[updated] The Tech Report won't receive a R9 Fury Nano for review

[Popingheads]

All I can see is the arrogance of tech report...Who they think they are that AMD is obligated to give them sample? Did they signed any deal or contract with AMD?

Being used to getting samples doesn't mean they are guaranteed to have it forever.

 

A good review can bring hundreds of sales from consumer that's for sure. But it is not reflected on the financial report submitted to the decision makers in a large corporation. I can totally imagine an executive in AMD ordered to cut cost in PR and reserve the product for consumers, and the PR has to give up some reviewers.

 

A mature act would be to ask for a loan from other reviewers privately and do their fair review, not announcing to the public how disappointed they are.  You may say it's the freedom of journalism to report the fact, yes it is. But doing so they should list all the other samples they received or got rejected, not just one product from one company. Keep ranting about AMD not giving them a card is badmouthing, because amd is not doing wrong.

 

I'm surprised how few people seem to share this point of view. AMD has no obligation to give away free cards, same for Nvidia, which in case people forgot didn't even give anyway any of their Titan Z cards to any reviewers whatsoever, unlike AMD which is still giving some away.

 

And I also agree the tech sites are making themselves look even worse by acting like spoiled kids just because they didn't get an extremely production limited card for free to test.

[Zah]

I'm surprised how few people seem to share this point of view. AMD has no obligation to give away free cards, same for Nvidia, which in case people forgot didn't even give anyway any of their Titan Z cards to any reviewers whatsoever, unlike AMD which is still giving some away.

 

And I also agree the tech sites are making themselves look even worse by acting like spoiled kids just because they didn't get an extremely production limited card for free to test.

AMD has EVERY obligation to give review samples.  If a game had no review codes sent out, would you trust the game?  No.  But while this is no where near the level of "Yea, we're not giving review codes of our AAA game that will run like shit", to say someone has NO OBLIGATION to give journalists early access for consumers to make a conscious decision is completely asinine, and shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

And "Production limited"?  AMD has already SAID that's not the reason for not sending samples.

[Notional]

AMD has EVERY obligation to give review samples.  If a game had no review codes sent out, would you trust the game?  No.  But while this is no where near the level of "Yea, we're not giving review codes of our AAA game that will run like shit", to say someone has NO OBLIGATION to give journalists early access for consumers to make a conscious decision is completely asinine, and shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

And "Production limited"?  AMD has already SAID that's not the reason for not sending samples.

 

AMD has zero obligation to do anything with reviewers. Honestly, I'd prefer no one got any review samples directly from AMD/NVidia, but from the third party vendors instead (Like ASUS, MSI, etc.). Would probably render this entire problem void.

 

If AMD feels their hardware is being treated unfairly, biased or the reviews use very biased games, then I get why they don't want to waste time and money on sending hardware to them. Is that fair? Well that is up to us the consumers to evaluate on a case by case basis.

 

As for games, it costs literally nothing to send out a review code. Sending out a physical piece of hardware does in fact cost money.

[zMeul]

I'm surprised how few people seem to share this point of view. AMD has no obligation to give away free cards, same for Nvidia, which in case people forgot didn't even give anyway any of their Titan Z cards to any reviewers whatsoever, unlike AMD which is still giving some away.

 

And I also agree the tech sites are making themselves look even worse by acting like spoiled kids just because they didn't get an extremely production limited card for free to test.

AMD is not giving away anything to anyone!

the review samples have to return to AMD after the reviewers are done with them

AMD has every obligation to supply as many outlets as possible - otherwise, they do not have any right to claim "fair" reviews

do you think TPU, HardOCP, The Tech Report and others won't make a Nano review because AMD hasn't sampled one to them? oh boy ... you're gravely mistaken

 

AMD are being scum, yet again .. I guess people have short memories after a very similar thing happened with Fury X launch: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/385750-amd-did-not-send-review-samples-of-upcoming-series-to-hardware-reviewers-like-ltt-in-time-for-the-16th-reveal/

[QueenDemetria]

AMD has EVERY obligation to give review samples.

