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

[Downkey]

Saw this on twitter this morning.

Kinda sad how the biggest PC gaming company is so out of touch

[MageTank]

On 12/11/2020 at 1:35 PM, pas008 said:

So why would i send a product out to be reviewed if they aren't going to focus on a feature I want included

Hence the blacklist

 

 

To get an objective opinion on where you need improvement, from someone that isn't directly under your employ and would lie to your face to keep their jobs or earn promotions. The concept of product reviews are not new my friend, I should not need to explain them to you in this great of a detail. That said, I am me, so I'll do it anyways.

 

At their core, product reviews exist to give consumers an objective understanding of the product they are intending to purchase. These reviews can be quite favorable or negative, or even both if they are truly objective and unbiased, taking both the good and bad as they come. The reviewer must maintain a level of integrity and honesty or risk losing their audience, as they rely on the views/traffic brought about by their audience for their livelihoods. If they compromise on their integrity and honesty, they risk losing this audience and the traffic/revenue that follows.

 

The second facet that these reviews serve is product improvement, and this benefits both consumers and the manufacturers. As mentioned before, it's difficult to get an objective opinion from those working directly on a product as their views may be inherently biased given the months/years of effort put in throughout the various stages of development. People are often less receptive to criticism when they themselves are directly involved, and others are scared to be honest with their criticism when they are employed by the very people they are critiquing. Third party reviewers do not have this fear, nor do they have the inherent bias or consumer mistrust that first party companies often have in regards to their own products and data. Product manufacturers rely on reviewers to help market their products to consumers without the fear of first party bias and to help offer constructive feedback on how to improve their products going forward.

 

Now the part I want to address for you specifically is the part about reviewers having to comply with companies requests because they received a free product. You seem quite hung up on this part, so I'll help you out here. Know that you and I are in agreeance that Nvidia can blacklist or pull review samples from reviewers any time they feel like it. Much like reviewers have the very same freedom to publish any opinion they have about the product under review. This relationship works both ways, neither side owes each other anything. The vanilla Nvidia NDA that everyone signs for these products do not come with a clause that states you need to review the product in a specific way. Anyone that has ever had to work with Nvidia can attest to this, and honestly I have not seen any NDA in this industry so far that has such a clause. If Hardware Unboxed had a specific NDA tailored to them and their relationship with Nvidia, they were foolish for signing it. Still, that is beside the point. The point is, reviews are reviews. If a manufacturer is manipulating the review in any capacity (and yes, asking them to focus on ANYTHING is considered manipulating the review), the review cannot be considered objective or unbiased. Manufacturers need to trust that reviewers know how to review their products. They already provide reviewers guides, there is little more they can do beyond that in order to avoid conflicts of interest. If they do not trust the reviewer, they can do what they did here, and end the relationship. I still think their reasoning behind it is petty, but that is simply my opinion and we both know opinions are not fact.

[pas008]

23 minutes ago, MageTank said:

To get an objective opinion on where you need improvement, from someone that isn't directly under your employ and would lie to your face to keep their jobs or earn promotions. The concept of product reviews are not new my friend, I should not need to explain them to you in this great of a detail. That said, I am me, so I'll do it anyways.

 

At their core, product reviews exist to serve give consumers an objective understanding of the product they are intending to purchase. These reviews can be quite favorable or negative, or even both if they are truly objective and unbiased, taking both the good and bad as they come. The reviewer must maintain a level of integrity and honesty or risk losing their audience, as they rely on the views/traffic brought about by their audience for their livelihoods. If they compromise on their integrity and honesty, they risk losing this audience and the traffic/revenue that follows.

 

The second facet that these reviews serve is product improvement, and this benefits both consumers and the manufacturers. As mentioned before, it's difficult to get an objective opinion from those working directly on a product as their views may be inherently biased given the months/years of effort put in throughout the various stages of development. People are often less receptive to criticism when they themselves are directly involved, and others are scared to be honest with their criticism when they are employed by the very people they are critiquing. Third party reviewers do not have this fear, nor do they have the inherent bias or consumer mistrust that first party companies often have in regards to their own products and data. Product manufacturers rely on reviewers to help market their products to consumers without the fear of first party bias and to help offer constructive feedback on how to improve their products going forward.

