AMD Not providing R9 Nano samples to several sites.

While I agree that there are plenty of fanboyism when it comes to graphic cards, it's certainly no worse than what we see in other area of interest. Maybe it's just in our nature to be emotionally invested in stuff, from favorite brand to sporting teams.

Regardless, I really don't see what that has to do with hardocp as a PC hardware review site. It would be ridiculous for AMD to not send hardocp a review sample just because of what they see in the forum, and I certainly don't believe that's the case.
 
What bothers me most about this situation is it causes me even more distrust... I don't believe that there was such a limited amount of Nanos that AMD couldn't spare four or five more cards to send out to all the major review sites... So that leads me to believe either; A. AMD thinks several review sites are biased towards Nvidia, or B. AMD is only sending cards to sites they think will give them favorable reviews.

Neither of those bodes well for me, the consumer, who is just looking for as much in depth, unbiased information as possible so as to make an educated decision.
 
You know I was an AMD fan. I routed for the underdog. I thought AMD offered value and clean, honest business practices, even if they didn't always come out on top.

This release treats intelligent people like me, like chumps.

Am I taking this personally? Nah. It's a gaming card after all, not a heart pump. I kept waiting for the Hail Mary pass. NVIDIA needs price competition for the steaming piles crap known as nSync and Phys-X. But I am disappointed in a brand I championed. I expected more in terms of ethics.

I dunno if they were ever clean or honest in business practices but they offered good value for the money. However they keep pushing people away :( I never hated one side more than the other in the CPU or GPU market. I just bought the best I could afford and get away with.

My 5820 is the first Intel chip since the P3, simply because AMD had good chips at a great price. My AMD GPU fun appears to be running out as well after just two cards. Their loss not mine. I kept my 7970 as it is still decent and I was hoping these pending releases would give me something I wanted that would last several years but now I'm looking to next years 980 replacement for my money.

I really hope AMD can pull their heads out of their asses and put out some competition but after this many years of continual downward trending its hard to see the turn around.
 
Oh, I don't know about that. AMD seems to be fine with Roy running his mouth on Twitter, it may actually have been what he was specifically hired to do.
 
LOL @ all of the "[H] is nVidia-biased" arguments. There's a difference between being biased and reality being what it is...which is that AMD has been shitting the bed on both the CPU and GPU fronts for awhile now. My guess is these people claiming [H] is nVidia-biased haven't been around the site long enough to see times when AMD was ahead. Admittedly it has been awhile but it's happened before, and there was no bias then either.
 
What bothers me most about this situation is it causes me even more distrust... I don't believe that there was such a limited amount of Nanos that AMD couldn't spare four or five more cards to send out to all the major review sites... So that leads me to believe either; A. AMD thinks several review sites are biased towards Nvidia, or B. AMD is only sending cards to sites they think will give them favorable reviews.

Neither of those bodes well for me, the consumer, who is just looking for as much in depth, unbiased information as possible so as to make an educated decision.

I've always wondered exactly what goes into discussions of how many units of anything to give away to reviewers. Even on extremely limited stock items like the Nano it's interesting that AMD simply won't provide a few extra review units. To be honest when a company claims "there are a limited number of review units" or "Sorry, we don't have any left to give you" I always think it's code for "we don't trust you to give us the review we want so we're simply not going to provide you with one".

Oh, I don't know about that. AMD seems to be fine with Roy running his mouth on Twitter, it may actually have been what he was specifically hired to do.

Sure seems like it.
 
Oh, I don't know about that. AMD seems to be fine with Roy running his mouth on Twitter, it may actually have been what he was specifically hired to do.

He makes some pretty batshit crazy comments sometimes, im not sure thats helpful.
 
He makes some pretty batshit crazy comments sometimes, im not sure thats helpful.

Edit: Totally read your post wrong.

Yeah. Roy has been that way for a while. It's occasionally amusing to see him be blunt.
 
Alright I gotta know what TPU did to upset the AMD overlords. lol

If AMD is denying cards to sites they believe write unfair reviews, who's to say they aren't giving priority to sites who write favorable reviews? This shit is whack.
 
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Hard to be really impressed at a smaller card when the watercooled version was already pretty small.

IMO sucks they are dictating samples after [several and fair] past reviews of the fury and 390 coming up short.
On the other hand, nvidia would probably do the same thing if they were losing.

Can't really do anything about it, but you can decide not to purchase the product from being unsatisfied with how the situation is/was handled.
Situation is too similar to previews/reviews from videogame review sites or even youtubers.
 
Hard to be really impressed at a smaller card when the watercooled version was already pretty small.

IMO sucks they are dictating samples after [several and fair] past reviews of the fury and 390 coming up short.
On the other hand, nvidia would probably do the same thing if they were losing.

Can't really do anything about it, but you can decide not to purchase the product from being unsatisfied with how the situation is/was handled.
Situation is too similar to previews/reviews from videogame review sites or even youtubers.

Does not make sense to me. I could understand if the cards were in very short supply but according to Roy this is not the case.

