- Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Hector Berlioz
Nvidia cuts out reviewers for the GTS250
IT IS ALWAYS funny when an unethical company turns on its own supporters as Nvidia did with the latest 'all new' GT250 cards. This time however, their PR stunts cross the line from unethical to purposely false, and hilarity ensues.
What are we talking about? The rebranding of the venerable G92, aka the 8800GT, 9800GT, 9800GTX, 9800GTX+, and several other variants as the GTS250. The NDA goes up on the third of March, and we have complete scores already, but there is no difference between these cards and the older G92 cards. We will save you from having to pour over spreadsheets scratching your head wondering how it is different... it isn't at all.
The new parts are 55nm, just like the old. The clocks aren't different, nothing from a user perspective is different, other than the card losing 9550, an X and a +. Oh yeah, they are jacking up the price for the stupid as well.
Nvidia, however, is desperate to make this seem like something new. Sales are in the toilet, chips cancelled, and 40nm parts are looking unhealthy. Turd polishing time. Enter the marketeers, but they have a problem, some sites are, *GASP*, honest, and will print the truth.
Nvidia has this allergic reaction to the truth, and tries to change how it is presented at every opportunity.
This time however, they crossed the line from plausible deniability to flat out deception. In the middle of last week we heard what Nvidia was up to this time around, but just couldn't believe they would be THAT sleazy. A day or so later, HardOCP published a story about Nvidia stock 'plummeting', basically an indignant backhand for being cut out of the GTS250's launch. Point one confirmed. The rest soon followed.
Just what are the green fumblers doing this time? Two things: one bad, the other downright deceptive. The bad one is simple, if you don't review Nvidia cards and say that PhysX is the greatest thing since sliced bread and CUDA makes sex better, you aren't doing a good enough job. They will gently nudge you to change your tune, basically praise PhysX and CUDA until you wear the letters off your keyboard.
The carrot and stick approach might help here, but Nvidia doesn't like carrots. They just threaten. Kyle at HardOPC made the deal-breaking mistake of being honest, so it is doghouse time for him, and the site. Welcome to the club, we even have a fort. I assume Kyle got the list of who got cut too, so will know we will have quite big-name company soon joining us soon. Punch and pie.
So, short story, Nvidia is playing with the press once again. And since it has no new product, it is desperately afraid of the truth getting out. And if you didn't drool over PhysX and CUDA enough, you are cut out. This is exactly what Apple does to keep the press in line, but Apple has something Nvidia doesn't: competence.
If that wasn't bad enough, the next part is. Normally, when a vendor cuts you out, if you really care, you can go to one of their partners and get boards/chips/whatever. Sometimes this is even a better idea because one or two tend to have a special card, overclocked, shiny metal cooler, or box with bigger breasts on the model. This time Nvidia specifically forbade partners from giving sites parts if they were on honesty hiatus.
Not only that, but the flat-out dishonesty is that Nvidia gave its board partners 'special' boards to send to reviewers. They are not allowed to give out their own vanilla cards, they MUST use the special set supplied by Nvidia.
Why is this dishonest? Want to bet that those boards have cherry-picked chips and RAM that clocks to the moon? That they will do everything better than any card you will ever be able to buy? Basically, Nvidia supplied ringers to the press that are not representative of what you can buy, and forced OEMs to give them to review sites without telling them. The technical term is 'mushrooming', feed them [scatological reference deleted] and keep them in the dark.
Remember now, this is the same 55nm G92 that you have been able to buy for six months or more, there is NO difference between that and the 9800GTX+. Nvidia has to show a difference to avoid their new hare-brained branding/stupid fanboi-fleecing scheme from tanking, so they are stacking the reviews.
They cut out anyone they thought would be critical and gave the rest cards that are nothing like what anyone can buy. They shut up OEMs, and forced them to give out cards that were flat out fantasy parts in the hopes that it would generate some good press. If they don't, well, you can always cut them out of the next round.