 

Now the part I want to address for you specifically is the part about reviewers having to comply with companies requests because they received a free product. You seem quite hung up on this part, so I'll help you out here. Know that you and I are in agreeance that Nvidia can blacklist or pull review samples from reviewers any time they feel like it. Much like reviewers have the very same freedom to publish any opinion they have about the product under review. This relationship works both ways, neither side owes each other anything. The vanilla Nvidia NDA that everyone signs for these products do not come with a clause that states you need to review the product in a specific way. Anyone that has ever had to work with Nvidia can attest to this, and honestly I have not seen any NDA in this industry so far that has such a clause. If Hardware Unboxed had a specific NDA tailored to them and their relationship with Nvidia, they were foolish for signing it. Still, that is beside the point. The point is, reviews are reviews. If a manufacturer is manipulating the review in any capacity (and yes, asking them to focus on ANYTHING is considered manipulating the review), the review cannot be considered objective or unbiased. Manufacturers need to trust that reviewers know how to review their products. They already provide reviewers guides, there is little more they can do beyond that in order to avoid conflicts of interest. If they do not trust the reviewer, they can do what they did here, and end the relationship. I still think their reasoning behind it is petty, but that is simply my opinion and we both know opinions are not fact.

Not arguing just discussing 

Where was the objective review on rt and dlss

These are rtx cards right? 

Like i said I'm disappointed but don't think i stand by either side here both have theirs rights and wrongs because rtx is main feature for nvidia which should be well covered

And nvidia of why a black list because they arent covering rtx and dlss which is their main features sick of not covering it?

Which could be understandable 

 

 

[Moonzy]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

Those of you will likely mention "How can you get it early if you have to pay like the rest of us?"

to add on this point, i was offered to buy an unreleased product by my retailer, when i spot it behind the counter

probably because they know i dont have the driver to use it anyways

[SteveGrabowski0]

14 hours ago, Jae Tee said:

Just going to leave this here...as I go looking for a 3070...

 

 

Ah my favorite video from when I found out my GTX 970 was really more of a 3.5GB card than a 4GB one.

[MageTank]

4 minutes ago, pas008 said:

Not arguing just discussing 

Where was the objective review on rt and dlss

These are rtx cards right? 

Like i said I'm disappointed but don't think i stand by either side here burn have theirs rights and wrongs because rtx is main feature for nvidia which should be well covered

And nvidia of why a black list because they arent covering rtx and dlss which is their main features

Now this is the beauty of reviews. If reviewers do not cover the subjects you are interested in, you as the consumer can avoid their reviews. I personally don't watch HWUB because they don't scratch that itch for me. Their methodology is weak compared to others and I prefer results over personality or entertainment quality. I can also say that depending on how they (HWUB) wanted their review to be framed, they could have completely ignored RT and DLSS if they wanted to review pure rasterization. It's entirely their choice to do so. The focus of the review isn't dictated by the manufacturer of the product under review. That isn't the point of that symbiotic relationship that I highlighted earlier. It's up to the reviewer to bring attention to the areas they believe their audience to be most interested in. Personally, I wouldn't omit anything, but if HWUB wants to shoot themselves in the foot for those that are more interested in those features, that is entirely their call, not Nvidia's.

 

What IS Nvidia's call, is whether they want to give hardware out to people, and they can refuse to do so for any reason (or no reason at all). If I were them, I definitely wouldn't have set the expectations that if you do not give me what I want, I'll blacklist you, as that is gonna rub consumers the wrong way and make them less likely to trust anything you release first-party, but as I eluded to earlier, Nvidia won't be hurt by this.

