".

Yeah, I am a smart ass, I know. But I am not the only one here...

[D13H4RD]

6 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

It might not be the reason why buying Nvidia card, but it might be the main reason to pick Nvidia card over AMD card if their rasterization and value performance are similar.

If I'm honest, RT wasn't the reason I got a 2070S over a 5700XT at the time I was picking between the 2. While I agree that it might be a reason, said reason is usually confined to the higher-end cards like the 3080, where their rasterization performance is already more than powerful enough to offset the performance loss induced by running ray-tracing calculations (mitigated by the RT cores).

 

There are plenty of other reasons why people would choose the Team Green option over Team Red, and that does not include brand-loyalty;

• NVENC - I know everyone's also said it, but it is a genuinely compelling feature if you stream or record gameplay on the regular. AMD's alternative isn't yet on par.
• Broadcast - Again, if you stream regularly, this might be compelling. However, I know some people would find RTX Voice useful.
• CUDA - My personal big reason on why. While I still hope for OpenCL to catch on, many of my most-used programs still work better with CUDA, and this, unfortunately, has me platform-locked for a bit.

And I'm just going to say it. Green's just got a better track record for rolling out stable release drivers than Red. While AMD's been getting better, they still have some ways to go.

[WhitetailAni]

2 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

<snip>

Most of that was Linus on the WAN show paraphrased.

Anyway.

3 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

I disagree, so far looking pretty damn good for me, thank you very much.  Let's not nitpick words, please. You know what I meant. If it bothers you that much then fine, I will remove the "free" part. My point still stands, which proves that "free" was not the main point at all.

That says nothing. Free means free, which doesn't really exist.

They are exchanging the cards for marketing.

5 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

That is not true. Are you claiming this as fact or is it just your understanding?

It might not be the reason why buying Nvidia card, but it might be the main reason to pick Nvidia card over AMD card if their rasterization and value performance are similar.

I'm amazed that you took everything I said as fact.

51 minutes ago, ragnarok0273 said:

I'm going to refute every single point you made, and when I make an error, someone else will likely come along and do it too.

I did say that I would refute every point but I changed some things and forgot to change that.

I stated that I would make an error, and I did. But still - why does everyone immediately take what I'm saying as fact?

7 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

Yes, I know he did and I mentioned that in my post as well. But my point about obligation is very clear - it's about day 1 review. THAT is why you get cards in advance. That is why everyone and their mothers are whining about how important day 1 reviews are. Well, guess what - if they are that important for the channels, then it's reasonable to say that they are that important to Nvidia as well, wouldn't you say? When I talk about obligation, I specifically mean day 1 obligation. After day 1, people do all kind of stuff with their products, overclock them, SLI them, destroy them by taking them apart etc. All these other things are not part of the day 1 obligation and in fact Nvidia doesn't like any of the 3 things that I mentioned.

Hardware Unboxed is the only review channel?

9 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

Discrediting my opinion as just Nvidia fanboy's opinion is a major error one can make. Even if I were an Nvidia fanboy, that wouldn't invalidate my opinion as long as I am actually providing arguments.

Not really related to my argument, but ok. Was just something tacked on at the last minute.

10 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

I get your point, but it also doesn't mean that once you are approved, you must be getting one for life. I do accept that reason for removing from the list should be strong enough.

I'm not saying he should.

11 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

Again, that is your claim and in my opinion it's not based on facts.

And yours are?

You are making the same mistake you say I am - taking your opinions and stating them as facts.

[thedude4bides]

18 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Eh, it's none of that. If you'd known how NVIDIA management has worked, you'd realize none of this is terribly surprising. It's also unfortunately common in the world of tech reviews, that MSI fiasco not withstanding.

 

 

It's not blatant narrative control through what is effectively censoring?

[Nex6]

6 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

If I'm honest, RT wasn't the reason I got a 2070S over a 5700XT at the time I was picking between the 2. While I agree that it might be a reason, said reason is usually confined to the higher-end cards like the 3080, where their rasterization performance is already more than powerful enough to offset the performance loss induced by running ray-tracing calculations (mitigated by the RT cores).

 

There are plenty of other reasons why people would choose the Team Green option over Team Red, and that does not include brand-loyalty;

• NVENC - I know everyone's also said it, but it is a genuinely compelling feature if you stream or record gameplay on the regular. AMD's alternative isn't yet on par.
• Broadcast - Again, if you stream regularly, this might be compelling. However, I know some people would find RTX Voice useful.
• CUDA - My personal big reason on why. While I still hope for OpenCL to catch on, many of my most-used programs still work better with CUDA, and this, unfortunately, has me platform-locked for a bit.