This behaviour on Nvidia's part is not only unethical, but it is purposefully dishonest. They are knowingly giving out parts that are not representative of retail pieces, and doing so without telling the reviewers. Readers won't know, sites may or may not know, and in general, it hurts everyone but Nvidia. Unless the word gets out, then hilarity ensues.
Spread the word guys, and don't trust any of the upcoming reviews where the part was not purchased at a retail outlet using real money. µ
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more but I remember ATI doing the same thing. As a matter of fact I remember both companies doing this multiple times.
Kinda hard to feel outraged when both companies play the same stupid game.
What are the links to the HardOCP articles? It would be good if they were included... I've been for a visit, but cannot seem to find them. Perhaps I am looking with my eyes closed (wouldn't be the first time!)
For the person who asked, here you go for H article:
http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=Mzc5NTUsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=
You can read Kyle's messages about this in the forums:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1395152
The good thing is that, when the reviews of the GTS250 are published, we at least know for sure which reviewsites have their heads way up in nVidia's rear channel.......
Is there anyone left on the planet that takes this guy seriously?
Epic Fail...
Anyone remember the time he said the PS3 was fatally broken? Then realized he actually misunderstood, but never openly admitted that...
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/286/1007286/ps3-hardware-slow-and-broken
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17547
What an idiot.
im OUTRAGED! that ati and nvidia do the same thing. yawn.
What happened to the scores you were bragging about in the 2nd paragraph? Did you make that up, too?
You want to know what I think? I think you're lying about the benchmarks. I think Nvidia cut off all talks to the inquirer for having violated an NDA a few years back. I think a few bitter writers are trying to get back at Nvidia by spreading incredible rumors. And I think the lack of benchmarks in this article is undeniable proof of that.
I want to see these benchmarks, but as usual, there is no evidence in any of Charlies articles for anything Charlie is saying.
I quite like these articles to be honest. Its quite amusing seeing Charlie getting his panties in a wad with everything that nvidia do. It all started when Slyvie did a spy cam over Derek Perez's shoulder, then Charlie let rip into everything they do.
Whats the most amusing part is that Charlie is actually wrong quite often. With this article however im sure its right, but its the fact that Charlie thinks it is somehow breaking news rather than something that has been going on for years and years from AMD, Nvidia, Intel and every other "corporation" out there.
I look forward to reading the reviews because im guessing that while the theory is that sites who will publish are "up nvidias ass" equally so, im guessing those sites don't act like spoilt little girls and start bitching on their own forums about a company and taking it all personally (like Kyle Bennett frequently seems to do).
Id rather read reviews on the products from established sites that conduct themselves in a professional manner rather than read the rantings of childish and stupid people like Charlie (and to a lesser extent Kyle).
if the product isn't good, then review it, say its not, but you have a responsibility to your readers not your own egos. Grow up
Cheers for the links Adrian, they made me chuckle!
@Titius: I re-read the article and as far as I can see it did not say that the 8800GT was a 65nm part. It said the 9800 was a 55nm part and this was a die shrink of the 8800 chip. Which is true AFAIK?
That will teach me to submit without re-reading: I meant to say, "I re-read and could not see it saying the 8800GT was a 55nm part". *doh!*
There is a paragraph that says the new parts are the same 55nm process as the old ones - which (I think), is supposed to be read as the new (250) uses the same as the old (9800). This does include the old-old (8800) and just refers to the series. That is probably what caused the confusion in the first place.
To all Nvidia Fanbois crybabies:
Run and tell your mommy..... LMFAO...
I wish this guy would rant less and get to the story. I don't think many people really care about a new product from either nvidia or AMD at this time anyway. even their medium range GPU's are fast enough to run the latest games, so flame on author.
The way I see this article: Providing a pseudo report about nv with the purpose to provide some pseuso evidence for this other article:
http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail/?display=discussion&code=cotn%3AIMG.L&it=le&action=detail&id=4536821
I guess, this person is invested in imagination technologies/uk and just launched this as some kind of stunt to boost the stock price for his fellow there....
i may be wrong, or hit the nail on its head.
I dont know for sure either. but it smells rather too strong of that.
Well done, Charlie!
