Nvidia walked back on their decision but the damaged has been done. What a pointless circus.
That would require him to be stupid. He's held that position long enough to know better, but apparently he's pulled similar shit with J2C until AIBs stepped in and told NVIDIA they were being ridiculous. Nah, this likely came from the top to serve as a warning to all reviewers and it ended up exploding in their faces.Watching the Linus WAN Show - holy shit have never seen him this fired up.
Seems to me that this guy from NVidia just didn't realize who/how big Hardware Unboxed actually is maybe?
Many people , including some reviewers, seem to be theorizing that this was to intentionally poison the well against all reviewers and instill distrust for the traditional objective PC hardware review. Here in the age of influencers, that doesn't sound particularly implausible.Shit behavior from a shit company and walking back their BS doesn't count. It's fucking ridiculous. I just wonder for a senior VP of PR... what the hell did that guy think was going to happen? I mean in the age of social media... what was going to be the best outcome here, especially since Hardware Unboxed is a fairly well known and respected hardware review outfit?
Like what was the "winning" move for Nvidia here? Have Steve shill for Team Green a bit more? Was it REALLY worth it at the end?
it doesnt matter how big/small the outlet is that they targeted, that completely misses the point and is entirely irrelevant.Seems to me that this guy from NVidia just didn't realize who/how big Hardware Unboxed actually is maybe?
Nvidia walked back on their decision but the damaged has been done. What a pointless circus.
what did they honestly think was going to happen? PR person didnt see the backlash coming? the PUBLIC RELATIONS person didnt see that coming?
Shit behavior from a shit company and walking back their BS doesn't count. It's fucking ridiculous. I just wonder for a senior VP of PR... what the hell did that guy think was going to happen? I mean in the age of social media... what was going to be the best outcome here, especially since Hardware Unboxed is a fairly well known and respected hardware review outfit?
Like what was the "winning" move for Nvidia here? Have Steve shill for Team Green a bit more? Was it REALLY worth it at the end?
people admiting they're wrong? you jestFunny how the people who were "skeptical" and "sitting it out" haven't showed up after everything proved to be real. Surely they're glad that we know the truth now?
It's a great feature for professionals but utterly pointless for gamers.To a degree it has been working for Nvidia. Even here we still have those talking nonstop about raytracing. I remember back when the 2000 series came out and how some tried to oversell it on the fact it does raytracing. On what, 2 titles with severe performance hits? Hardware Unboxed was making logical videos and because they were not promoting it like other fanatics do they get blacklisted. The irony is they were doing videos as Linus proved.
Glad to see this backfiring.
I am glad it was reversed. But I wouldn't let Nvidia off the stick too easily. They are showing their true colours in that original email.
Hopefully the community remembers this going forward, and keep an close eye on Nvidia from now on. This is not their first attempt of shitting on reviewers. Also probably not their last.
This whole thing was an embarrassment. HUB hopefully can relax now and focus on their business.
It wasn't, it was apparently from the Global PR Head or whatever his title is called.Yep this is some insane levels of arrogance and overall shitty behavior shown by Nvidia. Knowing how large companies work I highly doubt this was some "rogue" low level employee.
When asked if looking at how AMD GPUs have aged, would he go back and change his review stance from recommending Nvidia he says no. He doesn't believe in advising users to buy products on the uncertainty of future promise. Nvidia offered better performance and power efficiency at the time of the review so he would stay with his recommendation.Not sure why you are using my post as an example of "defending Nvidia" since at no point I actually defended Nvidia, and even reiterated a couple of post later that they're acting like assholes and are terrible company when it comes to relations with just about anyone.
So you're arguing that the average PC user buys a new GPU every time a new model come out? Because I think that's completely wrong.
Someone else brought this up in this thread, but if media outlet that sells itself to their audience as being truthful and objective, and often makes videos showcasing how one old GPU architecture aged much better form the other thanks to specific feature set (like AMD supporting async compute while NV didn't), have no problems recommending GPU based on architecture that was outdated the day it released (say 5700XT) over GPU that's a more expensive, but it's going to have a far longer legs (say 2070 super) without clearly pointing this out, I think one could make an argument that they are not being completely fair towards a later product. And this is what people are actually discussing in this thread, whether HU was fair in their reviews of Nvidia GPU's (debatable), and whether Nvidia was justified in their reaction (it wasn't).
I'm pretty sure Gamers Nexus don't get free cards from NVIDIA either.
Nothing is preventing Hardware Unboxed from purchasing these GPUs.
They are not banned from anything. They just don't get free hardware in advance from NVIDIA any more.
They will still receive hardware from AIBs and access to pre-release drivers/materials.
If anything, this situation highlights exactly why independent reviewers should be purchasing the hardware themselves - to avoid a conflict of interest.
