Hardware Unboxed - Send the Love ❤

[PeachGr]

On 12/12/2020 at 10:34 AM, Fasauceome said:

Really weird to see a picture of Rick Sanchez next to the phrase "share the love"

 

I encourage people to check out the reviews of 30 series cards that HWUnboxed did, not only can viewers draw their own conclusions about how fair they feel the content is, they can hopefully throw some ad revenue their way.

Even thou I watch all their videos, I just passed the point of ray tracing and dlss cause I found it boring : D 

and says a lot

btw they talk a lot about it so I don't know what Nvidia was smoking

[William M]

I just finished watch Hardware unboxed video. I thought it was far to nvidia they did ray tracing video the next day. I actually liked that as they went into more detail. Kept both video around 15-20 minutes.

[Sarra]

6 hours ago, jones177 said:

Linus and Jay also said 4k is pointless for gaming but I am seeing more and more 4k coverage. Times change.

 

I bought a GTX 980 in 2015 and replaced it with a GTX 980 ti in the same year just to get 60fps in Skyrim at 1440p with ENB. The same year I bought a 4k monitor that I saw in a LTT video and it took a RTX 2080 ti bought in 2018 to get all frames over 60 at 4k in the game. My goal now is 8k 60fps with my old modded Skyrim game.

I am used to big frame rate drops that make a game look better.

 

Cyberpunk 2077 does not like GPU overclocks just like the game Control. So I can do over 60fps at 1440p with raytracing but the game crashes after a while with my GPU overclock. Without the overclock it does not crash(so far) at all but no more 60fps. I don't expect this to get fixed. 

Like Control I don't like the look of the game without raytracing so I am shelving it for now. I will revisit it when I get a 3090.

 

I did 3D for a living(retired in 2018) and RTX would be a game changer to me since it took minutes to render a raytraced proof of a scene and it now takes a few seconds with a RTX card like the 3090. I am getting 3090s just in case I have to start working again. 

 

Since all my PC hardware has been paid for by my 3D work, being an early adopter has not been that hard for me.  I can understand why others don't want to be early adopters and are happy to wait like you have. 

 

My point was that Ray Tracing wasn't really stable in Cyberpunk.

 

I also am aiming for 1440p gaming, I'm going to order a 1440p 144hz IPS panel in the coming week. I never got a 10 series card due to stupid price, I got really screwed by miners jacking the prices up, and the 20 series was just too expensive for my tastes. I could afford one, but I didn't want to pay that much... And now that AMD has the 60 series, that's my plan.

 

For a professional workflow, I don't disagree that the 30 series is a huge boon. If I was doing 3D rendering, I would probably go for a RT Quadro card. But I'm not doing any kind of 3D work, the only rendering I'm doing is video, and a 30 series would be a waste, at least compared to a 60 series.

[Sarra]

(Double post, sorry)

[AbysmalCraig]

My only intention was to unite support around HWUB to send a message to Nvidia that this kind of media censorship will not be tolerated by the people who consume it. 

 

And as for the donations request/subscribe request, it was only to show that the community is still there for him and his team. 

 

All I'm trying to do is show support to the creators and to help Nvidia see the error in there ways. 

On 12/12/2020 at 9:01 PM, LogicalDrm said:

The answer to that is no. Unless LMG specifically endorses it. Please consider PM'ing moderation team in future if you have any questions.

Was just wanting this post to get a bit of attention so people could see whats going on in the industry. 

[jones177]

4 hours ago, Sarra said:

My point was that Ray Tracing wasn't really stable in Cyberpunk.

I did not get any crashes after I removed my GPU overclock but since I stopped playing the game I may have not gotten to a point that it crashes a lot. 

4 hours ago, Sarra said:

I also am aiming for 1440p gaming, I'm going to order a 1440p 144hz IPS panel in the coming week. I never got a 10 series card due to stupid price, I got really screwed by miners jacking the prices up, and the 20 series was just too expensive for my tastes. I could afford one, but I didn't want to pay that much... And now that AMD has the 60 series, that's my plan.

I bought a 1440p 144hz monitor in 2018. It has a G sync module so it is nice for gaming. 

