[RANT] How to make sure your awards/reviews are totally meaningless

[Massman]

Honestly, this kit is USD $2000 and it brings

 

- underwhelming performance

- only 8GB

- DDR3-2133 grade packaging

 

The author uses games to benchmark the kit. If you include games in your review, please recommend your reader to buy a GTX Titan for that kind of money. If you praise the extreme overclocking capabilities of the kit, please show the tests.

[hokiealumnus]

I haven't been able to test these yet (board RMA), but I've got a kit that looks to be fun and should have much better performance per dollar.

 

[Movieman]

$2000.00 for 2-4 gig sticks of DDR3?

Am I reading that right because if I am whoever set that price is "smoking some gooood sheeet"....

[Leeghoofd]

This is all Hookie's fault

[Massman]

I don't know why, but this made me laugh today

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0ST0TP9337

 

[der8auer]

haha ~about the same performance

[Leeghoofd]

no it's not Roman , the 2500 kit states performance ! I gave up on Dave from TechPowerup, he's lost in space...

[hokiealumnus]

I'll sell you guys a kit that'll do 3200 / 13-15-15-36 for benching for only $1,499.99! Save $1,000.00! Today only!!

[Leeghoofd]

did it get a recommended award Jermery ? Otherwise I will not believe you that it's any good

[hokiealumnus]

Nope, it didn't.....but it's really expensive! Doesn't that mean it's one-three-three-seven, or whatever you whipper snappers are calling good stuff these days?

[TaPaKaH]

$2500 is "cheap" compared to $4000 G.Skill have once asked for their kits (2933C12, IIRC).

It's funny to see how much epeen value goes into a set that costs probably $150-200 to bin and produce, just to "claim fastest".

[Christian Ney]

It's premium product yo. If you have customers why sell less.

[websmile]

It is best MFR bin available at retail shops - price comes with customers, if no one buys, these will rot at warehouse and stay the epeen publicity product they are in my opinion. To be honest, I think they get more publicity here than they deserve seeing performance

[Massman]

$2500 is "cheap" compared to $4000 G.Skill have once asked for their kits (2933C12, IIRC).

It's funny to see how much epeen value goes into a set that costs probably $150-200 to bin and produce, just to "claim fastest".

 

Dunno about that estimate.

 

I bet it takes quite some time weeks to find those DDR3-3000 1.65V ICs. It's a time-intensive task.

 

It's premium product yo. If you have customers why sell less.

 

I think everyone finds those outrageous prices funny, but honestly that is not the problem. Companies can charge whatever they want for a product. If you don't like the price, don't buy it.

 

The main problem is that so-so much media post super positive reviews about these kits. They completely ignore the benchmark figures they post in the review, and then give the kit a 95% or something. These "journalists" choose to ignore their own metrics, and tell their readership things are great. While in fact, it is not so great.

 

I have no problems companies charging so much. But review media are supposed to call bunnyextraction on this. They are not - it's all 95%+.

 

The underlying issue is the lack of innovation on the side of X86 computing. I don't want to write an essay in this thread, but you can sense the desperation of the industry from MFR hypes like this. Apart from the introduction of dual core and then later the SSD, we haven't seen much improvement in this industry. Only smaller steps. But every single company is trying their best to make their products look like it's the next iPhone or something. I guess I'm kicking in an open door when I say Microsoft and Intel are to blame for this. Windows XP is 13 years old, and has a market share of 33% for Windows. Only Windows 7 does better with 45%. Ivy Bridge-E 4960X is about 35% faster than Gulftown. That is at stock! Gulftown 980X was released in March 2010, when the next product cycle comes it will be well over 4 years old. The first extreme Nehalem part 965X was released in November 2008. It is merely 30% slower (at stock) in one of the older x264 benchmarks than the 4770K released last June. That's about six years difference!

