Hardware Unboxed claims Nvidia has banned them from receiving future FE samples because they did not focus much on Ray Tracing.

[unrealist]

Update: Nvidia has apologised with another email.




GamersNexus also condemning this move by Nvidia:



Linus ranting and saying Nvidia is effectively labelling Hardware Unboxed as "red" (aka AMD). His original response was that he had certain doubts, he needed to find out more and even defended Nvidia a little after having worked with them for a decade. After that, he had access and read the email that was sent to HWU. He was astonished how "fanboyish" Nvidia actually sounded in the email. He actually looks pretty pissed at Nvidia.




JayTwoCents weighing in:

 

[unrealist]

merged

 

[Deleted member 5491]

Shitty move, and something that needs to be talked about and nobody should give in.
But it is in line with Nvidia

 

[Milennia]

They did the same to GN actually, probably others

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Even if I were to get a newer Nvidia card my reason won't be because of RTX, it's in there, but I still don't think it's worth the performance hit. I hope Hardware Unbox doesn't bend the knee. I'll watch their stuff no matter what they are talking about.

 

[Madjoki]

Why should they bother testing RTX when no games use it? Because AMD's cards tank harder with RTX enabled?

 

[TheMadTitan]

Even if I were to get a newer Nvidia card my reason won't be because of RTX, it's in there, but I still don't think it's worth the performance hit. I hope Hardware Unbox doesn't bend the knee. I'll watch their stuff no matter what they are talking about.

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They're large enough to where they won't have to, all of the other channels are going to piggyback and give them shit just like everyone game MSI shit for trying to put pressure on that one reviewer.

 

[RestEerie]

As a consumer, this is shitty.

If i am Nvidia, this is literally what i will do.

As a Nvidia shareholder, i have no comment.

 

[Finaika]

Nvidia is always salty.

 

[oofouchugh]

Even if I were to get a newer Nvidia card my reason won't be because of RTX, it's in there, but I still don't think it's worth the performance hit. I hope Hardware Unbox doesn't bend the knee. I'll watch their stuff no matter what they are talking about.

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I was looking at 3080s and 6800XTs depending on what available stock looked like, but Cyberpunk really made me happy I ended up with the 3080 and not an AMD card. RTX and DLSS in Cyberpunk blow me away in a way I wasn't expecting.

But yeah, this is extremely idiotic for Nvidia to do. Theres what, like 30 games that support RTX and DLSS, and DLSS is about the only way you'll get playable framerates in anything running RTX except like, Minecraft. It really feels like Control and Cyberpunk are the only games really worth it right now, not enough to focus all your press coverage on RTX.

 

[panda-zebra]

"It is very clear from your community commentary that you do not see things the same way that we, gamers, and the rest of the industry do."

 

[Kormora]

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I can't believe some Nvidia guy wrote that.

 

[Earvin Infinity]

Not a good look from Nvidia

 

[Deleted member 30077]

Pretty shitty thing to do. Not too surprising though based on some of the things I've seen of Hardware Unboxed. They're fairly anti Nvidia and pro AMD without it being too overt.

That reason given by Nvidia is bogus though because as GamersNexus says they don't really focus on RTX either and they didn't get banned. Plenty of other sites don't really focus on RTX either and still get cards. I think Nvidia also noticed that their commentary was a bit biased.

 

[Rendering...]

Quid pro quo, Clarice.

"It is very clear from your community commentary that you do not see things the same way that we, gamers, and the rest of the industry do."

Click to shrink...

Nvidia has the power of God, anime, and gamers on their side.

 

[Deleted member 20831]

"It is very clear from your community commentary that you do not see things the same way that we, gamers, and the rest of the industry do."

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So as someone who games?
It's fair to say (on their lines) that Nvidia products suck, because GTX 1060 performance is shit in Cyberpunk 2077!

 

[Theswweet]

Wow, that's nasty.

 

[don't answer that]

This is what happens, when you have a monopoly on a certain segment. We need a stronger competition, AMD needs to kick Nvidias ass after they did the same with Intel, then we won't have this kind of arrogant behaviour anymore.

 

[RestEerie]

Pretty shitty thing to do. Not too surprising though based on some of the things I've seen of Hardware Unboxed. They're fairly anti Nvidia and pro AMD without it being too overt.

