Do you guys even bother to read? Madyasiwi posted what the guy was commissioned to by AMD in a forum post on the previous page...
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1871162/
He was commissioned by AMD to make a custom case, something many companies do. He wasn't commissioned to write an un-official review. His posting of the performance was his own experience with the card...as anyone would do whether they bought the card or not.
I was sloppy and skimmed the block quote.
The sponsored case project does not provide evidence of the user (Elmy) being directed to market the product to that forum, so I am unsure if I should have speculated on the possibility of him purposefully doing an end-run around the site.
The obvious antipathy at HardOCP towards AMD due to the snub may have figured into the inference being drawn that it was part of a marketing scheme, since Elmy's project and card were posted as part of the leadup to the launch on overclock.net, and pictures were floating around during the pre-launch buildup.
The resources dedicated to generating buzz through informal marketing (knowing who to give things to in order to seed an outcome) might not be the same as the ones deciding which sites to snub, so one interpretation is that one hand does not know what the other is doing in the marketing department.
Still, if there were no questions as to HardOCP's willingness to be fair in AMD's estimation before this(maybe?), there could be now.
Not working to smooth that over has a tendency to make the suspicion of such a self-fulfilling prophecy.