I don't plan on trawling through their videos to find it, but there have definitely been videos where they've said, to paraphrase: "we won't publish our findings now, but could, because we are not under embargo as we have sourced the hardware ourselves."This is incorrect on many levels. Would you care to provide a source for Gamer's Nexus buying their hardware? And then explain how they managed to produce full launch day reviews and subsequent tear down videos for 3080 and 3090 FE cards? I.e., cards that are not available for purchase until that day? Or how they purchased pre-release models of all those cases/aios/etc. they review?
At no point did I say that this is a good thing.Think about what you are advocatng for. In your world, we would only now be getting "independent" reviews for products that launched in September, and only as each reviewer managed to win the purchase lottery. If you actually wanted to see a review or benchmarks comparing different brands for the same card (you know, like any one of us who wanted to buy a 3080), you might be waiting until 2021. Embargoing reviews until launch day is already very anti-consumer; you are proposing a solution that is orders of magnitude worse. I can barely rationalize a company wanting people to buy their products sight unseen (barely, because why would they be afraid of reviews if the product isn't shit). I can't fathom why you think this is a good thing for consumers.
Just to be a bit more specific - though I did not want to go into details - it was a review of their flagship television at the time, which was shipped to me in advance of release.A Samsung blacklisting IMO is nowhere near as knee-capping, IMO, as a massive, brand new Graphics Card Launch from Nvidia.
YouTubers or "new media" have a tendency to want to stick together and defend anyone inside their own sphere.Also: HWU doesn't exactly have a super tight relationship with Jay and other channels, so the fact they're chiming in defending them actually says a lot IMO.
YouTubers or "new media" have a tendency to want to stick together and defend anyone inside their own sphere.
Linus in particular has blindly defended problematic people in the past because he seemingly felt obligated to, lest he allow a transgression against 'his' community.
They either don't include it in their benchmarks at all or include just a couple of games out of 30 or so released thus far. And while they do benchmark these three games they are constantly saying how it doesn't worth it in their opinion. This looks like ignoring it to me.
Them ignoring Cyberpunk would be quite a feat for sure. Thankfully they know how to do business and thus it didn't happen.
So how is it going so far? Have they already changed their opinion now as they don't have review samples from NV anymore?
And what is the problem exactly? Them not getting reference review samples means that their reviews will come out later than from those who will. That's a loss for both them and Nv.
I think that both parties are at fault for this situation but if someone wants to get mad at one commercial company cutting ties with another commercial company then it's their right of course.
I'm not talking about anything specific to the 30-series GPUs here though; and perhaps it's a mixture of both
To a degree it has been working for Nvidia. Even here we still have those talking nonstop about raytracing. I remember back when the 2000 series came out and how some tried to oversell it on the fact it does raytracing. On what, 2 titles with severe performance hits? Hardware Unboxed was making logical videos and because they were not promoting it like other fanatics do they get blacklisted. The irony is they were doing videos as Linus proved.
Glad to see this backfiring.
"Hardware Unboxed are AMD fanboys" - is this *really* the hill folks want to die on?
Both of these videos are very critical towards AMD, and they're far from the only on the channel.
I know that GN have said in the past that they sourced hardware independently pre-release rather than receiving it from vendors. But I do not recall the specifics of the video or what hardware it related to, and don't care enough to go looking for it.Yes, you literally were talking specifically about the 30-series GPUs. You said: "I'm pretty sure Gamers Nexus don't get free cards from NVIDIA either." The entire thread and issue is about Nvidia Founder's Edition GPUs. Gamer's Nexus clearly did not buy their Nvidia FE cards, directly contradicting your claim. Yet, by your own standards, they were able to provide fair reviews of those products. I'm in no way calling out GN - I agree they are independent and fair despite how the system works for these products. I replied because your comment was not accurate and your proposed solution does not solve the problems in a way that helps consumers.
Nvidia walked back on their decision but the damaged has been done. What a pointless circus.
Did anyone other than Nvidia make any FE boards for the 3000 series?I know that GN have said in the past that they sourced hardware independently pre-release rather than receiving it from vendors. But I do not recall the specifics of the video or what hardware it related to, and don't care enough to go looking for it.
I mentioned it here because I was under the impression that this was what they did generally, rather than it being a one-off thing, but it sounds like I could be wrong about that. I don't think there's a video specifically detailing how they sourced their 30-series cards, but I've not paid that close attention to their coverage either.
If it were not for the availability issues right now, consumers would be far better served by waiting for truly independent reviews before making a purchasing decision, rather than reviews rushed out to meet a deadline mandated by the hardware vendor, using hardware provided by them in advance.
That's not to say current reviews are invalid, but the current situation is far from ideal as it is.
Been subbed to HWU for awhile now. Bought a LG monitor based on their recommendation, and they weren't wrong It's a great monitor.
This whole PR shitshow will probably just end up giving them more subs, lol.
Not surprised by any of this, It's Nvidia after all.
To be fair I don't think they said they can't review Nvidia products, they just won't be receiving any from them.Really stupid and really shady. Reviewers should be able to review hardware as they see fit. Banning review cars for an outlet because they did not focus on a feature enough is ridiculous. Nvidia's actions on this cannot be defended.