And I'm just going to say it. Green's just got a better track record for rolling out stable release drivers than Red. While AMD's been getting better, they still have some ways to go.

My reasons for going with Nvidia last 3 times (590, 680 and 980) are better performance and to some extent more stable drivers. It's been a long time since I bought a GPU so whatever I get it's going to be a huge upgrade over 980. How will I pick? I don't know. I have to admit I'm a sucker for ray tracing, though. I want to see what AMD can do. I am completely open minded and I just love that we finally have competition.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Idk if anyone posted this @mods should atleast update the post withe the Apology Nvidia has issued to HWUB today or the OP if you are there might add this @D13H4RD
 

 

[D13H4RD]

9 minutes ago, thedude4bides said:

It's not blatant narrative control through what is effectively censoring?

Like I said, it's unfortunately common in the tech-industry. Hardware Unboxed were threatened by ASUS with a lawsuit after they released a video criticizing the TUF A15's poor thermal performance and I assume everyone knew what happened with TTGB.

 

NVIDIA (and probably Intel/AMD as well) have likely done the same. They were just better at hiding them until NVIDIA barked up the wrong tree.

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, D13H4RD said:

I assume everyone knew what happened with TTGB.

I do not, please elaborate!

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, ragnarok0273 said:

I do not, please elaborate!

Well, he made a video that was critical of MSI's Bravo 15 laptop. An MSI rep contacted him and apparently kept trying to convince him to change his narrative, until he was offered money to change his narrative or hide the critique. That was when TTGB decided to let the public know what's going on, and led to the MSI fiasco.

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, D13H4RD said:

Well, he made a video that was critical of MSI's Bravo 15 laptop. An MSI rep contacted him and apparently kept trying to convince him to change his narrative, until he was offered money to change his narrative or hide the critique. That was when TTGB decided to let the public know what's going on, and led to the MSI fiasco.

Whoa.

[D13H4RD]

6 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

Idk if anyone posted this @mods should atleast update the post withe the Apology Nvidia has issued to HWUB today or the OP if you are there might add this @D13H4RD
 

 

Done

[Nex6]

1 minute ago, D13H4RD said:

Like I said, it's unfortunately common in the tech-industry. Hardware Unboxed were threatened by ASUS with a lawsuit after they released a video criticizing the TUF A15's poor thermal performance and I assume everyone knew what happened with TTGB.

 

And just for the record, I thought that was terrible. HU reacted well.

 

ASUS has a recent bad behaviour track record and I am actually less likely to buy their products now. I don't trust them as a company any more. Back in the days I remember ASUS and ABIT being two brands that had best motherboards and from those days onwards I always thought highly of ASUS. My current MB is also ASUS. But things change...

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, ragnarok0273 said:

I use Nvidia simply for their control panel. It's quick and easy to understand, and I don't see a feature that compells me to switch to AMD yet.

NVIDIA's Control Panel is the dumbest thing that escaped from year 2006 and still livers in 2020... It looks archaic, it feels archaic, it acts archaic. I've used this trash back when I owned GeForce 6600GT. Do the math how far back that is... Apart from adding few extra options it literally hasn't changed for more than a decade and a half. And it's not because it's so perfect, it's because I seem to be the only one giving a shit and criticizing it. The rest is just fine with it and why else would NVIDIA fix or change it if everyone is fine paying 1200€ for a graphic card and getting control panel like this.

[Nex6]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

No they do not have a limited supply. They have hundreds of thousands to millions and the number of review samples Nvidia sends out is at least by my guess in low thousands, probably on the low to very low side of that. Did you know that most of the smaller reviewers do not get review samples in time for launch day coverage and they actually only get a limited amount of time with the product before they have to send it on to the next person. 

We will just have to agree to disagree on this. I don't think you are being reasonable here.

 

Quote

The only obligation is to provide the agreed upon review, which by the way is understood from both sides as to be impartial and fair. Nvidia gets to provide resources and material and highlight what they think is important about their products but for an impartial review the reviewer does not have to talk about or present those Nvidia points in the same way.

 

There are only two obligations; To do the review. To be fair and reasonable.

I think that is wrong again. Surely there has to be a time frame obligation? If a 3080 is provided and the review comes in July 2021, that can't be right?

 

As for your second point, I think that the review was not fair and I have stated my arguments why I think so.

 

Quote

 

Incorrect, that would not be a review. That would be a sponsored video which exist. A review only has to present the information the reviewer thinks is important for the consumer. Reviews are not for the manufacturer they are for the consumer. Manufacturers can and do learn things from reviews and they should be receptive to criticism and critique, which is the fundamental point and reason for a review.

