Good editorial at 3DChipset

[nelg]

Good editorial at 3DChipset

Interesting and well done editorial about how Anandtech has shown a lack of integrity. It is really becoming difficult to have faith in review sites nowadays.

http://www.3dchipset.com/comments.php?id=1555&category=1

 

[Doomtrooper]

Solomon has one of the better level heads on the internet today, there isn't many.

 

[jjayb]

I could not believe the replies the editors at Anand gave in the forum. Basically they said that even if the numbers are wrong, it doesn't matter, those are the numbers Anand got so he's sticking with them. Even though they are wrong, it doesn't matter because he attempted to bench correctly. Completely ridiculous.

There is no reason for those numbers to still be in that article. I think it's been proven without a doubt that the splinter cell numbers are wrong, as well as the "ati's drivers are causing problems with splinter cell". There is no reason to not at least put up a disclaimer.

Think about this, there are major issues with 2 of their tests in the review. Seeing as they only ran 6 tests, that's 1/3 of their tests. They know that one third of their test scores are false, yet they have left them there for all to read for the last month. No disclaimer, no nothing.

When Anand's editors got on and said they won't change them even though they are wrong, I posted one last post and took the site out of my favorites. Just one more site I won't be visiting. Thank God I've still got beyond 3d.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Quick summary of what happened:

Anand made "mistakes" in the review. The two big ones:
a) Splinter Cell - Due to a bug in the game (or an incompatibility with how the game does its rendering and how it interacts with AA), Anand thought that ATI had a bug, and nVidia performance was great, when in fact nVidia didn't have AA on at all, and ATI was doing (rendering errors) what was EXPECTED to happen on any MSAA card with AA enabled.
b) Quake3 - obvious problems running aniso in high resolutions....unless performance just doesn't drop with it enabled...

Now, Anand's editors have spent 100 times more damn effort on message boards "defending" their choice to not even at least amend the review to highlight the issues....than it would've taken just to update it.

That in and of itself is absurd.

I have read that Anand is working on a "retail 5900" review? So it seems to me this is what's going on.

1) Based on all the evidence as we know it, if Anand were to re-do his tests to take his mistakes into account, a much different "conclusion" would likely be drawn. Anand, being the nVidia tool that I believe him to be, doesn't want this.

2) He's waiting on nVidia to provide him with some drivers...or some explanation, to either explain away the anomolies, or to generally increase performance such that he can say "even though those results are not correct, with these new drivers, our conclusion would have been essentially the same....so no harm and no foul."

He just can't bring himself to make an honest correction or retraction....until such point where he can also show nVidia in a better light. Mark my words on this. Somewhere in the upcoming 5900 review, he'll mention the past "mistakes in the preview", but how they are meaningless now because of either new drivers, or new excuses from nVidia that he can pass on.

He also WON'T mention how he layed undue criticism on ATI for the splinter cell rendering errors...which is what is expected to happen, and not a driver problem.

I'd love to be proven wrong. I'm doubting that I will be.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I don't know WHAT their problem is, but...

...I must admit I'm having meself a rollicking good time with their rather amateur mods over there, melikes nothing better than to put a pompous arse in his place!

The logic they're using is ridiculous, and the fact that Anand has been "too busy to do anything about it" is beyond ludicrous. It doesn't take very long to tag on a note mentioning that you're investigating the strange results.

 

[Natoma]

This isn't surprising. I just picked up a PCWorld Magazine the other day and who, to my surprise, have monthly one page editorials back to back to back?

The nvidia trio.

Anand Lal Shimpi, Kyle Bennett, and Alex "Sharky" Ross (way back in the day). It's becoming more and more understandable why they seem to have the same opinions with regard to Nvidia.

 

[WaltC]

Yes it was good commentary and something that deserved to be said (but I believe "taylor" is a family name and he meant "tailored"--unless there's a Brit spelling of the word that's different.) But anyway--it's nice when you see a site criticize another site intelligently, as opposed to mindlessly, as in [H]'s absurd "mad about not getting the rigged nv35 Doom3 demo" attack on ET. (Which is still thoroughly baffling.)

Anand boiled the nv30 in oil--which it deserved. So, ok, we've got a warmed-over nv30 in the nv35, "made over" as they say, with many of the same problems and then this awful driver debacle to boot. So how is it possible to "forget" to look into nv35 as closely as you did nv30?

It looks like something happened behind the scenes at both [H] and AnandTech between the nv30 promotion and the nv35 promotion (which promotion "coincidentally" included the nv35 D3 closed demo "showing.") Something between those sites and nVidia (as [H] wasn't licking and slobbering over the the nv30 very enthusiastically, either.) That's what it *looks like*--I certainly won't characterize it any further.

The way I look at it ATi has taken it on the chin for *years*--most of it deservedly so. I used to weigh in with the best of them on the subject of ATi a couple of years back. In fact, I had written them off prior to the R300 debut last year as no longer being interested in the 3D-chip segment of the market. IMO, they deserved the guff they got then as richly as they deserve the paise they are getting now.

So what makes nVidia any different? If they produce great products with great drivers they'll be praised for it, too, right? But if they persist in marketing crap to the degree they have to cheat the blazes out of 3D Mark to try and convince people it isn't crap--IMO, they deserve taking it royally on the chin. Again and again and again, until they mend their ways and start producing products which live up to their PR, or else they start toning down their PR to match their products. They get no sympathy in my book for what they are doing.

What's really sad about all of this is that I used to think Tom Pabst was an abomination... But compared to the kind of stuff coming out of these so-called web sites today these guys are making him look like a choirboy.