In case anyone thinks that whatever and wherever I post something is not an expression of opinion but a statement of "Reverend says this is so, so it must be so", let me start by :
In my opinion and especially in my case as the role of a reviewer :
I run benchmarks in a review as a form of indication of actual game playing performance. For a site like B3D (and as is apparent from Wavey's indication of this site's intent, focus and purpose), it is not (or no longer) the case. I don't think it is incorrect to say that neither I nor B3D are wrong - we just have different purposes.
When I write a review of a video card, I write it with one basic assumption and one sole target audience :
Basic Assumption - the person reading my review is considering a video card upgrade for playing games
Target audience - a person that plays games and is looking for a video card upgrade and is not a frequent (or even a) participant in forums (such as this or elsewhere)
That is the purpose of my writing reviews (no, it not to get free hardware
).
And then there are others that read reviews for one or two purposes not related to the above - to compare for the sake of comparing, for example. They don't have any intention to upgrade, or they do intend to upgrade but not during the time they are reading such reviews (no money yet, for example). They just read, compare this review to others and just enjoy discussing about the contents of separate reviews because they like to discuss about it in forums (since they either don't intend to upgrade or don't have the money right now to upgrade). Rightly or wrongly, I do not target such an audience in any review I write.
SirPauly, in case it is not clear to you, when I run benchmarks in a video card review, I try to replicate an actual game playing environment. That means sound is enabled. "Performance as benching" being your definition is the same as performance as game play when we use specific game demos for benching. If you don't want Quake3 timedemos, then run, say, Quaver demo, in normal mode using FRAPs to log the entire run of the demo to return an average. A normal mode run of the Quaver demo should indicate my gaming experience while playing
and recording Quaver. From your post, you seem to think that benchmarks aren't indicative of gameplay performance - you're wrong, it is, as long as sound is enabled
"Performance" is performance, whether in benchmarks using demos in timedemo mode or running the demo in normal mode. Am I right to say that you think "performance in benchmarks" is different than "performance in gameplay" when both (benchmark and gameplay) uses the same demo?
gkar1, it should be obvious with the way I worded the entire paragraph and coupled with my smiley that I said it in a rather joking manner... that was the first time, btw, that I have attempted to quote the way Frank Sinatra sang "My Way" as a from of light hearted attempt to get a point across. There is no condescending tone towards anyone. If I have a standard (and I do), that doesn't mean mine is "higher" than others, be they reviewers or whoever - I just have my standards and, in this thread, I have hopefully outlined them - if you don't agree with my standards, it's okay... you have a choice to choose whose/which website's standards agree with or appeal to you. Since you are of the opinion that sound should be disabled for a video card review's benchmarks, feel free to ignore reviews by me because you don't think I have provided the necessary and specific info you are looking for... I won't feel insulted
. As for the apparent "arrogance" with using Sinatra's My Way, that was simply to say that every one has a choice in determining which site's reviews is appropriate in forming a decision and that my way is, well, my way and you really don't have to make any sort of decision by reading my review.
There are far, far more folks that read reviews on a website or magazine that don't know the influence that enabling/disabling sound has on performance compared to those that are knowledgeable about the "ways" of benchmarking, like, presumable, everyone that visits this forum/site.
The difference is that I take into account the high probability of those "ignorant about benchmarking ways" folks reading (or stumbling onto) my review while sites like B3D, or Anand, or Tom, or HOCP appear to assume the majority of readers of their reviews knows "THE benchmarking way" or such sites only care about their specific target audience. It is a matter of different considerations. Obviously, folks that are savvy with benchmarking procedures will already know the disclaimer of "Did this reviewer test with or without sound enabled?"... I have to assume thousands and thousands of folks jump onto the Internet for the first time everyday and may stumble onto my review... and they definitely don't know "THE benchmarking way". That is why I take great pains in explaining how I benchmark games in a video card review... again and again in every review. Anand, on the other hand, just goes straight into UT2003 benchmark graphs without any explanation of details.... the assumption is there that the benchmarking procedure is already known.
I don't target the guys that regularly visit this forum... I have to think of those that want the best video card for
playing games AND assume that these folks know jack shit about "THE benchmarking way" if and when they happen to read/stumble upon my reviews. If B3D or Anand or Tom are to assume they are a "specialist" website and go be-damned-with-these-folks-that-don't-know-about-benchmarking-video-cards, all power to them and I don't see anything wrong with that honestly.