 

A review is not a paid for product placement or advertisement.
...
And what if they are not major selling points. Nvidia does not get to decide what is major selling point of their cards, I do, you do, every other consumer does. Nvidia can wish and market features as if they are but that doesn't make them so. I care exactly zero about NVENC yet many other people care greatly about it, Nvidia has no ability or influence on me to make this any more important to me.

 

So no DLSS and RT are not major selling points of the cards, not unless consumers/customers say it is.

 

Will have to disagree again, although I do leave a possibility of either misunderstanding from your side or a word being misused from my side. Manufacturer does decide what the desired selling points are. The consumers will have a final say whether that decision was successful or not. This is how I use the word selling point, but you are free to change it to whatever you think is more appropriate for the meaning that I described.

 

I also disagree about the first quoted point. When someone buys a product, he has no obligations at all, and he can review it any way he wants. But if you are provided the product by the manufacturer, then there are obligations. For example if somebody is provided with a product (described as "Product received for free") to review on Amazon, he can't just write "DDF3 ££54 SS£¬``". However if you actually bought it, nothing prevents you from posting exactly that review.

 

I will give you an analogy (and to others, because it doesn't look like we are going to agree on this).

- Suppose I review cars and you are a car manufacturer

- You manufacture a completely new model and I ask you for an exclusive review (or at least to be one of the selected few that could get the car for a preview)

- We agree on NDA, we agree on when I can publish the review.

- You tell me that this car was made to be the fastest car ever made by your company and you make claims that it has faster acceleration than any of its competitors.

- I check the car and post a review on day 1. In the review I show the exterior and interior, I say that I like the colour, but I dislike the shape. I also compare the interior to the one from another car you made, which costs only 50% of this car's price. And yet, I say, that car's interior is better, it's more luxurious, more comfortable to spend long hours driving.

- You watch the review. You watch the review again, checking whether maybe you haven't missed the part where I drive the car... oh I do actually mention that the drives is quite fast at the end. And that's all.

- Well, I'd think that you are not going to send me another car next time, because obviously I am not really interested in your talking points.

 

That's exactly how I see this situation.

 

Quote

 

Also I'm sorry but anyone that thinks it is good testing methodology to mix in DLSS in to performance reviews in the way Nvidia wants it to be is not being impartial at all. Doing so make zero sense, this is a technology that can change both at the software layer and hardware layer at any point in time independently so it has no place to be mixed in further dirtying the data set. DLSS deserves no better treatment that than the early 2000's Anti Aliasing coverage, which underwent a lot of technology change at the software and hardware layer. These AA tests were there own data points on their own graphs not mixed in with anything else. Hardware Unboxed, and Gamers Nexus for that matter, who put them on their own graphs separated from other test configurations are doing it the correct way, not the way Nvidia wants it to be done and that's just too damn bad for them. 

 

DLSS 4K != 4K, it has no place being on a graph of 4K test results. Neither would any AMD equivalent either, and when there are competing equivalents neither belong on that graph under that configuration jointly at the same time. Comparing them is fine, we still need a clean and clear baseline.

 

I completely agree with you on this, but I haven't really seen people making these claims. So I'm not sure if you have addressed that to me. When I say that I thought a fair comparison should have been made, I only meant 3080 DLSS vs 2080 DLSS.

 

1 hour ago, Korben said:

No, it's not, unless you can verifyt it with actual numbers. It's an assumption. A realitic one, but still an assumption. Just for the sake of "correctness".

Yeah, I am a smart ass, I know. But I am not the only one here...

That's ok, I can be a smarter ass even.

 

Yes, it is a fact.

 

It's theoretically impossible for them to have an infinite amount of cards. And that would be the only way for them to not have a restricted number of cards.  

FINITE

Adjective

Having an end or limit; constrained by bounds.

RESTRICT

Verb
To restrain within bounds; to limit;

[Tan3l6]

Nothing to do about it.

[jagdtigger]

This feels like NV thought HU is a small fry and can do whatever they want. But in reality stir up the hornets nest pretty badly and quickly PR stunt apologized/backtracked before their butt ends up as pincushion.......

[divito]

38 minutes ago, Nex6 said:

But if you are provided the product by the manufacturer, then there are obligations.