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LOL...i think Linus will be next on the ban list if he's not already...

 

[p3n]

Shitty move but by nVidia. I mean just because a wide range of review pages disable all of your product's unique features and test against your competitor with activated SAM and all their feature sets doesn't mean they want to harm you. Or do they?

 

[boredandlazy]

Streisand effect incoming...

 

[RankFTW]

WTF Nvidia. Hardware Unboxed are one of my favourite channels and this is really shitty news for them. They'll still receive AIB models but this will hit them hard on FE release dates going forward.

 

[boredandlazy]

Pretty shitty thing to do. Not too surprising though based on some of the things I've seen of Hardware Unboxed. They're fairly anti Nvidia and pro AMD without it being too overt.

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Their 6800XT review wasn't too subtle. Still, completely moronic by NVidia.

Clarification: I don't necessarily think they're anti-NVidia, but slanted more towards the AMD side. AMD have killed it with their releases this year though so it probably isn't too surprising.

 

[Deleted member 29639]

It's a petty move by Nvidia but I've always thought Hardware Unboxed's stance of "ray tracing and next-gen features aren't important" was pretty silly.

 

[NeoRaider]

I wish there was a stronger competition out there. They are SO full of themselves and need to be cancelled!

 

[Serious Sam]

LOL...i think Linus will be next on the ban list if he's not already...

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Pretty sure companies secretly despise Linus, but he's so big and popular that companies just can't afford not to give stuff to Linus. For now.

 

[ReginaldXIV]

Their RTX pushing was already getting weird when the GeForce Experience is targeting 30-40fps recommended in their optimization profiles.

RTX isn't worth it right now, and devs haven't had the time to use it properly. It even can tank a 3090 at 1440p even with DLSS on.

They should really be pushing how DLSS 2.0 is magic.

 

[oofouchugh]

I wish there was a stronger competition out there. They are SO full of themselves and need to be cancelled!

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To be fair, it looks like AMDs GPUs pretty much caught up in terms of pure rasterization, so really the only big advantage they have is in RT performance, magic DLSS, and non-gaming things like their streaming broadcasting software and NVENC. It wouldn't surprise me that Nvidia pushing RT so hard specifically because thats where their only real advantage is.

 

[Paz]

The fact that there are multiple posts in this very thread from people claiming these folks are anti nvidia shows just how little this will matter, unfortunately.

 

[kami_sama]

It's a petty move by Nvidia but I've always thought Hardware Unboxed's stance of "ray tracing and next-gen features aren't important" was pretty silly.

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Yeah, when even the consoles have some sort of raytracing, it's a bit silly to ignore it.
Also, while DLSS is only supported on a handful of titles, there's no reason to ignore it, considering it's "free" performance.
But yeah, Nvidia's in the wrong here. 100%.

The fact that there are multiple posts in this very thread from people claiming these folks are anti nvidia shows just how little this will matter, unfortunately.

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I would not say anti-nvidia, but anti-anything-that-isnt-raster. And there's some merit to that, but it's a bit narrow-minded after consoles and every new generation of gpus support rt.

 

[OtisSpunkmeijer]

How the hell are people in this thread blaming Hardware Unboxed for this or saying this is acceptable in any way? Why the hell are people excusing Nvidia trying to screw over an independent review outlet for no legitimate reason?

Saying that ray-tracing or DLSS isn't the be all and end all isn't some sort of fanboyism - it's a fact that most games aren't utilising ray-tracing or DLSS, and putting ray-tracing & DLSS in to the context of the greater gaming ecosystem is perfectly valid in a review.

Nvidia is being so scummy with this I hope there is push back and less of the corporate idolising that half the posters in this thread seem to partake in. How the hell are there fanboys for Nividia or AMD for that matter?

 

[Alvis]

This is pathetic on Nvidia's part.

 

[RivalGT]

RTX is a feature you turn off, and one only a hand full of games have. DLSS has even worse support. Nvidia is the one to blame for lack of support.

 

[Fatmanp]

This is only because by ignoring RT the 6800xt is pretty much the same card as the 3080 at a lower price.

 

[yagal]

Banned for having an editorial line, Jesus
Shitty move

 

[Villa]

I'm so sick of companies pulling this kind of thing.

 

[RestEerie]

I wish there was a stronger competition out there. They are SO full of themselves and need to be cancelled!