 

AMD has every obligation to supply as many outlets as possible

AMD does not have an "obligation" to give reviewers samples, unless if they signed a contract saying they needed to. Seriously, these reviewers have a pretty poor attitude thinking they "deserve" cards, AMD(or Nvidia, or Intel, or any other company for that matter) doesn't "have to" give them shit.

[zMeul]

AMD does not have an "obligation" to give reviewers samples, unless if they signed a contract saying they needed to. Seriously, these reviewers have a pretty poor attitude thinking they "deserve" cards, AMD(or Nvidia, or Intel, or any other company for that matter) doesn't "have to" give them shit.

then don't sample anything to anyone and let every outlet get their own - how's that? no ?!

no, because AMD has to stoke the egos of the members of Red Team Plus

 

AMD is actively skewing readers perception by giving review samples to outlets who they think will most likely give them a glowing review - so people would pre-order and buy the darn things before the rest of the media outlets finish their reviews

simply, AMD is afraid of the truth - otherwise they would not be fishing for "fair" reviews

[shawno]

Meh... theyre butthurt because theyre not getting a review sample and wont be able to nda launch their review.

Sure it sucks, but every tech company has done it from apple to nvidia.

[Notional]

then don't sample anything to anyone and let every outlet get their own - how's that? no ?!

no, because AMD has to stoke the egos of the members of Red Team Plus

 

Like LTT who's getting a card? Why would AMD give out a card to reviewers they feel use biased games and gives objectively unfair reviews? I documented this behaviour on page 5, why don't you answer that post?

[QueenDemetria]

then don't sample anything to anyone and let every outlet get their own - how's that? no ?!

no, because AMD has to stoke the egos of the members of Red Team Plus

Lets say I design and build a graphics card(and form a company): If I send it to Linus to review, great he can review it, but does this mean I have to send review samples to every review outlet? No, I'm not forced to do shit, nor is AMD or any other company for that matter. Does it kind of suck that AMD is doing this? Yeah, it kind of does. Does it suck that reviewers are making a big deal out of something that isn't an issue? Yeah, it does suck that they are fist deep in their ego and need to call out companies because they feel so "entitled" to receiving free shit.

 

Now, I don't know why AMD is doing this and quite frankly neither do you or anybody on this forum(we can make assumptions and hear reports, but unless you are from AMD you don't know), but what I do know is some of these reviewers are acting like children and making an issue out of something that isn't an issue. I'm going to call out Kyle Bennett from HardOCP, since he's really being an ass about the situation. First off, AMD released stuff to reviewers to do a "paper launch" which HardOCP received and reported on, so that's already better than what you and I received from AMD. Second, in the email sent to him and he posted "AMD has not yet issued any samples of the card." so maybe he should learn to read. Finally, he even hung up on a call regarding the Nano, which is immature and would have pissed me off if I was AMD, so given how he has been an ungrateful screwball throughout all of this I'm not surprised he didn't receive a sample. I know other reviewers have different stories so I'm only saying this for Kyle. 

[zMeul]

...

you forget the part where the Corporate Vice President Alliances went on twitter and claimed "fair" reviews - then, you are obliged to send review samples to every outlet; otherwise ...

yes, I do know why AMD is doing this, Roy Taylor was quite clear: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/443057-updated-the-tech-report-wont-receive-a-r9-fury-nano-for-review/?view=findpost&p=5978992

somehow, everyone ignores the fact that this individual was employed by nVidia at the time ATi-AMD merger happened

[Tomsen]

you forget the part where the Corporate Vice President Alliances went on twitter and claimed "fair" reviews - then, you are obliged to send review samples to every outlet; otherwise ...

yes, I do know why AMD is doing this, Roy Taylor was quite clear: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/443057-updated-the-tech-report-wont-receive-a-r9-fury-nano-for-review/?view=findpost&p=5978992

somehow, everyone ignores the fact that this individual was employed by nVidia at the time ATi-AMD merger happened

He did, so you mean he have to supply to EVERYONE who decides to make a review?

