R520 benchmarks - Hardware Analysis

[WaltC]

So why he sent it to Zardon? I'm pretty sure Z asked for permission before he posted it.
Instead of flaming they could respond with benchmarks. I'm looking at these headlines and I feel really bad when I see everyone is flaming reviewer because of negative scores.

Interesting, as my interpretation is that the reason the author is being flamed is not because the benchmark results are negative (and to whom?--Would they not be considered "positive" from the point of view of nVidia?), but because the published benchmark results are without foundation factually and therefore are not worth the epaper they are written on, despite whatever positive or negative spin one might like to put on them.

Is your habit of believing only that which you prefer to believe, regardless of whether or not it is true? I hope not, but that is the impression I get. I mean, would you have preferred that ATi have sent their refutation to George Bush, maybe? Would that have made you feel better...?....

My own opinion is that the person who sent the correspondence to DH did so because he had confidence that DH would honestly portray his statements as intended, without spin, which seems to me quite a compliment, frankly. And, who better qualified than ATi is there to deny rumors circulated about upcoming ATi products?

 

[wireframe]

ATI could break the NDA for a specific website, NDA is not an excuse.

Get real. Why would ATI publish a benchmark to disprove this "preview"? They might as well publish it all then. This would only serve to instigate more occurances like these to "force" IHVs to show their hand early. It cannot work like that.

I think this whole thing would have made much more sense if some ATI employee had used their posts at these websites to officially deny the validity of the benchmarks. Why should they say more? Even saying "the performance is greater than this report suggests" is a bad idea because that seems to validate it in some odd way as a reference point (ie: take Sassen's numbers and multiply by 1.x). How it escalated into the current soap opera is quite absurd and only mildly amusing.

 

[WaltC]

Even if he made a mistake, He's not deserve to be flamed in Rage3D/DH/Etc.. This is ridiculous and humiliating. Especially when Mr. Bania provided only two emails instead of the entire conversation to prove it's not a joke. Looks like someone is trying to distort the truth.

Of course! Of course it is humiliating and ridiculous to have one's published material exposed as a fraud! There's an old saying "look before you leap" which would have served this particular author very well had he chosen to consider it in a timely fashion (before publishing benchmark results he knew full well he could not substantiate as being representative of ATi's upcoming products.) Basically (I'm paraphrasing), if one cannot stand the heat it is better not to enter the kitchen in the first place... Hopefully, you and I agree about that.

 

[tEd]

ATI could break the NDA for a specific website, NDA is not an excuse.

lol

you are so funny in pathetic kind of way

 

[Junkstyle]

Like a few others I tried to post this on DriverHeaven and was immediately banned and the post deleted. Anyways, hi!

Its obvious that ATI is taking this Sander article seriously because of their responses, but why are their responses so immature? First the PR guy said it was fiction. Then he said it was an OC'ed 850XT. Then he said it was a Ouija board. Why doesn't he just publicly say the R520 is going to be the snot outta the 7800GTX? All I hear is "my source says his ATI rep says". No public response.

Anyways I think Sander was naive(substitute a harsher word if you want) for putting up that article, but I am also amused at ATI's unprofessional responses. What no legal action? No counter claims? They just seem to attack Sander, who probably deserves to be attacked for such an article.

 

[Regeneration]

Interesting, as my interpretation is that the reason the author is being flamed is not because the benchmark results are negative (and to whom?--Would they not be considered "positive" from the point of view of nVidia?), but because the published benchmark results are without foundation factually and therefore are not worth the epaper they are written on, despite whatever positive or negative spin one might like to put on them.

Is your habit of believing only that which you prefer to believe, regardless of whether or not it is true? I hope not, but that is the impression I get. I mean, would you have preferred that ATi have sent their refutation to George Bush, maybe? Would that have made you feel better...?....

My own opinion is that the person who sent the correspondence to DH did so because he had confidence that DH would honestly portray his statements as intended, without spin, which seems to me quite a compliment, frankly. And, who better qualified than ATi is there to deny rumors circulated about upcoming ATi products?

The score is the main reason for this war. Look at the headlines:

Guru3D:
* ATI's (Chris Hook) first reaction to this article was: " Fiction. I don't believe these numbers were ever run on a 520 ".
* "This is a complete hoax - done with an OC'd X850, we think. Call our partners yourself and ask if they have R520XTs in house. The numbers aren't even close."

