loop0001

so who can i trust for accurate and unbiased hardware reviews as far as video cards go??
someone on here?

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PhelanJKell

Rob has made all valid points, and I myself take the same reviews with a grain of salt. It is nice to know how well a card does on paper, but like Rob has posted that his own testing and others around here and forums elsewhere tend to have different results. Why is this? Drivers? Hardware? I think it all comes together and gives different results, look at how many variables there are within a given computer system to the next.

I like seeing information like Rob posted, that give what his rig, specs are doing with certain games. You can then look at others who do a similar style of tests and see the results. Each game handles ati/nvidia different, some better then others.

Bleached

I find the best information these review sites give me is if a card and it's drivers play well. If a lot of review sites don't have problems installing and running things comfortably you know that something is wrong with the card. After some time of course the companies will work out the kinks, but if your looking to buy the card right off the bat this information is crucial.

If the card works great then it's price/performance.

cometman

Just my 2 cents here...Me and my friend tested a 48702 x2 and gtx 295 on the exact same system..DFI p45 Chipset, QX6850,6gb 6400 DDR2...

Are results showed the GTX 295 with 19500 and the 4870x2 at 13500..
A 6000 POINT SPREAD

Granted we did have physx on, but this is still hats off to nvidia for the perfomance (even if it does not always reflect real world results)

It is really hard to find a review site that is not 'financially biased' as so well put earlier...
Cards will perform different /better/worse on different setups PERIOD. You really cant blame hardware manufacturers for sending the equipment to benchmark it on. This is what the tested it on in the labs showing the most promising results, the fruits of their yileld if you may..Good input and words Grimlar but I can definanlty assure you that your results can Totally be flipped around on a different setup..Favoring the GTX295 , or the 4870x2. It all depends on the build.

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aaronman

I get how they can hype one card more than the other but... frames per second are frames per second and there's no way you can be biased about that unless you're flat out lying and making up numbers. Are you claiming that all these review sites do that?

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joemaniaci

I would find it easier to believe someone without the conflict of interests due to having to do what your sponsors tell you to.

Reviewer: "Hey your card didnt do so well!"

Company: "I dont think so, it will do better, otherwise you can kiss all this free hardware goodbye"

Reviewer: "Oh hey, a 10 fps increase, where did that come from!"

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Robilar

Aaronman, how can we prove that?

As many people posted earlier in this thread, there are so many variables to benching that there is no real suprise that results are inconsistent.

If the review sites fudge numbers, who is going to call them on it? the Better Business Bureau?

I don't think so...

That is why sites like OCN offer the best chance of impartiality.

On this site we buy our own hardware and expect the best performance out of it.

One thing I see here occasionally though is what I call buyer justification.

A member spends some major coin on the latest and greatest and then feels obligated to defend it as he wrongfully assumes that the rest of us will think he's an idiot for blowing so much money when he finds out it's not what its cracked up to be.

I was the first here to admit that spending just under $1200 on a pair of GTX295 ended up being not only a waste but also did not live up to the hype generated by the review sites.

No one here criticized me. The worst I got was "That blows mate..."

OpTicaL

And who is Neoseeker taking money from? Anyone who wants to give it to him. It's called gratitude, similiar to tips, if a customer left me a fat tip for my services you can be sure the next time he/she comes in he/she will get better service and priority over the other customers. That's how society works.

So what if they wrote a review praising ATI last year? just like you said, it was LAST year and last year when the 4870 was shining ATI was throwing money at them and THIS year it's nVidia who's coughing up the dough. Think outside the box..

Exactly. Review sites don't need to falsify information. All they need to do is exclude certain cards from the rival company in their benchmarks and make the sponser company's card shine.

*edit* here's a prime example on how so-called "review sites" bias their sponser's card over the rival cards: 4890 vs GTX 275

Notice how 95% of the time nVidia is on top. Also notice how they have a SLI GTX285 graph but not a 4870X2 in CrossFire, so much for apples to apples. That being said, the data "maybe" true but it's not hard to manipulate the data to make it appear that nVidia is superior to ATI. Afterall it's a fierce market out there and companies will do whatever it takes to stay on top or keep others at the bottom.

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mcrbradbury

GO THE GREEN TEAM!
whoo!
always have loved nvidia because of there PhysX processing.
don't mind the extra price.
nice news too!

iandh

I have a couple contacts that know for a fact some review sites are basically "payola based" as far as the songs they play regarding companies GPU's. To my knowledge, [H] is the only site with the nuts to admit they've been pressured to skew results.

Also, there are many ways to bork tests, both intentional and unintentional... changing PCI-E freq., fiddling ram timings, disabling CPU cores, running background programs

I read the same thing, I can't find it right now either, this is a pretty major deal too since many folks running high end multi GPU systems also are probably going to be running i7.