I love your articles. You call a spade a spade.
Keep up the good work!!!
A debt of gratitude to Charlie, it is good to see him standing up for the independence and integrity of the press in protecting the consumer from shoddy commercial practices. I wish someone had done the same about our banks.I know of one "research" outfit that is little more than a PR outfit for Nvidea.
A free press is a precious thing, protect it.
Robert
Charlie's words have been worthless ever since he Declared in a huge rant article that he would never touch a computer with Vista, and that he'd never write about Vista again ... only to write about Vista using a computer with Vista a week or two later.
If the NVIDIA story was actually news, something that NVIDIA and AMD / ATI hadn't done over and over for years, if the story was written with some professionalism instead of it being just another Charlie rant ... THEN there might have been a penny's worth of value in his work.
lol, you're exceptionally witty comment simply serves to establish yourself as a very mentally challenged infant, go you! - clever little bunny- keep reaching for those stars mate, you'll get there one day.
As for the article, news or not, it is pish for ANY company to rename, just like ATI is doing with the RV790 - an overclocked RV770 (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20090219150101_AMD_s_High_Performance_Graphics_Update_Not_Expected_to_Radically_Boost_Performance__Sources.html)
Thank you for reporting the truth. I don't know why people are trying to apologize for NV's unethical behavior.
I was burned by the MX440 years ago, Gigabyte melting capacitors, IBM deskstar"deathstar" hard drives and Creative Labs audio drivers disabling hardware when new X-Fi were released.
If manufacturers were outed more publicly for this type of behavior they would not do it. Their crap would rot in bargain bins, not rake in profits. I don't really see the logic of the moral justification that everyone does it. Creepy weirdos say that then do horrible things.
"You're" exceptionally ironic statement serves to establish yourself as a very mentally challenged infant, go you!
eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with Mister In-Between.
You've got to spread joy up to the maximum, bring gloom down to the minimum. Have faith or pandemonium's
liable to walk upon the scene.
To illustrate my last remark, Jonah in the whale Noah in the ark. What did they do just when everything looked so dark...
Man They said we'd better...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKrC9Tu8gpo
Pandemonium, lol.
I find myself dropping by more often to read your stuff. Only because of your funny rants and great imagination with nvidia at the middle of all conspiracy... Very funny.. Can't wait to see your next rant. Keep it up.
thing is i dont get the bit where nvidia are doing wrong. sure they are renaming models and not changing them, but its to align their messy naming scheme, which there have been LOTS of complaints about. these changes look like they will organise nvidias names a lot better. whoopy do. wheres the fuss?
i dont see it as deception, as its splashed to the heavens that the parts are nothing new. even mr joe average would take one search online and come up with that information. yes nvidia are trying to get rid of stock, but these now ancient parts are still competitive. the fact is ATI havent forced nvidia into responding hardware wise. the dog old G92 is still roughly a match give or take for the mid and low HD 48 series. why would nvidia bother to redesign a proven part, with proven performance which ATI cannot beat with newer parts?
frankly if charlie expects nvidia solely to up their game while ATI cant significantly beat ancient nvidia parts then he is sadly mistaken.
@ nemo 100% dead on, nvidia has been shooting itself it the foot on the edge of bankruptcy for close to a year now.
And 3/4 of the replies are bashing the author....
Comeon Nvidia spend your money on R&D instead of paying clowns to post propaganda on the inc. Im sure your not paying these clowns much, but being such a sad case every penny counts. (maybe melt the pennies down and start by putting a better heat-sink on your GPU's ?) :P
ahahahhahhha
What's a matter Charlie? Did nvidia lose your application for the full time Janitor position? You need to give it a rest man. Constantly calling them names is childish. I have a seven year old son that doens't whine as much as you. No matter what Nvidia does we can expect Charlie there with his No Nvidia sign.
Thanks to cross platform games favouring the lowest common denominator hardware, in other words console limitation of game design, an 8800GT does the trick in maxing every reasonably optimized game out there.
Therefore with the exception of the rare hardware pushing PC exclusive like Crysis; what reason is there to upgrade?
