And the souls mounting up to God, Went by her like thin flames - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Nvidia uses dodgy benchmarks to 'prove' superiority
NVIDIA SEEMS TO HAVE DECIDED to get its spin on, this time with claims that its GeForce GTX 280M has helped Alienware spit out the world's "fastest laptop", the M17x.
The green machine, which reckons its 280M GTX is the world's fastest GPU - a 'fact' AMD would probably hotly contend - says Alienware has hooked up a couple of its much touted cards using SLI to create laptop speeds that are out of this world.
Lest one should dismiss the claims as a load of Nvidia pomp - something we are still rather inclined to do - the Green Goblin has drawn up its own "reviewer's guide" for the Alienware M17x, challenging cynics to see for themselves whether its claims are nothing but self-serving hype. So we took a quick look.
Nvidia said that, for the sake of comparison, it bought "the only notebook on the market which uses AMD's Mobility Radeon 4870 Crossfire" and benchmarked it against the Alienware M17x. But then the Goblin went on to say the notebook it bought for comparison, the Asus W90, was only available in one configuration and was benchmarked using Asus' "latest drivers" rather than ATI's. Well, it turns out these "latest drivers" were almost a year old and were therefore seemingly not engaging the second GPU at all. Things were already beginning to look dodgy.
No one with any sense would bother to argue that the M17x wasn't a vastly superior gaming notebook to the W90, although the W90 does have a significant overclocking record. But even from a CPU platform level, Nvidia played things a little dirty, taking its Q9300 Alienware system and comparing it to Asus' Q9000, probably hoping people wouldn't notice. But a quick check of the Asus website shows that only Intel Dual core options are available for W90 specs.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the M17x is a GDDR3 machine, as is the W90, but what will happen to Nvidia's superiority claims when an OEM produces a Mobility Radeon 4870 GDDR5 solution? Can the GTX 280M do GDDR5? We thinks not!
"As you can see in the benchmark results below, the dual GeForce GTX 280M GPUs in the Alienware M17x absolutely annihilates the ATI Crossfire configuration," sniggered Nvidia spinner Brian Burke, adding, somewhat dishonestly, "no tricks, no overclocking, just the fastest notebook GPUs on the planet."
A clear indicator that Nvidia manipulated the results can be seen from the following numbers of the green machine's 'honest' benchmarking. NV shows 3DMark06 CPU scores of 2,952 for XFIRE versus 3,554 for SLI - a clear advantage to the CPU in their test system. Then, the 3DMARKVantage CPU scores showed 7,754 for XFIRE versus 29,202 for SLI. Hmmm. Is Nvidia kidding? Talk about CPU bound.
On notebookreview.com, the W90 is benchmarked at 13,641 on 3DMark06 using a 2.8GHz Intel T9600 and at 15,628 when the CPU is overclocked to 3.29GHz, rather than the paltry scores Nvidia's benchmark seems to have dredged up. Then again, Nvidia artificially crippled the ATI system with a bad driver, comparing two of its cards to just one working ATI card, so it's hardly surprising the scores seem to suck.
NV's claims that AMD doesn't offer its drivers from its website are a little sneaky too. Most OEMs demand that firms send them the latest version of any driver released so that the computer makers have the chance to test the software before shipping it out. AMD had sent the latest version of its drivers to Asus, but for some reason, the Taiwanese firm shipped drivers that were not Catalyst 9.6, inadvertently crippling the machine during benchmark testing. Nvidia knew this but saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation. Sad day for Nvidia's professionalism and equally sad if the Goblin believed journalists would fall for this dribble.
Fortunately, we at the INQ have a copy of the latest drivers and will send them to Mr Burke for another round of testing at his convenience. We wonder whether the new benchmark results using the proper drivers will tally with the ones Burke sent out just a few hours ago.
Somehow, we severely doubt it. µ
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Nvidia: (n) defn: see liar, cheat.
Summary
1.PhysX is AMD's technology.
2.ATI use PhysX no support driver.
3.Nvidia FUD technologys use PhysX hack driver.
ok?
I can't understand english a little.sorry...
http://www.4gamer.net/games/022/G002233/20080620001/
The article said 'Then again, Nvidia artificially crippled the ATI system with a bad driver"
In reality, the OEM crippled their own product by having a year-old driver that doesn't support both cards. If they want bragging rights for having a fast laptop they need to have the latest drivers instead of passing the buck to the ATI site.
Oh, and Nvidia sucks and exploits crap like this all the time, but they are factually correct: the dual-ATI system with the latest vendor driver is inferior. Period.
Yeah as one guy suggested, why does someone do a class action suit in the US if this kind of Benchmark advertisement were publish in a web that proves false. In that way they will cease to do those nasty things to sto[ the accusations and biases once and for all.
I'm tired of it!!!
Can someone give me the link and use it as a proof of biases or truth of it?
We can use it for or against them too.
I'm not from the US as one guy suggested that they really publish this or the other way around either NVIDIA or the INQ will answer for it!