 

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

to add on this point, i was offered to buy an unreleased product by my retailer, when i spot it behind the counter

probably because they know i dont have the driver to use it anyways

Remind me not to do business with your retailer. That kind of lack of professionalism is terrifying in this industry, and is one of the quickest ways to sever business relationships. Breaking NDA's and trade agreements are by no means a simple matter and if this is a sales rep doing it, best believe their LP department is gonna have a fun time with them should they ever get caught.

[pas008]

4 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Now this is the beauty of reviews. If reviewers do not cover the subjects you are interested in, you as the consumer can avoid their reviews. I personally don't watch HWUB because they don't scratch that itch for me. Their methodology is weak compared to others and I prefer results over personality or entertainment quality. I can also say that depending on how they (HWUB) wanted their review to be framed, they could have completely ignored RT and DLSS if they wanted to review pure rasterization. It's entirely their choice to do so. The focus of the review isn't dictated by the manufacturer of the product under review. That isn't the point of that symbiotic relationship that I highlighted earlier. It's up to the reviewer to bring attention to the areas they believe their audience to be most interested in. Personally, I wouldn't omit anything, but if HWUB wants to shoot themselves in the foot for those that are more interested in those features, that is entirely their call, not Nvidia's.

 

What IS Nvidia's call, is whether they want to give hardware out to people, and they can refuse to do so for any reason (or no reason at all). If I were them, I definitely wouldn't have set the expectations that if you do not give me what I want, I'll blacklist you, as that is gonna rub consumers the wrong way and make them less likely to trust anything you release first-party, but as I eluded to earlier, Nvidia won't be hurt by this.

 

Remind me not to do business with your retailer. That kind of lack of professionalism is terrifying in this industry, and is one of the quickest ways to sever business relationships. Breaking NDA's and trade agreements are by no means a simple matter and if this is a sales rep doing it, best believe their LP department is gonna have a fun time with them should they ever get caught.

that's why i use the word disappointed and not mad because both kinda are at fault here 

Not giving full review on a cards features

And the fact of why the blacklist also wondering if something else going on

 

I really don't watch reviews that much

I like written reviews by far glad some do both 

 

And on the note of features

hated the fact encoder facts weren't widely available glad some are including it

[TheBahrbarian]

Just now, pas008 said:

that's why i use the word disappointed and not mad because both kinda are at fault here 

Not giving full review on a cards features

And the fact of why the blacklist also wondering if something else going on

 

I really don't watch reviews that much

I like written reviews by far glad some do both 

 

And on the note of features

hated the fact encoder facts weren't widely available glad some are including it

I wouldn't say HUB not focusing on RT is a "fault" here. Sure, if you personally hold RT to be super important for some reason than you can disagree with their choice, and the wonderful thing is there are dozens of other review sources out there to choose from. But HUB even went out of their way to poll their viewers as to what was more important for them, and over 70% chose rasterization performance. To me that seems like the more responsible thing to do than just follow industry and marketing hype, instead trying to go out of their way to deliver what their viewers see as most important. 

 

I understand you're not supporting Nvidia's choice here, but their belief that they think they can strongarm reviewers like this is dangerous. How can any consumer now fully trust reviewers? Who knows what Nvidia has said to other reviewers behind closed doors? It's quite clear to me Nvidia is mad at HUB not because they think they failed to highlight 3000 series GPU's selling point (RTX), but that they highlighted their possible weakness against RDNA (rasterization performance). Consumers should not be ok with companies attempting to basically censor reviews by avoiding areas they are not the best in.

[pas008]

3 minutes ago, TheBahrbarian said:

I wouldn't say HUB not focusing on RT is a "fault" here. Sure, if you personally hold RT to be super important for some reason than you can disagree with their choice, and the wonderful thing is there are dozens of other review sources out there to choose from. But HUB even went out of their way to poll their viewers as to what was more important for them, and over 70% chose rasterization performance. To me that seems like the more responsible thing to do than just follow industry and marketing hype, instead trying to go out of their way to deliver what their viewers see as most important. 