I'm not surprised they are just re-branding hardware, very few games need anything better than what came out in 2007.
To produce better hardware they need money from sales, to get money from sales they need upgrade justifications, if there are no upgrade justifications then there are no sales.
We need more games to push the bar, problem is games with those sort of budgets go cross platform to get a better return.
You are comparing a rumor to reality. The upcoming card of ATI isn't out yet, all speculation, while Nvidia really planned for the rebranding.(well I've read ati too is also planning on rebranding 3xxx 4xxx)
But really.. nvidia's starting to stink. Spend your budget on designing new card not letting the PR's do "new" gimmicks.. well they aren't new..
By making cuntVidia look bad, he's actually working up against AMD- because when the Sunnyvale outfit makes a crap out of things, everyone will go like... hey look AMD is doing the same shit.
I don't recall ATi pulling anything near this level of marketing bullshit. Only thing that come to mind was the rename of the old 8500 to the 9100/9200/9250 depending on pipes and memory. This should be pointed out, was well after the the glory days of the cards and they were relegated to IPG like status and well away from any gaming card like status. Nvidia is just sucker punching the almost geek crowd who just don't know any better.
Financials are funny things, they show Nvidia is doing far better than AMD at the moment. But rant on and ignore reality at your pleasure. Whether performance has anything to do with financial soundness is open to debate though. But try to avoid making yourself look like an idiot by suggesting they are about to go bankrupt while AMD is on a roll.
LOL.
Nice one Charlie. Nvidia pulling "if you tell the truth, you don't get a card" only hurts the customer and the review site. We as customers lose money, the review site will lose readership and credibility.
It's true, any site that publishes a "positive" review with lots of references to CUDA and Physics will be known to be "in the wallet of nvidia", and helping to rip off customers.
Any manufacturer forcing lies about it's products to be published in order to mislead customers into buying the products, needs to be expelled from trading. Surely that's against some laws, to mislead a customer into a sale. Fraud? Misrepresentation? False advertising?
Seriously, I bought a 9800GTX+ because the prices are down lower than a 4850, plus my old mobo has SLI only. It's a good card, lol, pretty fast, quiet etc. Just not very reliable.
I've only had the 9800GTX+ a week and it's given me blue line artifacts which freezes the pc within 5 seconds, needing a power off. This happened 4-5 times in as many days. New drivers seem to be doing the trick, amazing. I rang the supplier just in case the card needs to go back.
9800GTX+ is now a GTS250? And it's the same size and speed etc? Mmmmm.
Some good deals about now guys, free games and prices down 20% if you shop around, this is ATI and Nvidia.
Uhm, far as I can tell not one of the Nvidia 8 or 9 serious Geforce cards were considered bad performers on the whole. Nvidia and ATI cards of the time were pricy, but not bad...
However, I'm inclinded to agree that when companies choose to re-brand products, the intent and the products quality should decide whether it is questionable or not.
Charlie screws up by calling products that have performed reasonably well - bad. That is plan false. Moreover, it is a bad idea to present opinion when you are trying to report on the facts.
It seems as if calling Nvidia's products bad in addition to the fact that they are rebranding gives his article the momentum he thinks he has to conclude that Nvidia is doing something wrong.
Rather I think they are just aligning all their products' under one naming convention... It goes against what we, the consumer of GPUs are used to, as product naming usually is consistent with a technology's generation... but times are changing; the PC graphics hardware market is changing focus. It sounds all reasonable to me; as long as Nvidia does not lie on the spec sheets I'm fine with it.
HAHA - Charlie calling someone unethical. Oh, the bitter wails of a child excluded from partying with the popular kids. <single
Funny that the same article is published here with a different author. Oh yeah, but NVIDIA is unethical.
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/138092,nvidia-blacklisting-review-sites-for-upcoming-gts250-card.aspx
Hey Winner, I checked out your link. http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/138092,nvidia-blacklisting-review-sites-for-upcoming-gts250-card.aspx
/n
That is funny. same story: Word 4 Word... Looks like Charlie is using an alias just to post his stories twice.