Obviously no. If there are issues (which quite clearly there are) with some reviewers having some kind of biases, you cut them off.

It doesn't stop the reviewers from making a review.

 

People in the industri often change ships, nothing uncommon, what do you mean?

[Briggsy]

Tpu and techreport Used a couple known gameworks titles that cripple AMD hardware for benchmarks, creating a much larger gap between the fury and 980ti. AMD contacted them questioning this decision, and both sites added results without project cars (and some other gamequirks title), but kept in the original results as an f-you to AMD.

Their upset for not getting a nano may be in part because they thought they made good on their mistake, but AMD are in no way obligated to send everyone a review sample, just like sometimes linus gets Nvidia samples from aib partners and not reference models.

This is another case of 'it takes two to tango.' In this case, the "victims" fired the first volley.

[zMeul]

He did, so you mean he have to supply to EVERYONE who decides to make a review?

Obviously no. If there are issues (which quite clearly there are) with some reviewers having some kind of biases, you cut them off.

It doesn't stop the reviewers from making a review.

 

People in the industri often change ships, nothing uncommon, what do you mean?

oh please .. enlighten me on what part of TPU or The Tech Report reviews were biased, even HardOCP's

when nVidia does similar thing, everyone is up in the air calling for blood to be spilled - but when AMD does it ... we all know what happens 

 

--

 

boggles the mind why such individual is still under employment at AMD .. unless his views are AMD's views, or vice-versa

[Tomsen]

oh please .. enlighten me on what part of TPU or The Tech Report reviews were biased, even HardOCP's

when nVidia does similar thing, everyone is up in the air calling for blood to be spilled - but when AMD does it ... we all know what happens 

 

--

 

boggles the mind why such individual is still under employment at AMD .. unless his views are AMD's views, or vice-versa

You really want that? I don't read any of their reviews, but I doubt it would be too hard to spot..

 

When Nvidia does similar thing, nothing gets blown up, like now.

When AMD making statements, reviewers are going aggressive against AMD.

 

--

 

Why would that boggle your mind?

You don't think he and AMD share opinion?

[Notional]

oh please .. enlighten me on what part of TPU or The Tech Report reviews were biased, even HardOCP's

when nVidia does similar thing, everyone is up in the air calling for blood to be spilled - but when AMD does it ... we all know what happens 

 

--

 

boggles the mind why such individual is still under employment at AMD .. unless his views are AMD's views, or vice-versa

 

Right here: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/443057-updated-the-tech-report-wont-receive-a-r9-fury-nano-for-review/page-5#entry5997003

[zMeul]

You really want that? I don't read any of their reviews, but I doubt it would be too hard to spot..

oh yes, please do

as for when nVidia does it, how is that OK?! at least nVidia doesn't go publicly claiming "fair reviews"  <_<

[Briggsy]

TPU, although I quite like them, has a very biased game selection in their reviews. Especially the inclusion of Wolfenstein A new Order is problematic, as it is an OpenGL game with proprietary NVidia shaders in it. That game runs like shit, as OpenGL is a poc with broken specs. Most OpenGL AAA games will run bad on AMD, as they go out of spec and uses proprietary NVidia shaders. The end result is a very skewed weighted average fps, that will put every single AMD card below average.

Hopefully Vulkan will change OpenGL being utter useless in the future.

TPU also uses Batman Origins (which hardly needs further introduction anymore. For those out of the know:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173511-nvidias-gameworks-program-usurps-power-from-developers-end-users-and-amd)

TR is doing the same by including a game like Project Cars, which we know is an NVidia biased game too:

I mean this is a game they use in all of their reviews, which means all AMD cards will be portrayed as bad. So much so that TR even put out an article of the problem, as their own forum criticized them:

http://techreport.com/blog/28624/reconsidering-the-overall-index-in-our-radeon-r9-fury-review

---

I can understand reviewers feeling like they are in a minefield. But that is part of the game. The point is that NVidia sponsored titles are generally performance gimped on AMD hardware. AMD sponsored games tends to be performance optimized for all cards (Tomb Raider for instance, where even TressFX will run efficient and optimized on NVidia hardware). What reviewers choose to include has consequences.