 

I understand you're not supporting Nvidia's choice here, but their belief that they think they can strongarm reviewers like this is dangerous. How can any consumer now fully trust reviewers? Who knows what Nvidia has said to other reviewers behind closed doors? It's quite clear to me Nvidia is mad at HUB not because they think they failed to highlight 3000 series GPU's selling point (RTX), but that they highlighted their possible weakness against RDNA (rasterization performance). Consumers should not be ok with companies attempting to basically censor reviews by avoiding areas they are not the best in.

They aren't just rasterization cards anymore though

And its called hardware unboxed right?

Not gaming unboxed

So test the hardware to its full potential in all areas right rast rendering rt etc? Even the encoder 

[MageTank]

49 minutes ago, pas008 said:

They aren't just rasterization cards anymore though

And its called hardware unboxed right?

Not gaming unboxed

So test the hardware to its full potential in all areas right rast rendering rt etc? Even the encoder 

This is a flimsy argument my friend. Marketing doesn't dictate how products are used, nor does marketing dictate how products are reviewed. Chevy advertises off-road performance and a high towing capacity for my truck. If I am looking up a review on highway fuel economy, is the review invalid because they failed to review the product's other marketed features as dictated by Chevy? No, because I as the consumer knew what I was looking for, and chose a source that conveyed the information I deemed relevant to me.

 

Your problem with Hardware Unboxed's limited test suite doesn't automatically invalidate their results, nor does it make Nvidia's reasoning behind the termination of their reviewer relationship any less petty in this context. If you want to show me where it's written that a review has to be concisely written to cover every possible facet of a product before it can be published, I'd be happy to take a look at it. Frankly, I am not certain such a rule/law exists anywhere, nor would it make sense to.

[TetraSky]

Nvidia really think they speak for every gamers, eh.

 

Personally, I prefer reviews where they test RT with and without DLSS. Preferably with comparison screenshots or something.

[pas008]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

This is a flimsy argument my friend. Marketing doesn't dictate how products are used, nor does marketing dictate how products are reviewed. Chevy advertises off-road performance and a high towing capacity for my truck. If I am looking up a review on highway fuel economy, is the review invalid because they failed to review the product's other marketed features as dictated by Chevy? No, because I as the consumer knew what I was looking for, and chose a source that conveyed the information I deemed relevant to me.

 

Your problem with Hardware Unboxed's limited test suite doesn't automatically invalidate their results, nor does it make Nvidia's reasoning behind the termination of their reviewer relationship any less petty in this context. If you want to show me where it's written that a review has to be concisely written to cover every possible facet of a product before it can be published, I'd be happy to take a look at it. Frankly, I am not certain such a rule/law exists anywhere, nor would it make sense to.

Noone said that its invalid and a must I'm just saying i see nvidias point here it's not being highlighted to its full potential

why send it at all when someone else will show its full potential 

But i also see the blacklist harsh but then again it's just disappointment on that end

[TheBahrbarian]

8 minutes ago, DutchGuyTom said:

I want to quickly talk about bias and about how important FE review models are. 

 

HUB is biased but so is every other reviewer. We all have our own preferences, priorities, and experiences with gaming and hardware. My preferences closely align with HUB's: I appreciate how thorough they are (often testing new hardware on 18 games); that they focus on rasterization (I am part of the 70% lol); that they focus on data more than their 'experience'; etc. 

 

In action, this meant that their review of the 6800 XT spoke to me a lot more than Linus', who I felt too harshly criticized AMD's lack of features/performance equivelant to NVidia's raytracing and DLSS. (Just my opinion)

 

We are all entitled to our preferences and because mine align with HUB, I am a regular viewer of their channel. But if you disagree with their coverage, then by all means, don't watch their reviews.