 

All my GTX 1080 tis and 2080 tis were bought with my 3D business budget so the price did not matter to me since they fit in the budget. 

4 hours ago, Sarra said:

For a professional workflow, I don't disagree that the 30 series is a huge boon. If I was doing 3D rendering, I would probably go for a RT Quadro card. But I'm not doing any kind of 3D work, the only rendering I'm doing is video, and a 30 series would be a waste, at least compared to a 60 series.

For the type of 3D I did Quadro cards were not needed. The RTs Quadro start at $4000 and my yearly budget was only a bit more than that.  I did use old 4000 cards for AutoCAD since they have better AA than gaming cards but I bought them used since there was not much chance of them being abused. 

  

I use the free version of Davinci Resolve so I only do CPU video rendering and my i9 10900k is fast enough for me. 

[Sarra]

9 minutes ago, jones177 said:

I did not get any crashes after I removed my GPU overclock but since I stopped playing the game I may have not gotten to a point that it crashes a lot. 

I bought a 1440p 144hz monitor in 2018. It has a G sync module so it is nice for gaming. 

 

All my GTX 1080 tis and 2080 tis were bought with my 3D business budget so the price did not matter to me since they fit in the budget. 

For the type of 3D I did Quadro cards were not needed. The RTs Quadro start at $4000 and my yearly budget was only a bit more than that.  I did use old 4000 cards for AutoCAD since they have better AA than gaming cards but I bought them used since there was not much chance of them being abused. 

  

I use the free version of Davinci Resolve so I only do CPU video rendering and my i9 10900k is fast enough for me. 

Well, there's been reports of problems with RT in general with Cyberpunk.

 

As for Resolve, I got a Ryzen 9 3900x for it. I also do transcoding, and... I'm not sure what it is about transcoding, but running handbrake, I can overheat my 3900x in a short project, where a long project in Resolve gets it hot, but doesn't break past 75c... I've been doing most of my transcoding projects on an old Haswell Xeon. It has a Noctua D15S cooler on it, and at 100% load, it doesn't go past 60c. It ran a mass transcode project that took 66 hours, and never overheated. My 3900x could have done the same project in 4-5 hours, but it would have thermal throttled partway through, and I'm not sure I want to deal with that.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

13 hours ago, Miket482000 said:

How many creators do you know that do not ask for support?  If it is subscriptions, likes, ring the bell, buy my merch, join my channel, sign up for my partion!  I see nothing out of the ordinary for a creator to ask for support!  They all do it, they all take advantage of what ever may boost the chances of getting that support, so why would you seem perplexed by this being any different?

In this particular situation, they do not need any additional monetary support from us nor were they asking for it. If loosing the ability to get review units directly from Nvidia puts their survival in jeopardy, then they were already on the way out. If Nvidia was suing them, then maybe monetary support would be warranted as they would have to pay legal fees trying to fight it. But simply not getting a free card from Nvidia to make content? If that kills them, then how the heck were they supposed to survive when Nvidia isn't releasing any new products next year? New GPUs aren't a yearly thing.

[CosmicV]

Hi Guys,

 

I love the Hardware Unboxed channel and believe they contributed a great deal to the gaming community.

 

I regularly watch their videos as well as Linus Tech Tips, Jayz Two Cents, BitWit, Paul's hardware, Gamers Nexus and others.

 

It's easy to see that they put their heart into what they do and I applaud them for all their efforts. What they do is in my opinion very important for people making informed decisions about graphics cards and monitors. I generally wouldn't buy a monitor unless I check what a few different reviewers have said about it, and the same goes with video cards.

 

I have never posted here before, and in fact just made an account today just to give my feedback to the recent issue with them and nVidia. It upset me.

 

I'm glad that nVidia has apologized but let's face it, that was only because they lost their argument and had no other choice. I mean they would have lost even more if they didn't take back what they did. In fact this apology only happened because light was shed on the dealings they had going on in the shadows (behind the scenes).

 

This is not the first time nVidia has been doing shady things (GPP) and I don't like this sort of thing and I'm sure most gamers don't either.