 

Anyway, not for today. That same lack of innovation and creativity is the same driver of our overclocking hobby, fyi. At least in terms of the amount of funds there are available for events and stuff.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Massman

[knopflerbruce]

This one was bad. Lol @ newegg

 

Though I wonder if one really should give high ratings to any sticks these days. We've had hypers for over 4-FOUR years now. PSC for 3.5 years? Still BBSE/PSC are the ones we use for benchmarking. If you think of it that way, NO memory kit in the world made with newer ICs should be given more than 6-7/10, and most probably from 3-5/10 simply because the performance does not increase with time. Given the cost of these Avexir sticks relative to their performance, I'd say 2/10. 2 because 3000+ is sexy and the sticks do run what they're specced at. Other than that a complete failure measured against 3-4 year old sticks.

 

I want thumbs up for this Strict reviewer style!

[Massman]

It seems that more and more reviewers are starting to speak up about the non-sense of awards. Check out this

. While I don't particularly share his view on the board (I haven't tested it, but it can't be this bad), the bit (starts around 21:20s) where he explains how much shit giving a Bronze award is very interesting.

[Vivi]

This one was bad. Lol @ newegg

 

Though I wonder if one really should give high ratings to any sticks these days. We've had hypers for over 4-FOUR years now. PSC for 3.5 years? Still BBSE/PSC are the ones we use for benchmarking. If you think of it that way, NO memory kit in the world made with newer ICs should be given more than 6-7/10, and most probably from 3-5/10 simply because the performance does not increase with time. Given the cost of these Avexir sticks relative to their performance, I'd say 2/10. 2 because 3000+ is sexy and the sticks do run what they're specced at. Other than that a complete failure measured against 3-4 year old sticks.

 

I want thumbs up for this Strict reviewer style!

 

yea we need some hardass reviewers!

[Leeghoofd]

Thing is is Goddy, sometimes it feels like talking to a wall. We even get mocked, while trying to explain the hows and why's. They don't care about the criticizm, as most are too afraid to provide a negative conclusion.

 

some of the comments we got from TechPowerup Dave: "Dude, if you put me on the payroll, I'll write anything you want" mmm that reply says it all...

Another good one: You only judge by performance, a conclusion is based on more then just that... Wtf man if I have to cash out +500 euros for a mere 8GB, then the darn thing has to perform and kick the nuts of any lower priced kit out there...

 

But then I got this: I think competitive OC is killing the enthusiast industry. So if you guys don't like my reviews, that's perfect in my books. you're misleading the industry for personal gain, anyway, by pushing competitive OC. This is why board makers are more focused on gamers now...extreme OC is great, but is just a niche of a niche, and no minority should control the interests of the majority without letting the majority voice their opinion

 

Yes we are misleading the industry for sure... sorry I misunderstood that Avexir made that particular kit for gamers, as they will get lower frame rates with it then a 2133 kit sigh... After a final reply I left Dave's world, as that guy has some serious analyzing issues... but so funny that even guys who frequently visit the forum at XS don't seem to grasp what is actually going on at TP...

 

He better change his signature quote from : -Only real men play games THIS way to -Only true reviewers reveal the truth, however I WON'T

 

Chapter closed for me...

Edited September 10, 2013 by Leeghoofd

[der8auer]

Another big problem is that some vendors only give you support as long as you write a "good" review with an awesome award. How often did I read "please send the review to us before you publish it" and later "the review is not as we expected it. Can you please remove the lines xxxx or do not publish it".

This happened with all different and big manufactureres.

The consequence for me is that I do not trust most of the reviews if they are sponsored by the vendors. Whenever I read "thanks to vendor xx for providing the board" I know that the reviewer will most likely hightlight the positive aspects but will leave out the negative stuff.

For sure there are also trustworthy reviewers out there but a big amount just publishes what the vendor wants to read.

[Massman]

As I said on the TPU forums as reply to that Avexir review, I would much rather read an advertorial (= paid content) with additional informative and factual information than a review of which I feel the author is lying to me. If you seriously tell me up front, your goal is to highlight the positive aspects of a certain product, list all features and provide additional background, and I will gladly read the story. But then don't give a score or award.

