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


Massman

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Hardwareheaven is sausage site with a good visual wrap... Similar as with HH's review of the 2933C12's, I don't get Dave's review of the the same G.Skill 2933C12. It clearly shows the gain is not there with single sided MFR rams (also due to the loose tertiaries) versus 1600C9, yet the highly recommended award is given... beats all logic... unless you s*ld **t like Sin explained... then it all becomes clear...

 

Some sites seem to have an obligation that an award must be given for each piece of hardware... even if craptastic :P

Edited by Leeghoofd
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I don't get Dave's review of the the same G.Skill 2933C12. It clearly shows the gain is not there with single sided MFR rams (also due to the loose tertiaries) versus 1600C9, yet the highly recommended award is given... beats all logic... unless you s*ld **t like Sin explained... then it all becomes clear...

I don't understand that either. He didn't even mention as a Con that it doesn't perform as well as MUCH cheaper competing kits. He did mention it, but not in the "cons" section, and dismissed it right after he mentioned it. Odd.

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Most of the MFR reviews I've seen do not make sense. So far, only Hokie's I found to be good. The others are misleading or simply outright bunnyextraction. I honestly think that this kind of hardware gives us a great insight in what review sites do things right and which do things wrong. I have a lot of respect for Techpowerup and Dave - he definitely knows his stuff and does a fair amount of testing (probably more than we know) - but the latest MFR review did not make too much sense to me.

 

Sorry G.Skill – and all the other manufacturers putting out these crazy high frequency Hynix MFR kits like Corsair, Avexir, Adata, etc – you’ve got to bring the performance to go with the MHz. Without it, your kit is dead in the water aside from those that are either really into memory overclocking (see: subset of a subset) or those that are compensating for something else.

 

The story with MFR is very simple: it is always slower than dirt-cheap 2400C9 kits and it can clock really high. The price is really high because it requires a lot of man hours to bin the most high-end ICs. But as far as I'm concerned, there should be a general outrage from media and "journalists" about this super-expensive products with underwhelming performance. I mean, people are outraged when the GTX Titan was launched at USD $1000, but are seemingly okay with this $400 DDR3-2400C9-like performance kits. How is that possible?!

 

The only argument one could make with MFR is that it can reach the highest frequency. That's it. Therefore, any kit that does not do the highest frequency should not get any award whatsoever. What makes a company stand out against the rest is when it's able to make the highest clocked kit in mass-production, something so far only G.SKILL has achieved with their 2933 and 3000 kits. They are available on Newegg. I haven't seen any other brand put up those kits in retail channels - just a small amount of samples sent out to media and journalist. A mass-production retail available DDR3-3000 kit, that is very impressive. Anything below that frequency is "nice try, but not good enough". Anything that is not available is "nice marketing, but not impressed".

 

Perhaps I am one of the few to be so angry about this :D. I just can't believe that so many media and reviewers have jumped on the MFR bandwagon pretending it's something great when it's actually a terrible product for anyone but extreme overclockers hunting for max frequency records. For anyone else, it's quite simply a bad choice!

 

(ps: hokie, I talked with the guys at G.SKILL about your MFR review and you gained a lot of respect in that company. Thumbs up man!)

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(ps: hokie, I talked with the guys at G.SKILL about your MFR review and you gained a lot of respect in that company. Thumbs up man!)

Thanks!

 

That they have that kind of reaction garners a lot of respect from me (and the community) too. There are definitely other companies and individuals in PR teams out there that wouldn't have a reaction like that. Not so with G.Skill. My contact even responded positively when I gave him the 'bad' news.

 

Good folks to work with.

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most likely b/c those kinds of memory lose money for the company, and they are marketing stunts more than anything. They bid on these high end batches of ICs and then they are stuck binning them which is a big hassle and puts a lot of pressure on them.

 

But seriously kudos for making a kit like that and selling it in public. with 4 sticks i bet the peformance would have been okay.

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HH strikes again, G.Skill 2933C12 review:

 

As a final test we decided to look at what the highest MHz rating was that we could achieve on the standard timings. That was 3000MHz with the Maximus VI Gene. Moving back to 2933MHz we then tweaked the timings and voltage to see how they could be changed and this saw us run stable at 11-12-14-30-1T.

 

Read all about it at our favourite website, they also did 3000C11-12-12 1.75v stable on Ivy with 2666C10 Corsair. Never any screenshot proof as usual... no replies to forum posts ... Who's this Stuart Davidson guy ? Gosh I would be so happy if the hardware companies tapped these blokes on the fingers... or invite them to an OC thingy and let them show their magic... getting so tired of these sites...

Edited by Leeghoofd
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From the conclusion, which also hails the packaging for, you know, protecting the modules:

 

For the modules themselves we like the appearance of the red and black heatsink which feels very solidly applied. The black PCB keeps things looking great and overall we were very pleased with the performance. Being able to run up to 2933MHz allows us to be very flexible with our CPU overclocking and the decent timings of Cas 12 etc mean we have competitive performance with modules at other price points.

 

What?

 

Unless you have a godly IMC + CPU, it hurts CPU overclocking. At the very least, it will require lower cache speeds. I think "competitive performance with modules at other price points" ....well, I don't even know what to think about that. Yes, thank you, captain obvious. It competes with modules at other price points. Now I can die happy after learning such a wonderful piece of wisdom.