 

I can see however this is only going to continue as unfortunately we as consumers can do little against billion dollar corporations... unless perhaps we come together in a sort of 'Gamers Union' against anti-consumer 'mafioso' tactics.

 

When I saw the letter that was sent to Hardware Unboxed from nVidia, I was not happy, I imagined myself recieving this and how it would have made me feel.

 

I then started writing my own letter, one to nVidia. I originally was just writing it for myself to let out steam and let it all out, but I shared it with someone and they urged me to share it with the gaming community.

 

To me, people on this forum is a start as I can see you are also concerned about what happened. Here is the letter:

 

---

 

Hi nVidia,

 

We've reached a critical juncture in the way gamers decide what graphics cards they want to buy. We love games that run high FPS while also looking great.

 

We may at times compromise quality over performance in order to get higher FPS but this is not the ideal situation. We don't necessarily care about fancy features such as RTX/Ray Tracing if it means those features enabled will drop performance well below 60 FPS on the resolution we are playing on.

 

For example there is currently NO card on the market that can run Ray Tracing at 4K at 60 FPS with Cyberpunk 2077 with full quality. Features that noticeably lower quality (such as DLSS) are AI tricks that just render at lower resolutions such as 1080p and then upscale as though they are 4K. These tricks may provide convincing displays however they should NEVER be compared to benchmarks that do not run the same trickery. This is worth being repeated: AI enhanced tricks with low resolution rendering should NEVER be compared with benchmark results of higher resolution rendering that do not use AI trickery. Render quality is something that will be increasingly more important as proprietary features are being introduced. This is especially true when they greatly influence benchmark results while diminishing the rastorized graphical quality that game developers originally intended for their games.

 

We gamers have come to various you-tubers for their valuable and unbiased opinions on hardware that interests us and informs us on what our hard earned money can buy. This near-free publicity you enjoy regarding your products has immense value as long as your products are designed well. You don't get to decide or coerce the opinions of unbiased reviewers (unless you're okay with being openly anti-consumer). The saying: Don't take a company's word on their own products without 'a grain of salt' means we gamers simply cannot take you at your word and so we absolutely NEED unbiased reviewers giving us the TRUTH for what our money is buying. Those unbiased reviews must release before (or immediately after) the product is available to buy in order for customers to have a chance at being properly informed. These reviewers need the sample products far in advance of the launch dates in order to properly test, use and report their findings in a timely manner.

 

Steam periodically runs surveys on the gaming community's choice for what graphics cards they use and what games they play. This is an invaluable look into the core of the gaming community and should help to give you a clue into what most gamers want. What we know is that most gamers do not play games with Ray Tracing. In fact in 2020 there are less than 30 total games available that even support RTX/Ray Tracing. The survey also shows a large number of gamers still play previously released games from the past (most of these do not support DLSS or RTX). Out of the top 10 graphics cards currently in use by gamers (representing 42% of all cards) in the Steam Survey, only two support RTX (RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 Super -- about 5.6%). RTX and DLSS technology has a very small following in the gaming community at this time and should not be an important factor in reviews until the technology has a much wider audience.

 

Not everyone can afford the extremely high prices that the current market has reached due to various factors. One can easily imagine a factor being the monopolization of the graphics card market and the imposing of proprietary features to stifle competition. For example when a graphics card company has little competition for years on end, they may get comfortable with price increases across the board while keeping true value added features such as video RAM and FPS performance between generations to a minimum. We have seen these kinds of tactics very clearly with CPUs from intel not long ago (before AMD released Ryzen).

 

We have also not forgotten about your GPP (GeForce Partner Program) in 2018 that attempted to strong-arm AIB (Add-in Board) Partners such as ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, HP and DELL into "likely illegal" operations that would "tremendously hurt consumer choices". You claimed this was to help prevent confusion for customers yet you later ran the most consumer confusing product line ever with the 20 and 16 series cards. Obviously it was not out of your concern for consumers but for disruptive product placements that undermined your competitor.