Rage3D:
* Sander’s benchmarks do not reflect ATI R520 hardware, nor do they reflect the performance of products currently being evaluated by partners.
* The real performance of R520 clearly dominates the fastest competitive hardware
* Sander never tested a board
* Sander used ‘custom benchmarks’ so he’d have an excuse later for his mistakes (his numbers fall far outside the range of what is reasonable for those games in any custom benchmark)

It's all about the numbers. What would you do instead of ATI? Personally I would deny these numbers

 

[Regeneration]

you are so funny in pathetic kind of way

Have you seen ATI's NDA contract before you replied?

 

[Ryano]

Of course! Of course it is humiliating and ridiculous to have one's published material exposed as a fraud! There's an old saying "look before you leap" which would have served this particular author very well had he chosen to consider it in a timely fashion (before publishing benchmark results he knew full well he could not substantiate as being representative of ATi's upcoming products.) Basically (I'm paraphrasing), if one cannot stand the heat it is better not to enter the kitchen in the first place... Hopefully, you and I agree about that.

You're right! Your post proving it was all a fraud was great. I mean you obviously didn't even read what he wrote according to:

before publishing benchmark results he knew full well he could not substantiate as being representative of ATi's upcoming products

Even when he said as much in his article your deductive reasoning totally burned him. You're the best!

 

[digitalwanderer]

Have you seen ATI's NDA contract before you replied?

OMG, even I can say yes to that one!

 

[Regeneration]

Of course! Of course it is humiliating and ridiculous to have one's published material exposed as a fraud! There's an old saying "look before you leap" which would have served this particular author very well had he chosen to consider it in a timely fashion (before publishing benchmark results he knew full well he could not substantiate as being representative of ATi's upcoming products.) Basically (I'm paraphrasing), if one cannot stand the heat it is better not to enter the kitchen in the first place... Hopefully, you and I agree about that.

Well... I'm not sure if it's a fraud or not, both sides conceal the facts.

 

[Regeneration]

OMG, even I can say yes to that one!

Have you read it? fully?

 

[Headstone]

You have to remember that because of the NDA and to protect the share price ATi cannot just come out and make a juvinile claim like "its gonna stomp the competition". At best these kind of quotes only state a position but really reveal nothing. They only really state that their card performs better based on their own internal testing and that Sander really cant prove the validity of his results because he never actually did the testing.

Now just for kicks even if that was a legit board used we still dont know how compatible the 2 systems really were. Yes Sander did send in his specs but were they used. Variables like bios revisions, drivers, firmware differences etc could play a huge part in the final results.
It could also be possible that those are the correct numbers but for an XL and not an XT or that the numbers were transposed incorrectly in the spreadsheet which has happened to a few sites before.

Only when the final numbers from around the web come out in 2 weeks will we know. Either that or Sander can courier his system to that AIB for proper testing .

But I too will ask Sander to post up his timedemos for the perusal of all even if just to show that they are not slanted in any way to begin with. As one former HWC junkie to another

 

[Sunrise]

Sunrise,

I see you Googled, that was an excellent example of why personal emails should remain personal, I did not post Tom's replies, as they were equally often worse than mine. And to be honest the sample I got still runs fine to this date, his didn't, nor did Anand's or Kyle's, but rest assured that if Intel had sent me a coaster I'd have reported that as well. But honestly if you're digging for dirt wouldn't you also be digging up something about ATI, there's plenty around, or are you just here to be a part of the smearing campaign?

Regards,

Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com

As a reader and an author i´m not interested in digging for dirt. Your goals don´t have to be mine. History and experience teaches you that you always find dirt if you search hard enough. The mail you wrote Tom however outline important rules you were setting yourself and they don´t seem to match with your actions. This is not about Tom´s answers here, instead you could´ve said the same things to someone completely different. Tom is not really the topic here, the source could also have been your own site.

The important thing is that there are always other ways to achieve a certain goal and in this case you should´ve never included your readers in your personal matters in the first place. What i find somewhat telling is that your exact words quoted in my last post sound perfectly honest and ethically right to me. Now you should ask yourself if you can still meet your own rules of ethics and journalistic integrity after you´ve published that "article", assuming these were meant with an honest sense of mind.

It´s one thing to provide a broad audience with some benches, but it´s another to present them as an "authentic" review and even giving the readers a conclusion on an sku / graphics part which is based on numbers only, with some hardware you haven´t even seen in person. If an author gets personal in his articles you shouldn´t even bother reading it, because you can practically guess what his conclusions will be and that is certainly not for the good.

While you were writing that article you made yourself no better than those you´re intending to blame. It´s as simple as that and it´s certainly not ethic.

