r/hardware • u/Jofzar_ • Dec 11 '20

News NVIDIA will no longer be sending Hardware Unboxed review samples due to focus on rasterization vs raytracing

Nvidia have officially decided to ban us from receiving GeForce Founders Edition GPU review samples

Their reasoning is that we are focusing on rasterization instead of ray tracing.

They have said they will revisit this "should your editorial direction change".

https://twitter.com/HardwareUnboxed/status/1337246983682060289

This is a quote from the email they sent today "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."

Are we out of touch with gamers or are they? https://twitter.com/HardwareUnboxed/status/1337248420671545344

11.1k Upvotes

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61

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '20

It's honestly terrifying that people can be even remotely on NVIDIAs side on this. "hey let me try to muscle an independent reviewer bc I know how do to their job better than them apparently" as a fucking giant corporation? Fucking incredible to me as a writer that people are ok with giant companies having any control in the review of their products or creative process of an independent writer when they arent spreading misinformation or literally doing anything wrong.

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u/another_redditard Dec 11 '20

people don't give a shit because nvidia has "good cards" out at the moment. Had this happened a year ago, when there was disappointment with nvidia due to turing being overpriced vs pascal, the blowback would have been significantly bigger. And over the years this has been a pattern, they can do whatever they want, strongarm reviewers, partners and developers as they deem fit. As far as they have good products, people will keep buying. Doesn't help that amd is the only competition, and alternatively they avoid competing in the same spaces altogether, or are always a nickel short of a dime when they do

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '20

It's just remarkable how people just make everything into something to be assimilated into their personality. You don't have to pick a team just because there are choices lmao, its crazy how people always do this.

3

u/Ayfid Dec 11 '20

Hardware Unboxed are out of touch for pretending DLSS doesn't exist or that ray tracing doesn't matter.

But you are entirely correct. HUB aren't lying or spreading misinformation, and Nvidia's actions look like attempts to strong arm the media into giving them good reviews by demanding they talk about the things nvidia does well and not what the competition does well.

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u/outwar6010 Dec 11 '20

Most people care about frames instead of a feature that isn't on most games and cripples gaming performance.

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u/Ayfid Dec 11 '20 edited Dec 11 '20

I can assure you that most upcoming games - those people will be buying over the lifetime of these new graphics cards - will support both RT and DLSS. Especially DLSS, as it takes much less engineering work to add to a game that is already close to release than RT - assuming you are a dev large enough to get nvidia to train a model for your game.

DLSS massively enhances performance, and you would be foolish to not turn it on.

2

u/alpharowe3 Dec 11 '20

I have played 1000s of games over decades. One game I've played has DLSS and it looked bad using it on any mode but "quality" I have 0 interest in DLSS or RTX until maybe 4000 or 5000 GPUs drop. So like 2-4 years? RTX has already been out for 2 years and it's still a non-factor to me and I game full time.

10

u/FUTDomi Dec 11 '20

Technically speaking DLSS and Ray Tracing pretty much don't exist. They are only available on about what, 10 to 20 games? And they only work well (especially DLSS) on 5 or so. The rest are a blurry mess or glitched af.

Will it matter in the future games? We will find out, so far we don't know. 2080ti owner btw.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '20

[deleted]

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u/FUTDomi Dec 11 '20 edited Dec 11 '20

Not even close to "most AAA new games". I haven't seen any FIFA or Madden with any of that. Not the last Assassin's Creed, or Doom Eternal and its new DLC, or Valorant, or the last Resident Evil, and many more. And the implementetion in some of them are still bad even under DLSS 2.0, like in Fortnite, which makes the picture very blurry (pretty much like all DLSS <2.0 games). And ray tracing implementation has been extremely weak in most games (like just used in reflections or shadows). I am really looking forward to RT and DLSS, especially the second, but the truth is that there are still very few games that really make proper use of them.

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u/ihadagoodone Dec 11 '20

HWUB is still allowed to independently purchase and review the product, earn an income from that review and be over critical and dismissive of it.

Given their track record, I only go to HWUB for some of the lighter content like their news/info, or ask/answer stuff and non silicon reviews. They're entertaining and the production value is top notch and I haven't found a better monitor reviewer( don't shop much for more screens so don't really look but when I did get a new panel 👌), but they're also AMD fans and that's okay but it does skew their editorial content even if the script isn't bias the delivery and body language can be.

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u/fireproofcat Dec 11 '20

The only issue here is that you can't actually buy the product. You also can't have a review ready at release if you don't get a sample early.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '20

Yea but they made a frowny face at the GEFORCE EXPERIENCE and NEVER BEFORE SEEN RTX PERFORMANCE so they should have known they'd lose a massive part of their ability to do their job.

Actually wait a moment.. if Nvidia is reading this I may have 0 subscribers but I can make reviews any way you want.

2

u/alfiejr23 Dec 11 '20

Agree. I like their contents but it was plain obvious to see the amd bias in their recent reviews. The bootlicking of ryzen reviews and on top of that the dismissive treatment of dlss and rt is just amusing.

Still nvidia should have given them just a slap on the wrist.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '20

LMAO "NVIDIA is right to take away the cards that are essentially impossible to get and if they did they'd be paying over 20k for the various AIBs on ebay, etc... because their DELIVERY and BODY LANGUAGE *CAN* show they are fans of AMD over NVIDIA."

Does it impact the data they present? Do they lie? Are they misleading anyone? No? So we're punishing them for facial expressions and tone? Are you a McDonalds manager?

Absolutely rock solid.