 

What kills me though is that the meaningless award this kit received at HH was literally the least fitting award they could give this kit: "Hardwareheaven Performance Award".

 

godzilla-facepalm.png

 

EDIT - You're also quite right about the overclocking section. No screenshot, not even a validation. Who gave these guys the keys to a review site? Go home hardwareheaven, you're drunk.

Edited by hokiealumnus
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From the conclusion, which also hails the packaging for, you know, protecting the modules:

 

 

 

What?

 

Unless you have a godly IMC + CPU, it hurts CPU overclocking. At the very least, it will require lower cache speeds. I think "competitive performance with modules at other price points" ....well, I don't even know what to think about that. Yes, thank you, captain obvious. It competes with modules at other price points. Now I can die happy after learning such a wonderful piece of wisdom.

 

What kills me though is that the meaningless award this kit received at HH was literally the least fitting award they could give this kit: "Hardwareheaven Performance Award".

 

godzilla-facepalm.png

 

EDIT - You're also quite right about the overclocking section. No screenshot, not even a validation. Who gave these guys the keys to a review site? Go home hardwareheaven, you're drunk.

yea i just saw this shit, what an abomination to reviewing, you have to put up screenshots at least. Also cas12 isn't awesome and running memory higher on retail CPUs kills CPU/cache OC. espcially at 29.33. On ES not so much tho

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Positioned my little rant at the end of the review in the conclusion page...

 

EDITOR RANT: This article is not meant to put a certain brand in a bad daylight. However the numerous reviews on the Z87 XPOWER I read, are totally lacking credibility. Impossible that they properly tested or analysed. Probably some 2 hour testing done by an automated system, pushing out results straight into an Excel file. Good job ! NOT !

 

If you want to buy a board based on looks and onboard gimmicks then you find more then what you are looking for on the multiple photo, hardware spec listing review sites out there. ...

This particular board is designed for OverClocking, yet fails to live up to that label. Hence why articles as these should thrive the Bios engineers to get things sorted ASAP. If one has to pay 340 euros for a semi working motherboard, how miserable would you feel if you found out the truth, that brand B was cheaper, faster and more user friendly.

 

My main concern is not with the board as it's clearly evolving in the right direction, but the BS reviews which are posted on a regular basis. Lately all hardware is Good, a Must Buy, Great or Recommended. Get a life dear collegue reviewers and dare to be honest with your readers. That is where your focus should be really at !

 

Your job is not to please the manufacturers, but to inform your readers !

 

Read more: http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/article/1000479/Trio-of-Z87-OC-Motherboards-Tested/14#ixzz2a8n4LDtC

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I feel physically sick to my stomach of this one. USD $2000 kit, matched in performance by way cheaper DDR3-2250 kits, gets a 9.6 and editor's choice award.

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Avexir/Core_Series_3100_MHz_C12/8.html

 

My reply:

 

The fact that this USD $2000 kit, with performance being matched by a DDR3-2250 kit, receives the editor's choice award makes me physically sick to my stomach. I am not kidding, I genuinly feel nauseous. It's basically the same feeling when I seeing a bloody hot girl light up a cigarette.

 

I have always like TPU for their enthusiast-minded reviews, but this has me turned off completely.

 

Sad.

 

Unbelievable.

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I feel physically sick to my stomach of this one. USD $2000 kit, matched in performance by way cheaper DDR3-2250 kits, gets a 9.6 and editor's choice award.

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Avexir/Core_Series_3100_MHz_C12/8.html

 

My reply:

 

 

 

Unbelievable.

 

Does. Not. Compute.

 

Text:

 

purchasing these sticks purely based on their performance is not necessarily the most prudent decision. This kit costs so much because its unparallelled flexibility makes it an invaluable testing tool. Good tools usually cost a lot, but I personally feel its current asking price to be twice of what it should be. $1000 would be much more appropriate.

 

Let's set aside the fact that the performance doesn't justify $1,000, let alone $2,000, but the reviewer is saying that the sticks, as tested, should cost half of what they are charging....and it still gets a 9.6 & Editor's Choice.

 

banghead.gif

 

Heh, I think it's safe to say nobody else is going to be sending me any single-sided MFR kits, so you won't see one of these at Overclockers. :P

 

EDIT - Hahaha...from the comments it appears Newegg says you can save eight grand by buying from them! The jokes just keep rolling in this morning. The first (and only) Newegg review is priceless too. I'll post it here in case it gets deleted.

 

Pros: This ram is amazing! I was skipping work to wait for the UPS man when I heard the doorbell. I went to answer the door and it was the UPS man with my ram. Immediately the box opened itself and the ram floated out. It then teleported me to Europa's underwater ocean, which is actually home to the most intelligent species in the universe. They showed me the future and how this RAM is responsible for SKYNET becoming self aware. Upon returning to Earth, I plugged this ram into my computer turning me into Arnold Schwarzenegger.

 

Cons: Doesn't include a Ferrari with every purchase.

 

Other Thoughts: Visit Europa

Watch the birth of AI

Turn into Arnnie

 

Sounds like a winner to me

Hahahahaha!

Edited by hokiealumnus
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