 

It also benefits the entire community that we have a variety of reviewers that all bring their own perspectives. Clearly what NVidia wants though is to inconvenience those that review their product in a less positive light. The problem is that this "strongarm" technique makes me question the integrity of other reviewers. How will I know that they aren't trying to appease NVidia in order to continue getting early review samples?

 

And you might think that early review samples (i.e. founder edition samples) aren't a big deal because the reviewer can (1) purchase one if need be or (2) just use AIB review samples. But the fact is that day one reviews generally get far more views. So it matters since AIB models can't always be attained in time for day one reviews and that most viewers of HUB (myself included) actually appreciate their comparisons of AIBs to the founder edition model. Not to mention that it is expensive! Tech reviewers aren't rich. So blacklisting HUB can actually be quite detrimental to their channel.

You bring up some good points, reviewers will always be a little biased (I am myself, a proud owner of a 5700xt). But that means a wide variety of reviewers is that much more important, further showing how bad it is when companies like Nvidia feel they can blacklist certain reviewers. I personally thought HUB's focus on rasterization was an important viewpoint for the community as I personally thought some other reviewers were eating up the flashy RT features that Nvidia was feeding them (or apparently now strong-arming). 

[Fasterthannothing]

5 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

 

I wanted to highlight this type of post because of discussions I've had around here about what marketing manipulation looks like. This post is just specific enough while being just ignorant enough that it's practically impossible to tell whether it's real user that's clueless or manipulation marketing by a bot marketing agency. It's fascinating to behold because you can't really tell, but this is what it looks like. It's also what happens on every social media platform.

 

As for the topic at hand, no, HUB isn't AMD biased. They just spent a week ripping AMD over the marketing around the 6800 launch. Nvidia just barely didn't Paper Launch a new generation of cards and is trying to do something to make everyone look away.

 

As for Ray Tracing, sorry to bust anyone's bubble, but the current generation of RT performance is just a downpayment for what it'll eventually be. RTX Gen 1 really was a Tech Demo. The barely improved RTX Gen 2 is only not a tech demo when you throw a massive amount of units at it. AMD's implementation appears to be significantly better as a matter of silicon space for performance, but we need to wait for optimization passes to get an appreciation if it's just a downpayment or there might be something useful in this generation. Reality is that it's just a fun feature for at least another 2 generations. That's the way it is. This is something of a Chicken & Egg issue, which is why it was Microsoft that kicked off the slow transition. And it's going to be really slow.

 

There's only 3 things that matter in GPU sales for the next several years: Raster performance per price tier, Hardware Accelerated Media Encoders and Hardware-based Streaming. Nvidia can easily leverage their advantages in the second two without being knuckleheads about things. There's some deep irony that a lot of the negative angles we've seen on the Navi 21 launch stems from about a decade of AMD's North American PR departments pissing off reviewers, and now it's suddenly Nvidia that's in foot-shooting mode.

What the actual heck I'm not a freaking shill. I'm an actual person and throwing out accusations like that because you don't like someone's opinion or assessment of the situation is disgraceful!

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, shaz2sxy said:

I thought they both used DXR for raytracing so not Nvidia or AMD specific?

You still have to design around the capabilities of the hardware, DXR is the base technology and both extend off that and have tools to aid development. RTX is no different to the GameWorks development tools that implement effects in a way that are optimized for Nvidia GPUs and that same implementation performed very poorly on AMD GPUs at the time, it was not a case of the AMD GPUs being significantly slower.

 

How something is done matters, Ray Tracing is not a single "thing".

[Fasterthannothing]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

You aren't turning Ray Tracing on when your VRAM buffer is exceeded, that's why 16GB actually does matter and is worth mentioning. Games already push hard the 8GB to 10GB usage using the highest detail settings and resolutions. So this is where the next part of what you are saying matters directly for this.

 

And this will result in even more VRAM usage further making the 16GB point even more important.