Ya thats what I meant by the review cards, the ones sent earlier to the review sites.To be fair I don't think they said they can't review Nvidia products, they just won't be receiving any from them.
Still a pretty jackass thing to do, especially since it's not like these these guys are unknown.
I know that GN have said in the past that they sourced hardware independently pre-release rather than receiving it from vendors. But I do not recall the specifics of the video or what hardware it related to, and don't care enough to go looking for it.
If it were not for the availability issues right now, consumers would be far better served by waiting for truly independent reviews before making a purchasing decision, rather than reviews rushed out to meet a deadline mandated by the hardware vendor, using hardware provided by them in advance.
That's not to say current reviews are invalid, but the current situation is far from ideal as it is.
Well given how well my 2080's have aged, I can certainly understand why looking to RTX as a longevity feature is rather dubious at this point. From my perspective at least that's basically a reason to upgrade every time a new iteration appears if you value RTX features. It's a rather fast moving emerging tech. I don't expect my 3080 to hold up to the next major card release either. From a 2-3 years use perspective, I expect it to hold up great for... 1440p Rasterization performance.I think for HUB, what gave me this vibe was when I was watching the Turing and first gen Navi reviews contrasted against their ongoing coverage about old GPUs. They were consistently impressed with how certain AMD architectures had aged well over time, but in the reviews were basically nonplussed by the potential advantages of Turing's forward looking feature set - not just RT, not just DLSS, but also other DX12u features like VRS support or mesh shader support. It struck me as a bit incongruous to on the one hand care about the longevity of cards, but on the other to not pay that much mind to lacking major and minor next gen features on the AMD card.
I got the impression that if the shoe was on the other foot, they probably would have been making a bigger deal. I have no way to prove that obviously, and that's why I'm saying this is a "vibe", a subjective impression. Fast forward to recent coverage, they talk a lot about the VRAM advantage on the AMD cards. And yeah, that is something that might result in some better perf long term (or at least, maintaining some higher v-ram related settings long term), but that's being pretty selective about what you care about for longevity. Does dramatically better RT performance not mean anything long term? Did the total absence of several major and minor imminent next gen features not harm OG Navi in their eyes?
You could argue that it's actually just the case that they have a very specific view of which features they do and do not care about, and there's no contradiction, and that the features where they do care strongly about are ones where Nvidia is weak, and the features they don't care about are where Nvidia is strong. But it strikes me personally as very process-argumentey.
BruhNot sure why you are using my post as an example of "defending Nvidia" since at no point I actually defended Nvidia, and even reiterated a couple of post later that they're acting like assholes and are terrible company when it comes to relations with just about anyone.
So you're arguing that the average PC user buys a new GPU every time a new model come out? Because I think that's completely wrong.
Someone else brought this up in this thread, but if media outlet that sells itself to their audience as being truthful and objective, and often makes videos showcasing how one old GPU architecture aged much better form the other thanks to specific feature set (like AMD supporting async compute while NV didn't), have no problems recommending GPU based on architecture that was outdated the day it released (say 5700XT) over GPU that's a more expensive, but it's going to have a far longer legs (say 2070 super) without clearly pointing this out, I think one could make an argument that they are not being completely fair towards a later product. And this is what people are actually discussing in this thread, whether HU was fair in their reviews of Nvidia GPU's (debatable), and whether Nvidia was justified in their reaction (it wasn't).
Lol nope.Hopefully the community remembers this going forward, and keep an close eye on Nvidia from now on.
If only the same happened with games journalism and publishers. Quite a few outlets and YouTubers are blacklisted by publishers for "negative coverage"I am very impressed by the way that many PC hardware channels banded together and harshly criticized Nvidia until it was forced to walk back this ridiculous decision. They all exhibited exemplary journalistic integrity and respect for their audience. Well done.
And then I wrote "that said putting HU on blacklist for this is a really childish move on their part". I understand why they did this, but at no point I've said that I agree with, or approve what they did.Bruh
You literally went "Well I kinda get why NV would to this".
This warps back to my original point that HU panders mostly to a segment of the consumers that only care about here and now, which I believe is not representative of the community as a whole. Also, I would argue that something like mesh shaders or other DX12 Ultimate features are not "uncertain future promise".When asked if looking at how AMD GPUs have aged, would he go back and change his review stance from recommending Nvidia he says no. He doesn't believe in advising users to buy products on the uncertainty of future promise. Nvidia offered better performance and power efficiency at the time of the review so he would stay with his recommendation.
Agree.Wrt Nvidia, they have always been a terribly anti-consumer company. Some great products but everything about the way they choose to operate is just awful for the consumer. One of if not the worst offenders in the entire tech industry.
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.
Nvidia walked back on their decision but the damaged has been done. What a pointless circus.
If only the same happened with games journalism and publishers. Quite a few outlets and YouTubers are blacklisted by publishers for "negative coverage"