/n
His crusade is pretty funny...
Just to make sure everyone is on the same page...the victims fall into two categories, and neither are INQ readers:
One group is told to get Nvidia 2xx because they're the newest, and they buy a 250 because they or their kids don't play enough to justify a better model. These people don't overclock, and they'd get just as much out of an 8800GT.
If the samples are, in fact, cherry-picked, then even those who check reviews would be tricked. While they might otherwise be persuaded to go for a 260, they more likely would choose a similarly priced ATI card. I imagine that's their justification.
Even if Charlie is wrong, at least half of these people are being fleeced--bad ethics and bad PR, especially in this crisis. I would shoot a Jim Allchin-esque email to my CEO if this kind of thing happened on my watch.
Good reporting Charlie, sad to see so many people take this Mvidia day to day deceipt so lightly and a sad statement about an obviously corrupt company at its core.
Gosh, i made a grammatical error - my use of the contraction 'you're' instead of the correct 'your' is a most inexcusable blunder. The real irony is that there is nothing ironic about a grammatical error in a post about another persons infantile name calling. Had i been issuing a post based on the grammer of 99flake, then my error would indeed be ironic. Consider yourself corrected, i forgive you. Go play now.
Well done Charlie!
You're the voice of reason in a wishy-washy, fence-sitting, non boat-rocking, piss-weak world.
In the words of the(now "extinct") Australian Democrats:
--- Keep the bastards honest! ---
Stick to your guns and FARG EM ALL!!
hhahah @ the charlie haters that are always on this site bring more hits to the site why do you come here if you dont like what his got to say all i know this site makes it very interesting with all you nvidia bum chums up nvidia arse who cares ati or nvidia do they really care what u have to say even more does charlie errmmm....no so stfu or piss off
To Jackrabbit and Fishy and others who thought Charlie D copied this content "word for word" from AtomicPC, please look more carefully. AtomicPC sources the article as from "The Inquirer" (correct!) but they say it is "By Justin Robinson" (incorrect!). AtomicPC re-posted The Inquirer article by Charlie D and wrongly gave an AtomicPC person authorship credit. Check your facts before you cry plagiarism!
Also, why all the Nvidia owner whining? Everyone knows Charlie writes with a spicy passion and he spares no punches (and kicks, stabs, shots, etc) for Nvidia or anyone for that matter. Make the best product and semi-reasonably market it. That's what companies should do and when they don't, I want to know! The Inq helps us (the public) keep them (the companies) honest.
Anyone remember the Radeon 9600s? Slap a PCI-e interface on one of those, and what do you have? An x600. I guess it's only unethical when Nvidia does it.
I've noticed that when Chucks articles first started pouring in, there would be about 40 comments, and only 1 or two were from people calling Charlie a liar. Now, about the same comments, and maybe 5 people patting charlie on the back or trying desperately to insult everyone else.
Yep, Charlie Demerjian, turning people against AMD one article at a time.
Hey, maybe you're next article could be about how unethical it is for Nvidia to pay developers to add TWIMTBP to their games. Yeah, that should put the final nail in ATIs coffin.
I used to be a homeless rodeo clown but now i am a world class magician !
You know, this is actually a useful article. Nvidia owners will bash because no one likes to admit they bought bum gear from a crap company. It works fine so whatever, until it doesnt, then you dont go posting because youre a weenie.
Well, that said, It is good to be forewarned. I am looking at a new gfx card this spring and well, it appears that I could buy a very old card and have it match a new one for 80-100 dollars more. thats useful info.
At the start of 2008, nVidia's share price was around $35. It is now around $8. Forget any fanbois feaver that you might be feeling and ponder the cause-n-effect of a share dropping by almost 80%. That says one thing LOUD AND CLEAR. neither the market nor the consumer rates the present line up. People do not find the rebranding useful. They do not find Cuda useful. They are not drawn by PhysX. Forget the fact that Charlie has been kind enough to bring us all together on this thread... focus instead on the horrific slide in share price - and thank your personal god that you are not a hardworking nVidia engineer who was counting on stock-options as a way to retire with some dignity.