 

Something being the future does not make a GPU with that feature capability now better. Both Nvidia and AMD have cards on the market that are inadequate for any such future of game rendering of Ray Tracing, these changes in the industry will go hand in hand with each generation of GPU technology release so anyone with a current generation card of today will not have cards that can support this future state whenever that happens. What will happen sooner is needing more VRAM than many of the Nvidia GPUs offer right now.

 

Also you are casting your judgement far too soon in regards to AMD Ray Tracing performance and usage. Every game on the market right now that has Ray Tracing in it was designed around Nvidia and RTX. Future games made with AMD GPUs in mind, as they now actually exist, are much less likely to have performance drops seen so far. Now the difference is that may also mean lesser quality or lesser demanding Ray Tracing effects are used and you can turn these up higher on Nvidia GPUs but you will still equally be left in a few years time with GPUs that are not performant enough for future Ray Tracing efforts, going with RTX 30 series now will not make you immune to that.

 

There is going to be a huge amount of game development ongoing from now for this generation of consoles which will have Ray Tracing in the games, all built around AMD hardware technology and that will equally apply to AMD GPUs in computers.

 

TL;DR To say AMD does not have good Ray Tracing based off zero games developed for the hardware is far too premature, try waiting for some games to come out that were actually made for these GPUs, if you can't tell if they were or not simply wait for a cross platform console/PC game that has Ray Tracing support on all platforms. Any games like that would have to be developed with AMD hardware and technology in mind.

Nvidia cards have more RAM than AMD in their top of the line card so not sure where the heck that thinking is coming into play. On top of that having more memory in a card that can't even handle ray tracing properly is pointless as well. And to take this even further correct memory swapping and queue techniques make out of memory errors not applicable if done correctly even on cards with very very little memory

 

 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/courses/cs262a-F14/projects/reports/project12_report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjazMi5gsftAhXQ1VkKHTldDhkQFjABegQIBhAF&usg=AOvVaw0hoXGmTvRhzrY0DFvtR1BH

[IkeaGnome]

3 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

Nvidia cards have more RAM than AMD in their top of the line card so not sure where the heck that thinking is coming into play. On top of that having more memory in a card that can't even handle ray tracing properly is pointless as well. And to take this even further correct memory swapping and queue techniques make out of memory errors not applicable if done correctly even on cards with very very little memory

 

 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/courses/cs262a-F14/projects/reports/project12_report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjazMi5gsftAhXQ1VkKHTldDhkQFjABegQIBhAF&usg=AOvVaw0hoXGmTvRhzrY0DFvtR1BH

They only have more VRAM in a card that costs $500 more than it's competitor. On the flip side of that, RT isn't well enough optimized, even in the NVIDIA "Gen 2", that the extra costs make more sense. I went to a 2070 for the VRAM boost, not RT. I actually have never turned it on. I'm with that 70 some odd percent that HUB had in their poll. RT isn't to a point yet where it's worth spending the extra money on it. 

[Fasterthannothing]

8 minutes ago, DutchGuyTom said:

Good try BOT. You're not fooling anyone!

 

Just kidding, I also thought that comment was weird... Bots exist, sure, but they rarely target forums like this and they're usually easy to spot.

 

I agree that there is more to memory than just quantity but I do think that it should not be underestimated how gimped 8 GBs of RAM may be when Cyberpunk, without RT, reportedly already uses nearly 7 GB of ram (I believe at 1440p). I also don't think that the 3090 is a fair point of comparison (similarly, the RX 6900) since their prices are prohibitive for the vast majority of consumers. The best point of comparisons would be between the 3080 with faster memory and the 6800 XT with twice the memory.

 

I agree I think the lower end cards need more RAM no doubt about it. But from the comparison standpoint he was making Nvidia does have more. Anyway Nvidia is going to supposedly release the ti versions with more RAM I think 20GB for the 3080 ti so that will solve that. Also I think in time we might see less RAM needed for ray tracing once optimizations are done as shown in that document.

[leadeater]

32 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

Nvidia cards have more RAM than AMD in their top of the line card so not sure where the heck that thinking is coming into play.