Yes, the "obligation" is to post a review to their audience, that's it. It's transactional in nature: Card --> Marketing/Exposure 

 

Nvidia selects media members that exceed their chosen viewership threshold and content standards, and supplies early software and graphics cards so that they can adequately make reviews in time for launch. Others, get a card, quickly get their benchmarks and impressions and send it on down the chain. Occasionally, companies can inquire or suggest changes or alterations if they think the opinion/content is a bit unfair, and Linus and other reviewers have remarked about such in the past. But how the review is structured and delivered is on the producer of the review and once the card is in hand, that's all there is to it.

Now, most reviewers that Nvidia has selected are fairly straight up in delivering overall information including new features, their impact, etc... but every reviewer does so in their own unique way and sometimes with limited emphasis in certain areas. If they want their talking points done a certain way, they can pay for actual sponsored content. They're supplying cards for third-party and impartial review based on that reviewer's process, opinions and the audience they serve.

However, suddenly removing access to cards without warning or prior dialogue about content is questionable and curious, especially when it's been shown that most of their claims seem to have been baseless based on the videos and their content.

Sure, Nvidia has the ultimate end in choosing where they send products, but altering to such an extent on pushing their narrative amounts to propaganda, and not objective review. 

[Egg-Roll]

3 hours ago, Nex6 said:

I am surprised that you don't think that such behaviour leads to instant death of the channel, at least as a reviewer that anyone would consider to be a serious hardware review channel.

Then LTT Jay and anyone who called out nvidia for said practices should all die channel wise then with that logic. My point was they can get away with it once maybe 2 times or indefinitely because it isn't "their" choice nvidia wants to force them into submission.

 

Besides nothing is stopping them from doing a proper review on a later date with a free AIO or bought unit, you know the ones us normies will be buying, but the bad press on release day will hurt nvidia more than said channel, esp when in the past they were given samples to test. All a channel needs to do is state "nvidia does not care about you (their viewers) enough to send us a card to fairly test for release day where in the past they have, therefore we (the channel) can not blindly suggest you to go out and buy this card instead here are a list of cards that we know are good. Once we (the channel) get our hands on the card we will test it, however that may be weeks from now and you the viewer can freely watch one of many other creators reviews about the card if you wish to know how it preforms today. We care greatly about our viewers and community, however nvidia has made it quite clear to us (the channel) that they do not."

 

That won't hurt any channel in the same way it will hurt nvidia, like I said if nvidia doesn't send a card because the channel thinks RT isn't worth a penny right now whereas if they change their words and say it's the best feature and therefore would get a card by stating such, the hate is put onto nvidia for removing the channels right to talk about a product freely w/o being pressured for a false or misleading review, which is illegal in the USA, and likely also illegal in Australia. That letter even tho it has been recanted could run nvidia into legal troubles because they are trying to force an opinion on someone during a review, which if HWUs community is primarily US nvidia is literally breaking the US law. It's the same reason why LTT complies with US laws even tho "they don't have too", because nothing is stopping the US from suing them which can prevent travel to the US (one can be detained at the boarder if you fail to show up in court). Claim BS on that? Well there is currently living proof in BC right now, her name is called Meng Wanzhou.

[MadPistol]

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

This feels like NV thought HU is a small fry and can do whatever they want. But in reality stir up the hornets nest pretty badly and quickly PR stunt apologized/backtracked before their butt ends up as pincushion.......

The Internet hates bullies.

This is Nvidia attempting to bully a channel into favoritism. Instead, said channel pushed back, and the Internet pounced on said bully.

When will companies learn... you don't pull this crap unless you're willing to take the fall associated with someone calling your bluff.

[Egg-Roll]

4 minutes ago, MadPistol said:

This is Nvidia attempting to bully a channel into favoritism. Instead, said channel pushed back, and the Internet pounced on said bully.

So the internet bullies are still being bullies, but at least this time towards bullies?

[Tristerin]

 

[TempestCatto]

On 12/10/2020 at 11:33 PM, D13H4RD said:

NVIDIA has, according to Hardware Unboxed's words, "apologized" for the previous email and has walked back on previous demands and restrictions applied.

That's good. It means they are listening to the community (somewhat anyway..) But now I wonder who all will get fired [from Nvidia] for this.

[tech.guru]

This is why this area needs some regulation. I know most dont want.

 

The fact is youtubers influence purchase decision they need to disclose there interests that may present any conflicts.

 

Lets say he agreed out of fear, he would not disclose the private email and nvidia wouldnt obviously either. The people who would be the real victims, his viewers would be mislead expecting a non bias opnion.

 

How many people they black mail already? How many were afraid and said nothing and changed their coverage of nvidia to keep access to early release of products?

 

[dilpickle]

The whole "professional" review system is garbage. I don't just mean video cards but every industry.