 

[AlphaWolf]

What no legal action?

It's early yet and a weekend, but who do they take legal action against? Sander? for saying some guy he says he knows works at some unnamed AiB and claims to have tested a card for him?

No counter claims? They just seem to attack Sander, who probably deserves to be attacked for such an article.

ATI is not going to undercut the people they currently have under NDA by releasing numbers to disprove what amounts to tabloid rumors.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Regeneration? Are you going to ask me everything twice?

YES!

BTW-Geo started a little poll entitled "The Great R520 Benchmarks Fiasco" ....go vote. (Sorry if it's a bit pimpish, but I am curious to get a wide range of opinions in on the poll...if it's an EB only one I know how it'll turn out. )

 

[Headstone]

ATI is not going to undercut the people they currently have under NDA by releasing numbers to disprove what amounts to tabloid rumors.

At best they could shorten the NDA...

 

[WaltC]

The score is the main reason for this war. Look at the headlines:

OK...

Guru3D:
* ATI's (Chris Hook) first reaction to this article was: " Fiction. I don't believe these numbers were ever run on a 520 ".
* "This is a complete hoax - done with an OC'd X850, we think. Call our partners yourself and ask if they have R520XTs in house. The numbers aren't even close."

Where you see "score" I see "I don't believe these numbers were ever run on a 520" and "...ask if they even have R520XT's in house" and "...this is a complete hoax."

The message is that the numbers are wrong not because they are low, but because there was no release-grade 520 in possession of the reviewer which generated them. ("Release-grade" meaning the 520 hardware which will be made available for purchase by you and me.)

Rage3D:
* Sander’s benchmarks do not reflect ATI R520 hardware, nor do they reflect the performance of products currently being evaluated by partners.
* The real performance of R520 clearly dominates the fastest competitive hardware
* Sander never tested a board
* Sander used ‘custom benchmarks’ so he’d have an excuse later for his mistakes (his numbers fall far outside the range of what is reasonable for those games in any custom benchmark)

It's all about the numbers. What would you do instead of ATI? Personally I would deny these numbers

Again, where you see "numbers" as the focus of these remarks I see"...do not reflect ATi 520 hardware" and "Sander never tested a board" and etc. The issue is clearly not the numbers, but rather that the numbers Sander published indicate to the people who have 520 hardware that Sander did not use a production-grade 520 product to generate the numbers he published.

That is the point, it seems to me. The people who are in possession of real production-grade 520 products know that the numbers Sanders got are not representative of the 520 products. How do they know? Because they have the hardware themselves and their results are much different.

Before "the numbers" become an issue for discussion at all it must first be established that Sander ever used production-grade 520 products, and Sander failed to establish that, it seems to me. Hence the issue is the products he used as opposed to the numbers he published. He must first prove he had such a product in his possession, and only then is anything else worthy of discussion, imo. If Hook's remarks are not a "denial" then what are they? It seems to me you object to the syntax Hook used to make the denial while you overlook the reason for the denial.

 

[ssassen]

The thing that upsets me is that suddenly claims pop up from ATI staff that make all sorts of claims. I'm sure Chris said what he's quoted to have said, he usually blurts out all kinds of stuff, some true, some absolutely false, I have yet to receive and email from him. We talked last week on the phone so he has my cell and knows I'll pick it up. But how about these other claims, who is being quoted? The person serving the coffee at ATI HQ? The person that stapling the leaflets that go out to AIBs that detail the specs for the R520? Or is it Dave Orton's nephew having a go at things?

Regards,

Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com

 

[Regeneration]

Regeneration? Are you going to ask me everything twice?

YES!

BTW-Geo started a little poll entitled "The Great R520 Benchmarks Fiasco" ....go vote. (Sorry if it's a bit pimpish, but I am curious to get a wide range of opinions in on the poll...if it's an EB only one I know how it'll turn out. )

I need to register, but what for? so you could abuse my account? I've heard about you, Mr. DW (aka Mighty Abuser).

 

[ChrisW]

If they lifted the NDA, they would be punishing all the other review websites that have the cards by making their benchmarks irrelevant. They would also be flushing the large investment they have in a successful launch down the toilet just for one website. Also, that would make it a paper launch, as it would still be the same amount of time before the cards are released (and everyone would be criticizing ATI for another paper launch). Not to mention it would make one review website seem more powerful than necessary and would set a bad precedence.

The "article" has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and you know it. Why get so upset when people ask questions about it? Why not answer some of these questions?