Because Nvidia sells more than just RTX 3090's obviously. Did I need to point this out? If you are buying a RX 6800, RX 6800 XT you are not a potential RTX 3090 customer. In a review regarding an RTX 3080 or RTX 3070 it is worth mentioning VRAM and another competitors product, because that product might or might not be a better purchase for the reasons being discussed. It would be a very poor review of a product to not consider and discuss other options on the market and the differences between them.

 

32 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

On top of that having more memory in a card that can't even handle ray tracing properly is pointless as well.

Exactly as it is with RTX 30 series card, they can't handle it full either so moot point as I already talked about in my first post to you. RTX 30 series cards, all of them, are useless for any future Ray Tracing efforts that extend this technology.

 

32 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

And to take this even further correct memory swapping and queue techniques make out of memory errors not applicable if done correctly even on cards with very very little memory

Which is all well and good when only talking about and only utilizing Ray Tracing but games are and still will be for a good length of time be hybrid rendering and supporting both types at once requires more VRAM not less, no matter how much you optimize one of them. Further to that you have no  idea how much VRAM future Ray Tracing in games will actually require, they will need what they need and we have no idea what that is. What we do already know is that very high quality (not real time) Ray Tracing rendering requires A LOT of VRAM so as you push towards that level of detail in real time require VRAM will increase, just like required VRAM has been increasing generation over generation already.

 

Cards today from Nvidia and AMD are not capable of discussed future so it is a moot point, neither is a better buy for that so talking as if one is better now for it is incorrect. RTX 40 series might be, or maybe it will need to be RTX 50 series. Who knows but it's not RTX 30 series, we know that now.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

Also I think in time we might see less RAM needed for ray tracing once optimizations are done as shown in that document.

Did you actually consider what the document scenes were and the render resolution? If you think that is the complexity of future games then you're in for a very big disappointment. Further to that from what I can see this would not work for real time, and if it were to be tried would likely result in inconsistent and bad frame times.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

I don't even know what "side" to take, as there is an unbelievable amount of nuance to the story, and I have seen a lot of very weak and fallacious arguments made in this very thread.

[D13H4RD]

29 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

I don't even know what "side" to take, as there is an unbelievable amount of nuance to the story, and I have seen a lot of very weak and fallacious arguments made in this very thread.

You don’t have to, necessarily. They each have their reasons for doing what they did.

 

What I don’t agree with is how NVIDIA’s PR chose to go about things. 

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

24 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

You don’t have to, necessarily. They each have their reasons for doing what they did.

 

What I don’t agree with is how NVIDIA’s PR chose to go about things. 

Still, and this is my hot take, I have yet to hear of a single even strong-ish argument here

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

12 minutes ago, DutchGuyTom said:

Just curious, what is your perspective then? Because I have no clue what the point of your comments are

 

My point is that there are valid questions to be raised on the integrity of HUB, but at the same time also valid questions on the impact and petiness of nVidia's decision here in the bigger picture.

[pas008]

2 hours ago, DutchGuyTom said:

There are two things to consider:

(1) As a company, a good reason to send review samples of your products to reviewers on an objective basis (i.e. sending review samples to all tech reviewers on Youtube with at least 1 million views a month) is to demonstrate to the general public that you are confident in your product and have integrity. Only sending samples to reviewers that give you favourable reviews is manipulative, even if it is within your right to do so.

(2) There is a difference between making the decision to not give review samples to a reviewer in the first instance and deciding to no longer provide review samples after having done so for several years. While similar, the latter terminates a relationship and acts as a punishment. A company may have good reasons to punish a reviewer, such as having poor editorial standards, being vulgar, or being associated with a scandal, but the reasons that NVidia has provided* don't fall into that category and was not made in good faith.

Not being reviewed to its full potential is great enough reason imho

And fyi many other companies have black listed reviewers you think this first time hub been blacklisted?