Your Feedback On The Use of EVGA's GeForce GTX 460 FTW in Last Night's Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 22, 2010 5:55 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Last night we published our Radeon HD 6870 and 6850 review. In it we made a decision to include a factory overclocked GeForce GTX 460 from EVGA (the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 FTW). For those who aren't aware, NVIDIA has allowed a number of its partners to ship GTX 460s at higher than stock clock speeds. A practice that has been done in the past. The cards are available in retail with full warranties.
A number of you responded in the comments to the article very upset that we included the EVGA card. Even going as far to accuse us of caving to NVIDIA's pressure and demands. Ryan and I both felt it was necessary to address this front and center rather than keep the discussion in the comments.
Let's start with the obvious. NVIDIA is more aggressive than AMD with trying to get review sites to use certain games and even make certain GPU comparisons. When NVIDIA pushes, we push back. You don't ever see that here on AnandTech simply because I don't believe this is the place for it. Both sides (correction, all companies) have done nasty things in the past but you come here to read about products, not behind the scenes politics so we've mostly left it out of our reviews.
NVIDIA called asking for us to include overclocked GTX 460s in the 6800 series article. I responded by saying that our first priority is to get the standard clocked cards tested and that if NVIDIA wanted to change the specs of the GTX 460 and guarantee no lower clocked versions would be sold, we would gladly only test the factory overclocked parts. NVIDIA of course didn't change the 460's clocks and we ended the conversation at that. We gave NVIDIA no impression that we would include the card despite their insistence. The decision to include the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 FTW was made on our own entirely.
We don't like including factory overclocked parts in our reviews for reasons we've already mentioned in the article itself. This wasn't a one off made for the purpose of reviewing only, it's available from online vendors and a valid option from a price comparison. Furthermore it presented us with an interesting circumstance where the overclock was large enough to make a significant impact - the 26% overclock pushed the card to a performance level that by all rights could have (and should have) been a new product entirely.
From my standpoint, having more information never hurts. This simply provides another data point for you to use. We put hefty disclaimers in the article when talking about the EVGA card, but I don't see not including a publicly available product in a review as a bad thing. It's not something we typically do, but in this case the race was close enough that we wanted to cover all of our bases. At the end of the day I believe our conclusion did just that:
At $179 buy the 6850. At $239 buy the 6870 for best performance/power. If you want the best overall performance, buy the GTX 470. However, as long as they are available the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 FTW is a good alternative. You get the same warranty you would on a standard GTX 460, but you do sacrifice power consumption for the performance advantage over the 6870.
We were honestly afraid that if we didn't include at least a representative of the factory overclocked GTX 460s that we would get accused of being too favorable to AMD. As always, this is your site - you ultimately end up deciding how we do things around here. So I'm asking all of you to chime in with your thoughts - how would you like to handle these types of situations in the future? Do we never make exceptions even in the case of a great number of factory overclocked cards being available on the market? Do we keep the overclocked comparison to a single page in the review? Or does it not matter?
And if you're worried about this being tied to financial gain: I'll point out that we are one of the only sites to have a clear separation of advertising and editorial (AnandTech, Inc. doesn't employ a single ad sales person, and our 3rd party sales team has no stake in AT and vice versa). The one guarantee that I offer all of our writers here at AnandTech is you never have to worry about where your paycheck is coming from, just make sure you do the best job possible and that your conclusions are defensible.
If we've disappointed you in our decision to include the EVGA FTW in last night's review, I sincerely apologize. At the end of the day we have to maintain your trust and keep you all happy, no one else. We believed it was the right thing to do but if the overwhelming majority of you feel otherwise, please let us know. You have the ability to shape how we do things in the future so please let us know.
Whether you thought it was an issue or not, we'd love to hear from you. I do appreciate you reading the site and I want to make it better for you in the future.
GP
Take care,
Anand
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interox - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
Touring cars, you know the ones that race. Comparing those to the cars you or I drive is not the same. The same applies to gpu's. Got to be like for like or its just not a fair comparison.jwaight - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
I thought you stated your position clearly in the article, and the matter was settled. The way you did things up to this article were fine. No need to change.pmonti80 - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
If you act as you have done, including normal cards in addition to overclocked cards I think no change is needed.The only problem I have is when sites put overclocked cards and no reference cards in new card reviews citing price reasons (techreport I'm looking at you).
anthonywoy - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
I have been a reader of this side for many years and was very disappointed buy the inclusionof the 460 OC. You should of followed your own editorial advice and left if out of the review.What a horrible precedent is being set. "When launching a new video card, make sure you have a OC version to look good". If I was AMD or Nvidia I would have a highly overclocked version of the card included in any new launch to make sure I look as good as possible.