If Nvidia's 250 parts are going to be manufactured with a 55nm process than I think that more than justifies renaming the products.
At 55nm, end users will have an easier time identifying newer 55nm parts, which in turn will run cooler, overclock better, and use less power.
Sounds like a much better deal than Paying extra money just for an overclocked 4870 WITHOUT a die shrink. I can overclock a 4870 myself for FREE, why would I want to pay ATI to do it for me using exact same hardware that I could pay $150 less for ??
To date, ATI has now moved to gddr5, doubled its video memory from 512 to 1gb, and is now attempting a 26% overclock on the 4870, and it still can't even beat a stock clocked NVIDIA GTX280, let alone one of NVIDIA's current single GPU cards like a GTX285, or a GTX285 FTW Edition ( since we are talking about overclocked cards anyway )
I'll bet my left nut that my NVIDIA 720MHZ GTX285 FTW will wipe it's ass with a 950MHZ ATI 4870 ( aka 4890 )
Heck, it even comes close to 4870 X2 performance, and it still costs less even after ATI's price cut on the X2's
Again, I think the only way ATI will be able to compete is to slash it's prices again, because even with the technological edge, they still can't catch up to NVIDIA's performance level.
As we all know Charlie writes with a pro-ati view. If you cannot see that... I can't help you.
I have owned ATI and Nvidia cards... I buy what is best for me.. I read about the high failure rate for Nvidia gpu last gen.. and I was in the market got a new GPU... I chose the EVGA 9800GTX+SC over the Radeon 4850 because of many factor. EVGA has a great warranty. Geforce has Phsyx and CUDA which was a plus. Performance was roughtly the same with 4850 probably beating the 9800gtx by a few percent. But the 9800GTX+ SC was the factory-overclosed at 778mhz. And I got in on the 30percent MS cashback so I ended up getting it from ebay for $145... Similar price tot the 4850 at that time. Yeah, the 9800gtx+SC crashed a lot on me. Eventually RMA and got it. Works great now. The thing I notice when I use the freeware to view the BIOS (before and after RMA) is nothing changed except the thermal threshold value got increased. Seems like EVGA did a BIOS upgrade to fix my card. Card fan is now set at 76 and I get 48-50C compared to 70C before.
So many of you posters have this "ATI is doing the same thing" line. Did you even read the article? Yes, ATI has rebadged old cards, but that is not what this article is about. That's not even the title of the article. Clearly the article is about boycotting reviewers and having OEMs send "special" boards to the sites.
Secondly, ATI's 4790 is NOT a simple rebadge. It's going to a tweaked RV770, that's obviously different enough to warrant a namechange to RV790. It's going to reach clocks that aren't even possible with the current configuration. So please, before making yourself look like fools, read the article, be knowledgeable about what you're writing, and stay on topic.
Ryan
The 9800GTX+ is 55nm so where is this die shrink, better overclocking that you mention? Lets not forget you would still be paying a huge premium on nvidia cards if ATI hadnt made them cut their prices. So next time take the time do your research. Its people like you that lets Nvidia get away with things like this. Look at it this way we will now have 4 versions of the 260gtx:192core,216core65nm,216core55nm,216core with new pcb.
4 versions of the 9800gtx:8800gts,9800gtx,9800gtx+,250gtx.God knows how many versions of the 9800gt etc. you get my point?
If you look at the sales of the GTX295, its selling like hot cakes. Manufacturers cant keep up with the demand, so I wouldn't say NVidia's sales are hurting THAT much. They're hurting, sure, and they lost a lot of money on the previous versions of the G200 core, but this release of "the most powerful card on the market" has helped them out a bit. Charlie just makes it seem like they are completely failing. Its not a complete failure.
...it's that Nvidia will still sell the exact same rebadged gpu's to the complete idiots who buy them.
They know what they are doing and luckily for them the idiot market is high enough for them to just about get away with it.