 

Have you guys seen AnandTech's Ivy Bridge-E review? Probably the most well-balanced review on the web. No big statements, no awards, no rediculous scores. Just plain and simple, "it's not a big step forward" and "if you have money and need cores, buy it".

[Vivi]

i think competitive OC is killing the enthusiast industry.

 

oh my. hahahah.

 

@roman, true, write one bad or 7/10 review you wont get another sample

 

thats a good review massman, same with haswell i guess.

[hokiealumnus]

Another big problem is that some vendors only give you support as long as you write a "good" review with an awesome award. How often did I read "please send the review to us before you publish it" and later "the review is not as we expected it. Can you please remove the lines xxxx or do not publish it".

This happened with all different and big manufactureres.

The consequence for me is that I do not trust most of the reviews if they are sponsored by the vendors. Whenever I read "thanks to vendor xx for providing the board" I know that the reviewer will most likely hightlight the positive aspects but will leave out the negative stuff.

For sure there are also trustworthy reviewers out there but a big amount just publishes what the vendor wants to read.

FWIW, I've never had a vendor ask to read a review before it publishes. Some of them are very.....emphatic...about getting their message across to you before you write it, but they've never tried to see the review before it went live. We give them the right to correct any errors or respond to the review, but they have no control over its content.

 

Additionally - and counterintuitively - both G.Skill and ADATA, to their credit, were very gracious in their receipt of less than stellar reviews of their flagship products.

 

Have you guys seen AnandTech's Ivy Bridge-E review? Probably the most well-balanced review on the web. No big statements, no awards, no rediculous scores. Just plain and simple, "it's not a big step forward" and "if you have money and need cores, buy it".

 

Hey, I said the same thing darnit!

 

Ok, fine, I said it with a lot more words than you did. :nana:

[websmile]

What is indeed a problem imho are these so-called "user reviews" published all over forums at least in germany... Lots of these are only praises for the products the guys get for free, without in deep testing ,and criticism is no go as the "reviewers" are afraid they lose their free hardware source^^, two days after these are published you find the reviewed hardare at marketplaces or egay - on "normal" review, most manufacturers can take critcism, as long as it is fair, and if they can´t and do not provide hardware for further tests, that´s their decision, but marketing division think twice before losing big publicity spots to show their products

[knopflerbruce]

I usually check newegg feedback rather than reviews. If I check memory reviews it's because I want to check OCing potential and/or ICs used

[Massman]

Interesting ...

 

Using Geizhals as a research tool, we see offers for KHX18C9X3K2/8GX starting at 67 Euros excluding shipping across the EU. Such pricing will hardly make this model a bestseller as not only do all of the competitors have better deals in the 8GB DDR3-1866 category, but Kingston themselves offer some DDR3-2400 Beast for 10% less.

 

Surely, limited edition products need not have friendly pricing, but let us recall what one actually gets for their money with this model. Neither specs nor the overclocking numbers deserve any major attention. Combined with ordinary looks and lack of any special fatures, it seems that the uniqueness of Kingston Anniversary series does not go beyond naming and associated marketing.

 

Kingston HyperX 10th Anniversary 2x4GB DDR3-1866 CL9 1.65V Review

Published by TaPaKaH

 

oh my. hahahah.

 

There is actually a lot to be said about the influence of (competitive) overclocking on product development. Back when the processor operating frequency was still the main product differentiator, I bet a lot of companies felt cheated on by customers as well as industry members. Think back at that dual socket Pentium2 board from Abit that would allow you to run dual Celeron instead. The response was to lock as much down as possible, limiting the options for overclocking. Together with the lack of competition from AMD, Intel managed to raise the 'cost of overclocking' with their K/X-sku CPUs and Z/X-sku chipsets. In a way, that killed of the budget-limited enthusiasts. Which were actually the majority, I believe. People used to buy a lower SKU and then overclock it to the performance of the most high-end SKU.

 

Competitive overclocking was certainly an active catalyst in this, as everyone shifted to the higher priced K/X-skus. Therefore enabling companies to go ahead with this approach.

 

If that is what he's pointing to, I can agree to a certain extend.