Quoted for truth.

A different kind of bias may surface next year with Pascal and Greenland, depending on the ratio of dx11 and dx12 games that are benched. By that time there should be at least a couple dozen dx12 implementations, so it will be interesting to see how that is handled in benchmarks.

[Notional]

Quoted for truth.

A different kind of bias may surface next year with Pascal and Greenland, depending on the ratio of dx11 and dx12 games that are benched. By that time there should be at least a couple dozen dx12 implementations, so it will be interesting to see how that is handled in benchmarks.

 

Yeah but DX12 is still a vendor neutral API. If NVidia just sucks at DX12, so what? AMD's drivers kinda suck at DX11, so that would be the same. The issue is whether the games are made specifically for one vendor. But I will give you this: If most game engines are optimized for GCN on the consoles with async shaders and so on, then yeah there might be an issue. That that would be systemic. This is about individual games being biased, and reviewers using said games.

[Briggsy]

Yeah but DX12 is still a vendor neutral API. If NVidia just sucks at DX12, so what? AMD's drivers kinda suck at DX11, so that would be the same. The issue is whether the games are made specifically for one vendor. But I will give you this: If most game engines are optimized for GCN on the consoles with async shaders and so on, then yeah there might be an issue. That that would be systemic. This is about individual games being biased, and reviewers using said games.

 

Yeah i wasn't trying to make any point in my last post, It just occurred to me that the Greenland and Pascal will likely be launched in the thick of DX12, and it would be bizarre to see a bunch of dx11 benchmarks.

[Notional]

Yeah i wasn't trying to make any point in my last post, It just occurred to me that the Greenland and Pascal will likely be launched in the thick of DX12, and it would be bizarre to see a bunch of dx11 benchmarks.

 

Indeed. I still presume that Pascal will have better async support, but there is a long time until we know. What we do know is that there will be plenty of AAA DX12 games out by the time those cards hit.

[delanyinspiron6400]

Just my own two cents to the whole topic of "not choosing fair games to benchmark".

 

I guess most people, that look for benchmarking results to compare graphics cards, don't want to know, which card "potentially" is the more advanced, more powerful card!

I guess people want to know, which card can push more fps in games, that they will be playing, and such games happen to be The Witcher 3, Project Cars and so on, which run

better on Nvidia cards, for whatever reason.

 

So I would argue, that the choice of games does not necessarily make a review fair or unfair!

 

 

[Nena Trinity]

I have seen a few people here and there saying AMD cards are trash and just make up stuff I really doubt a R9 390 gets less FPS than a 960 unless it was in Linux lol  (also Dyinglight is broken and does not count as a game...)

[ivanp]

I wouldn't take Roy Taylor seriously that guy is a joke.

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1013780/nvidia-declares-cpu-dead

​

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nvidia-039-s-Roy-Taylor-Nobody-Cares-About-ATI-85417.shtml​

[zMeul]

looks like Roy Tailor deleted his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/statuses/639930842727497728

[Notional]

I wouldn't take Roy Taylor seriously that guy is a joke.

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1013780/nvidia-declares-cpu-dead

​

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nvidia-039-s-Roy-Taylor-Nobody-Cares-About-ATI-85417.shtml​

 

Look at the server market: CPU's are only there to feed GPU's now. And look at the survey on the last WAN show: No one seems to give a shit about ATI. Sure they were provocative statments, but he got a point. Even though it's 7 years old. Also why bring up 7 year old quotes on te tech business?

 

looks like Roy Tailor deleted his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/statuses/639930842727497728

 

No wonder with all the smear going on lately.