Maybe a little more?
Was that too little information to give any helpful feedback or insight?
Maybe more would help, but might be too much (not unusual for me); but if it's too much you can ignore or skip to the good bits, unlike discussing this with a friend where you have to listen to the whole thing even if you're not interested.
The more raw information then the user/reader can decide what to value and what to reject. Having the reviewer simply give more conclusions (one for each games) just takes that out of our hands and for some does what they were doing in their head anyways. [H]'s hitograms should tell you if the resolution has major issues/drops and whether to you that's playable levels. However reviewer A saying it's fine to them, doesn't tell you if jump fragging while going a 180degree turn is fluid enough in Quake4 versus creeping along molasses slow in SplinterCell3. Both require different levels of 'acceptable speed' IMO.
Also the methods used to ensure that that information respresents a true apples to apples comparison is needed, and as has been said IQ comparisons like using compresonator seem necessary though texture crawl is hard to show snas video. Think of all the people who harp on 'good optimizations' but at the same time say that a test of the two cards at 'quality' or 'HQ' would be ok, despite now showing the actual difference between the two. Optimizatons on an off should be the standard for comparison, and the effort must be made to compare the optimizations off to show that IQ is indeed equal or else the review must say there is one that obviously is better/worse (even if only in stills) as we're talking about comparisons. One company may have great optimizatoins that don't change IQ and while it does less work the overall result is the same as card B. Well that's OK for part of the test, but the optimizations off results give you an idea of raw performance and how a card may react to a new game before driver updates which may take 1-3+months after a game release (usually depending on popularity before and after launch). Which brings up another point, more non-standard games (like Evil Dead Regeneration) and demos (like Farb Rausch, Rthdribl) would help expose this raw handling of unfamiliar or unoptimized code.
It would also be nice at some point, to give some insight into strengths and weaknesses on a per component basis to help give an idea of how this card might handle future apps/games (for this the individual tests and not overall bungholios of various 3Dmarks, rightmark, shadermark, etc are good).
FrgMstr said:
We are expanding to widescreen high-end gaming now. Our new mid and low-end evaluations will be more specific to the resolutions we think they would be more fitting to. When it comes down to it, it is just a terrible amount of work to cover every conceivable perspective, and sometimes we at HardOCP just have to make some decisions on how we are going to cover it. We will get better though, promise.
The problem with the mid/low-end is not just matching them with similar systems like you did in the GF6600DDR2 review, but also seeing how much even they may be system limited (tell you if there is ANY future in those choices) . Putting an X1300S or GF6600 on an FX60 with 2GB of OCZPC4000 with a 150GB raptor doesn't always make sense but it does for people trying to contemplate their upgrades who might get little benifit from that jump to an X1900, but the move to that config from their 3200+ with 512MB of generic PC3200 might be enough to make their rig playable more playable with reduced IQ, while just upgrading the graphics card may be only mildly better than before, but will allow you to turn on AA, unlike before.
For a graphics card review that may be tough to do because benchmarks must be re-run after re-install, etc, but if you want to go 'lean' on the information being provided for results, then invest that obvious time saving into giving us more information off that subjective perspective. Tell us if the graphics boost matter as much as the system boost even for such system, instead of wasting your/our time benching a GF6600 in FEAR @ 1920x1200/1440 with No/2X/4X AA.
The most important thing in any review, be it subjective/qualitative playability or objective/quantitative FRAPS results, is that all things must be equal, especially output IQ. That that hasn't always been the case invalidates past reviews and calls into question the subject claims of equality by those reviewers. That you say it's equal or good enough doesn't mean anyone else will, just take the CRT vs LCD for gaming as a perfect example, so some basic proof is good.
And what it comes down to is, the more information, the more reliable, and the more applicable to each person "what's in it for me", the better. Narrow down what you provide and you narrow the audience that can use the information for whatever use.
For some people it's too much information, like this post, but they'll just skip / skim-through it anyways so they too are covered.
Just my two frames' worth as always.