I hope when they 580 launches, you include a highly overclocked 6970 (or make sure you bench the 6970 against an OC 480) Do you see where this leads?
Have a few thousand of these cherry picked cards at launch, and a week later show that they are "back ordered' and then a month later discontinue them. Which gpu maker could resist?
Which overclocked card are you going to include? How much volume do you need to have to include it? 1000 cards, 50? Where do you draw the line?
Nothing is wrong with OC cards, but the should be included in a separate, follow up article, not in the lauch article.
Shame on you Anandtech readers for giving approval for such practices. While we are at it, we might as well let Intel OC a cpu when AMD lauches their next architecture.
Antah Berantah - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - link
When amd launched their six cores cpu, I choose to buy i5 760 instead of 1055T because I know the former can be overclocked to 4,4 ghz on air and outperform the latter at its best overclocked clock. That exactly what Ryan tried to tell in his article.onewingedangel - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
As a stock clocked card was tested as well, I honestly don't see the problem.Of course you could overclock the stock clocked cards (both nVidia and ATI), but that is at your own risk, and overclocking is at the end of the day not the product as sold.
What is missing though is a max overclock result for the stock clocked cards (with the obvious milage-may-vary disclaimer) to understand just how much potential headroom there is in each chip.
mapesdhs - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
"As a stock clocked card was tested as well, I honestly don't see the problem."Indeed, I agree. But it seems an awful lot of people didn't see it, presumably because
they didn't want to. Good ol' Wizard's First Rule again...
Ian.
krumme - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
Here is my take on it, also posted in the forum:......
We can argue back and forth. And there is advantages and disadvantages for this single review.
What stands as a fact is the wider consequences if this becomes new practice:
1. Nvidia and AMD will make further pressure to the review sites on launch day to use:
A. special oc cards
B. Specific games
C. Specific methology
2. If they succed, it will blur the decisions for the consumers - its the purpose of the actions of the marketing department. They will select the wrong cards for their needs.
3. NV and AMD will dedicate more ressources at marketing instead of engineering, to make all this happen.
4. The end results will be slower cards for all.
5. A second effect will be an eroding of the PC platform for gaming.
What Anand have to do in my oppinion is:
1. Have separate articles for oc vs non oc cards. Prefareble keep apples to apple comparisons here.
2. Publicly state the testing methology for the cards separate from the testing, keep to it as long as possible, and never ever change methology at launch times. Do it before, so testing history is intact.
3. Change to a more modern methology showing real framerates in the game, min. max. average, over a time period that stresses the card. Giving advice like Hardocp, how the card supports different settings.
4. Validity of the site is vital. Anandtech should publish information from AMD, Nvidia and Intel publicly, and the answer to it. Then the readers can decide from themselves. Its naive to think anandtech can separate politics from benchmark methology. If someone have something to hide, it should be know publicly. I have no doubt Anand have the power to introduce such politics.
Anand should take the lead. Tell the companies who is in charge, and let us know.
As a sidenote: what would have happened if years back, anand had told NV to take all their agressive marketing a put it up their xxx? - instead what happens is this mess. What anand does have big effect on the companies, their strategy, and the future development. Its a responsibility Anand should take more care about today. Anand is not a small reviewer anymore, its a significant player.
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Its not easy to be a reviewer and all can make mistakes. And this is one of them. Just say it probably was the wrong decision, and bet back in the game with an even better review ! :)
krumme - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
"NVIDIA called asking for us to include overclocked GTX 460s "Okey. They call. You want NV to call in the future?, or do you want them to write?
Did AMD call? - what did they say?
Do we want a future where there is a lot of calling?
This is not good. Defend your integrity. Defend your position and independency Attack NV when they do so, make a transcrip and put it on the frontpage.
B3an - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
What? Completely wrong, all of you. There was absolutely NO review of the EVGA GTX 460 FTW in the 68xx review. The card was simply included and mentioned on a single page because it's a close contender, and something you can buy for the same sort of price. Infact i can often find it cheaper than the 6870 even though the EVGA is overall atleast as fast, so having them both in the review was completely relevant and should have been done. It was clearly pointed out multiple times that it was an OC'ed card and was even downplayed because of that fact.When most people are in the market for buying a card, it does not matter if it's OC'ed or not, it's about performance vs money, and for that fact alone it was right to include the EVGA card. Basic logic.