 

Gamers have been spending their hard earned money for these graphics cards that are clearly heavily anti-consumer in pricing and it is very clear from your recent letter to Hardware Unboxed that you do not see things the way gamers do. We see nVidia's continual tasteless choices in strong-arming reviewers and AIBs as being toxic to gamers and the gaming community as a whole. Therefore a large number of us are no longer going to be purchasing nVidia products going forward. In fact many are moving to boycott your company completely. We can get by without you and indeed will in order to make necessary changes in the graphics card landscape that is focused on serving gamers.

 

We are open to revisiting this in the future should you stop with the mafia-strong-arm tactics, and your monopolizing of the market with anti-consumer artificially inflated prices. As well, you will need to identify and fire ALL those involved in the above mentioned mafioso actions in order to ever gain trust with the gaming community again. Please note that apologies do little to solve the core issues in your company. Your stance with the gaming community can only be redeemed by your actions of good will going forward.

 

The Gaming Community

 

---

 

A little about me for those interested, I've been a gamer since 1990. The first game I ever played was Loom, then The Secret of Monkey Island, and lots of others in the 30 years that have passed (some favs are Civilization, Wing Commander, Space Quest 4, XCOM: UFO, SimCity, Duke Nukem 3D, Tie-Fighter, Master of Orion 2, Total Annihilation, Diablo 1&2, Monkey Island 1-3, Fallout 1-4 & NV, Ultima Online, Drakan, Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights, Counterstrike, Half-Life 2, Vampire Bloodlines, CS Go, Minecraft, Conan Exiles, etc. 

 

I've closely followed hardware and software in all that time. I've seen 3DFX come and turn the graphics landscape upside down and the entire 3D gaming ecosystem grow into what it is today. It's amazing times, especially since one of my long lived dreams of real-time ray tracing is coming to be a reality (I've worked with 3D rendering with 3D Studio Max and Maya in the past). I'm very interested to see where the technology goes.

 

One last thing I felt like saying is that I remember a time when there used to be many graphics card manufacturers, many that held sway in the market place, lots of cool tech from various companies, and now sadly we only have two main ones, and it seems one wants to rule it all.

 

 

Thanks for reading,

 

 

-a gamer

 

 

 

 

 

[D13H4RD]

I think they've already got heaps of support from their community already. I reckon their Patreon income is more than enough for them to purchase cards for review if manufacturers aren't willing to send them samples. 

[CosmicV]

I believe you're right about that, they have lots of support especially now.

 

There are however other serious issues involved in this whole fiasco that goes far beyond their ability to obtain review cards.

Linus did a great job explaining the points in the recent WAN show (starting around 4:15 in till about 40:00 ).

 

Some key items:

 

1. nVidia is engaging in strong-arming reviewers behind the scenes in order to influence their review content. They're basically saying you gotta see things our way or there will be consequences for you and your peers that do the same.

 

2. Gamers will have much less trust in reviews and unbiased reviewers holding to their standards can lose the opportunity to give their review at launch date. Which means that by the time they get a card for review, the review is past date of majority consumer interest. It's like a grocery store selling only food that is past the expiry date. They just won't get the views and have little to no influence to inform interested buyers.

 

3. If a company only provides review samples to reviewers that give them a positive outlook, then the review has no use to consumers. It's like going to a used car salesman and asking him what car is a good buy. His concerns are for his best interest, not yours so don't expect honesty.

 

4. Allowing a company to bully their way around the marketplace and fleece their customers of their hard earned money through secret media manipulation works to undermine consumers and their competitors. When these mafia style strong-arm tactics are allowed to continue unchecked, it only breeds more of it to go on. It's a lose-lose situation for the consumer. Prices then only continue to go up to ridiculous amounts. Last year when there was no competition for nVidia on the high end, a top tier card costed $1200. A card with equivalent performance this year costs $500 because AMD was able to sell a competitive product.

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

17 hours ago, AbysmalCraig said:

Was just wanting this post to get a bit of attention so people could see whats going on in the industry. 

Your thread is not framed that way though. Your current framing is "I like these guys, please send them money". Not "I can't believe industry giant would bully content creators like this, lets discuss". I recommend that you change the framing from collecting donations to talk more about core issues. That will also get the community better on your side. And not bitch about you being tool of them getting more money for no apparent reason.