It doesn't matter if the 5% of smart people are enraged when the 95% who are idiots will still buy their 'new' products at inflated prices.
i dont see what the big deal is, both companies do the same thing, does he forget ati's transition from the hd2k series to the hd3k series?
the die shrink = new product bit has been done before that too.
when it comes down to it, nvidia has the fastest single gpu there is, the core 216 is competitive in the mainstream, trades blows with the 4870 1gb, and the gtx 280 is close to the 4850 x2 in most titles.
all these ppl bashing nvidia are the same ones that were sucking their dick 2 years ago when they were on top.
right now ati has the better products, so if your going to buy those, great thats being a smart consumer. but dont sit there and trash nvidia as a company, because thats what fan boys do, lets leave that to the console kiddies k?
Hey Charly, seems like anand got his reviews thanks to you:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3523&p=2
Nvidia must have really done something terrible to charlie for him to constantly trash them so much next he will be telling us they directly fund terrorism or where behind 9/11.
Im not sure anybody really reads his articles and believes them, do they?
Dont listen to this crap, one guy has violated NVIDIAs NDA more than once and the other was caught taking money to produce good reviews. I wonder why there are people still reading these BS.
Thanks for the articles Charlie, they're always a good read. And nevermind the fanboys, they'll eventually grow up.
GTS 250 use a different cooler than 9800GTX+
So, they are different... to some minor degree.
From a bit of the comments, it would seem there are some major Fanboy Nvidia posting, or is it more like Nvidia staff likes to post here, hahaha.
I for one have a GTX 260 and it is a great card, good price also when I bought it. But to put the 250 number on a card that is old and outdated and then make up numbers now that is deceptive.
Thanks for the heads up, good to know what companies are doing.
I must admit that the rants and obvious bashing of NVidia by Charlie has got me ADDICTED to his witty and sarcastic writings.
But that's all there is to it - writings.
I for one am both an AMD and NVidia Fan.
I love AMD for its use of exotic memories (GDDR4s for the 38XX, GDDR5s for the 4XXX and 5XXX), GPU compute performance, and risky behavior in trying out smaller lithography.
In as much as I love NVidia for its use of wide and/or odd bitpaths (192bit for the 8800GS, 320bit for the 8800GTX 320/640, 384bit for the 8800GTX and Ultra, 448bit for the GTX260,275, 295), their proclivity for monolithic GPUs and frankly, better graphics quality
- name change you say?
65nm G92=8800GT,8800GTS 512, 9800GT, 9800GTX ; 55nm G92=9800GTX+, GTS 250
Let's just call those recycling an otherwise fine piece of silicon, in as much as no one seems to complain that the pentium dual cores are in reality core2duos with defective caches, or phenom X3s /X2s that are really phenom x4s with defective 1/2 cores.
ATI's into the name game as well, but hands down to ATI for making more logical numerical nomenclatures.
The reviewers cut out on product launches you say..
For that one lets call it punishment for being a bad guest at a party for do you expect to invite rowdy and violent bashers in on your child's next recital or party? I dont think so.
for most parts im fine with the name calling and the cut out reviewers
BUT
when NVIDIA and/or ATI is using 'souped' up boards for reviews and pass it off as same thing that can be bought in retail, THEN that is FRAUD and DECEPTION.
In this day and age of megapixel cameras and internet, its already easy to distinguish facts from fiction. Bring in proof, its just a point and click away.
until then, Charlie's rants are still addictive and still considered frictional fiction.
P.S.
I'm Asian and like NVidia's and ATI's big bosses, we are.
So better be careful next time Charlie, you get a slap on the wrist for now.
Keep up the juicy gossip flowing
I'm not going to say it's not an unethical way of doing things, but, do we really think Nvidia is the only one doing that?
It's an oligopole, Nividia vs. ATI and they fight the hardest they can.
Finally, I have to say that Nvidia cares a lot of their customers and they cheer you to buy "new" hardware, they want to make money, they need to make money, but they also keep your hardware very nicely updated, I have a 8800GTS and it will run for a very long time like it was the latest model in the market.
Criticism is easy, doing is harder.