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i agree with you in principle except for the fact that the word 'cancelled' needs to be cancelled!!!

 

[stersauce]

RTX is great but absolutely still not worth it wtf nvidia

 

[Polk]

It's a petty move by Nvidia but I've always thought Hardware Unboxed's stance of "ray tracing and next-gen features aren't important" was pretty silly.

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If 99% titles released in 2020 don't support RT it's not that important (yet). I guess HU stance will change when games adoption will increase.

 

[sir_crocodile]

Nvidia have form with this kind of thing in the past iirc, sadly not that surprising.

 

[Winstano]

Wow. Essentially telling them "Focus on tech that's still early or you're not getting our products" is awful. Hell, Linus' video on Cyberpunk shows that RT and no DLSS cripples performance in Cyberpunk, would Nvidia prefer that as their marketing?

 

[gravitationsfeld]

Why should they bother testing RTX when no games use it? Because AMD's cards tank harder with RTX enabled?

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Yes.

 

[Kabukimurder]

Guess it explains why there's so much focus on ray tracing on graphical test sites and channels when it's a tech that's still not realistic to use for more than maybe 1% of people playing games (without shitty DLSS downsampling).

 

[Kormora]

Kind of ironic because in their last video they recommended the 3090 over 6900xt.

 

[Arex]

Until we can get affordable GPU that can do RT at 60 fps and DLSS on every game, then they're right to not focus much on RTX.

 

[vrietje]

Shit move of Nvidia, but I understand them without it AMD looks better, but If you take RTX and DLSS in consideration, RTX are better than the AMD cards. So If you happen to play 0 games with DLSS and RTX you can better go with AMD.

 

[djplaeskool]

That's a really petty move. Hardware Unboxed is easily one of the best tech channels out there and they've been nothing but completely fair during this rapid-fire slate of releases this fall. Hate to say this is likely because the RX 6000 cards go toe to toe in pure rasterization, and HU's reviews (among others) point that out.

 

[Shifty360]

Guess it explains why there's so much focus on ray tracing on graphical test sites and channels when it's a tech that's still not realistic to use for more than maybe 1% of people playing games (without shitty DLSS downsampling).

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DLSS is shitty?

More bullshit being spewed I see.


Nvidia shouldn't have done this, on the other side a reviewer wilfully ignoring a major feature set is hardly going to endear a company to provide samples.

HardwareUnboxed is a business, business relationships between businesses are important for both businesses .... especially if one is more reliant on the other for access.

Why would Nvidia provide review samples to any reviewer who won't explore the full feature set?

 

[scitek]

Pretty shitty thing to do. Not too surprising though based on some of the things I've seen of Hardware Unboxed. They're fairly anti Nvidia and pro AMD without it being too overt.

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I watch most of their stuff, and can say they're really not. They just didn't care for Turing because it literally did nothing but stagnate the market and charge a premium for broken promises. The first iteration of DLSS was trash. The first few games that featured raytracing ran like hot garbage for - with the exception of Control and Metro Exodus - very little visual gain, and it practically stayed that way for two whole years. They've praised the performance and value of the 30 series, but have rightfully criticized the horrendous launch, and they've been very critical of AMD, too.

Nvidia shouldn't have done this, on the other side a reviewer wilfully ignoring a major feature set is hardly going to endear a company to provide samples.

HardwareUnboxed is a business, business relationships between businesses are important for both businesses .... especially if one is more reliant on the other for access.

Why would Nvidia provide review samples to any reviewer who won't explore the full feature set?

Click to shrink...

They don't ignore it. They show RT benchmarks and everything you'd expect, they just don't spend 50% of the review on it because they prefer higher framerates over fancy reflections and the other improvements RT brings, but that's in line with how their audience thinks. And that's obvious because a big percentage of their content is spent reviewing high refresh rate monitors, which they often purchase using money they get through Patreon.

 

[SoneaB]

Nvidia have done this before and they will do it again. I heard they got funny with people about PhysX performance and 'suggested' the best ways to show off tesselation versus AMD. It will just be a different feature next time.
They are perfectly within their rights to do this sort of thing, however, and they are not alone in pulling tricks like this.

It is part of the reason I have not bought Nvidia hardware directly (curse you ps3/switch) in over 15 years. I will not support their bullshit even if they do have the better tech.