I was a AMD guy forever and they had (and have) excellent products. I finally gave in and spent the extra dough and got a high dollar nvidia rig... it rules, period. stable, fast, and no more envy factor. I know this sounds like fanbois rhetoric but its the damn truth.
of course, with the lack of x86 and a mobo chipset, i'm sure something else isn't far off. the point is, buy what makes you happy, period.
At first when I finished reading this article I said to myself "wow....nice....charlie had finally found a way to diss NVIDIA and actually make an 'ARTICLE' that is readable and brings facts to the table" I really felt happy because I actually liked him and his ideas and thoughts - but NOT his recent years slander of NVIDIA.....
When I finally double checked to see if charlie wrote it - The bubble bursted ..... but I commend Sylvie for an interesting article and as for NVIDIA's Public Relations....well, THEY SUCK BALLS.....but they already know that and somehow proud of it.....weird twisted illogical but there anyway....
By the way - aren't there laws against False-advertisement/Slander/Foul-play/etc...? especially in the USA....
I wish a group of people take time out of their lives and file a class-action lawsuit against those who "claim" this kind of misleading information - most of the people who buy PC's dont check facts and it pisses me off that these liars easily lure naive buyers into their bank accounts.
The 'Bump Mark'... see how long your chip can last through successive heating and cooling cycles.
If your chip passes, Apple and various OEMs won't show you the door and tell you not to bother calling them for a very long time.
probably missed that one. but still, q9300 wouldn't achieve 30k cpu score in vantage without the assistance of gpu physx...
Article says:
"But even from a CPU platform level, Nvidia played things a little dirty, taking its Q9300 Alienware system and comparing it to Asus' Q9000, probably hoping people wouldn't notice. But a quick check of the Asus website shows that only Intel Dual core options are available for W90 specs."
Implication: NVidia was actually using a dual-core W90 instead of a quad-core one.
"the 3DMARKVantage CPU scores showed 7,754 for XFIRE versus 29,202 for SLI. Hmmm. Is Nvidia kidding? Talk about CPU bound."
CPU bound? suggesting there's a 21448 points difference from q9000 to q9300 is plain ignorant.
the difference is GPU PhysX listed as CPU score within Vantage.
Tsk tsk, very poor benchmarking there.
Another point is that anyone in the real world buying one of those laptops would have wiped or replaced the HDD in it and installed a fresh current build on it. This makes the benchies even more ridiculous.
Using a manufacturers build is terrible. I'd rather they supplied such kit blank.
@DarkElfa
Perhaps Nvidia took their advertising elsewhere?
I mean, it's not exactly beneficial for them to support truthful journalism.
Be it all true or not, TheInquirer destroyed whatever credibility they had years ago by running massive amounts of ATI adverts at the top side and bottom of their pages while Fudo followed by Charlie, posted nothing but one-sided, Nvidia hate stories so spun with Nvidia distaste, it seethed out of every pore while ATI stories were always told with positive spin as if they never did product renaming or participated in any distasteful activities. Sure, there were exemptions depending on who told the stories, but the damage is long since done. Methinks that if the graphic makers in this story would have been swapped, ATI would have been praised for its continued excellence and Nvidia panned and told "serves you right goblin" for having a partner ship a laptop with outdated drivers.
Anyone buying such enthusiast laptops should at least have half a brain to know that they will need to get the latest graphics drivers to use the cards to their full potential.
Any manufacturer for motherboards / systems / laptops have pretty ancient drivers available to download for chipsets, sound, graphics etc..
A lot of the bad PR has to go to Asus for providing such outdated drivers.
Or did the laptop ship with newer drivers, and NVIDIA "degraded" it with the ones on Asus' website? What's the point of Asus offering a Crossfire laptop if the drivers they supply don't activate it?
now i've not bought any ATI hardware since my last nintendo gamecube years ago, and ignoring the recently bought an AMD mainboard,chip,AMD/ATI gfx board, i've been pretty much Nvidia all the way.
but i'm really starting to get hacked off with all of this. the M280GTX is nothing more than a die shrunk, clocked up, re-jigged 8800GT. 3 years i've been waiting to upgrade my laptop, with its "old hat" go7700M. and NV have not produced anything bar re-re-renaming conventions designed to do nothing but cover up the fact that they have nothing new to show.
and that effing idiot of a CEO or whatever. why doesn't he just come out and say "Nvidia is better than god". you can tell he wants to.
i usually buy the best tool for the job, but there is nothing in the mobile sector that is worth it over what i've got already.
nvidia man, what happened? you used to be cool. but these last few years...
It's no surprise that Nvidia always get criticised for their dodgy dealings and spin - they are always doing the dodgy dealing and the spinning!
Of course Nvidia are going to appear more often at somewhere like TheInq that specialises in catching out the "creative marketing" of companies like Nvidia.
Usually it is true for NV to "tweak" benchmark result, .. , usually THEINQ is somewhat biased, .., but it is a nice place to hear some rumors. Nobody is forcing you to read.
PS for adds use Firefox and N.O.S.C.R.I.P.T + Peer.Guardian
Look at the ads running on theinquirer.net, I'm sure the article itself is biased. I will believe it from a different source, just not from the inquirer. It's not journalism when u only report bad news about one particular company. This is paid advertising!
Does anybody remember how many versions of 3dmark 2001 there were, and why?