When you're the underdog you'd think getting samples to as many sites as possible would be priority. More coverage cannot be a bad thing, unless the product is a total flop? I can see passing over obvious NV shill sites, but not those that have given you a fair shake in the past.
 
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Alright I gotta know what TPU did to upset the AMD overlords. lol

If AMD is denying cards to sites they believe write unfair reviews, who's to say they aren't giving priority to sites who write favorable reviews? This shit is whack.

Probably because they didn't give Fury X an "Editor's Choice" recommendation.

I'm actually curious to see if PCPer gets one. If they do I'm gonna lmao.
 
That made my jaw drop. What the hell is he doing?!


Not to sure if anyone at AMD has a clue at this moment, to be fair they have done it before even to [H] when they released a new Piledrivers cpu.

But someone at AMD must be smoking something if they are thinking that their position in today's market is due to unfair reviews.

Why can't someone at AMD PR find a better suited job like maybe door(wo)man, this is clearly not working for them.
Even with the best odds that all of the favourable reviews by all of the websites which get delivered a Nano (the product is pretty niche to start with) it won't be the sales beast that will make the bean counters smile...
Or is this just a good example of a company doing weird things out of desperation ?
 
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Not to sure if anyone at AMD has a clue at this moment, to be fair they have done it before even to [H] when they released a new Piledrivers cpu.

But someone at AMD must be smoking something if they are thinking that their position in today's market is due to unfair reviews.

Why can't someone at AMD PR find a better suited job like maybe door(wo)man, this is clearly not working for them.
Even with the best odds that all of the favourable reviews by all of the websites which get delivered a Nano (the product is pretty niche to start with) it won't be the sales beast that will make the bean counters smile...
Or is this just a good example of a company doing weird things out of desperation ?

To be fair, "smoking something" has always helped me think much clearer :p
 
If review sites are the new "old media" and youtubers and twitch streamers are the new "new media" (and I'd be inclined to say that's pretty much how it is now); I can't say I'm all too surprised to see AMD trying to capitalize on such a rapidly expanding market.

Not saying I agree or disagree with what they might be doing here, just saying I'm not surprised if this is their current mindset or strategy.
 
This is probably not a great time to work at AMD.

https://twitter.com/amd_roy/status/639930842727497728


Wow...

Now I really, REALLY hope [H] purchases a Nano to do a review. I'd like to see exactly what AMD is so concerned about.

I'm sure the cost of the card could almost be fully mitigated by selling it on the "For Sale / Trade" forum here.
 
If review sites are the new "old media" and youtubers and twitch streamers are the new "new media" (and I'd be inclined to say that's pretty much how it is now); I can't say I'm all too surprised to see AMD trying to capitalize on such a rapidly expanding market.

Not saying I agree or disagree with what they might be doing here, just saying I'm not surprised if this is their current mindset or strategy.

Is that twitch streaming where people beg all day to pay for a sub or ask you to donate so they can keep playing games, to make you feel "guilty" flash the donations with flashy graphics and quirky sounds to draw the attention that it is "normal" to be part of the "in crowd".

I'm wondering how that meeting at AMD went that someone did a google on AMD videos and Nvidia and decided that AMD needs to get in on the youtubers. Which of course do "anything" to generate money ......

In that area it is not uncommon to "force" good reviews , or just skip on the negative bits there has been a lot of that happening on youtube :) .
 
If review sites are the new "old media" and youtubers and twitch streamers are the new "new media" (and I'd be inclined to say that's pretty much how it is now); I can't say I'm all too surprised to see AMD trying to capitalize on such a rapidly expanding market.

Not saying I agree or disagree with what they might be doing here, just saying I'm not surprised if this is their current mindset or strategy.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a group of YouTubers get Nanos to review. A lot of the reviewers are aggressively positive and don't provide a lot of benchmark comparisons or in depth analysis. They just ramble on about how it is amazing AMD could fit such technology in a small card and tell everyone they played games with the card and it was amazing what it could do.

At this point, AMD is running out of good options. They know a lot of sites are going to shit on a $650 card that doesn't perform like the price. People have been fitting large GPUs into small chassis for a long time, the only market for the Nano is going to be the people that absolutely. Need a card that is 2.5 inches shorter than other options.
 
If review sites are the new "old media" and youtubers and twitch streamers are the new "new media" (and I'd be inclined to say that's pretty much how it is now); I can't say I'm all too surprised to see AMD trying to capitalize on such a rapidly expanding market.

Not saying I agree or disagree with what they might be doing here, just saying I'm not surprised if this is their current mindset or strategy.

I can understand that, but do people who spend a lot of $ on graphics cards really follow YouTube streamers and the like for hardware information though?

I can see reach on social media being more important in the low to mid range segment but people who are spending $600+ on cards, it seems like they would want more detailed analysis. Speaking for myself here, as someone who has always bought high end, I like reading the detailed reviews from [H], Anandtech, TechReport, etc...

The YouTubers are always light on details and it basically seems like they're just regurgitating AMD PR with a few benchmark numbers thrown in. I don't find most of their videos informative at all, they certainly don't sell me on a product costing $600+.
 
People with money to burn consume all sorts of information before making purchases. Sometimes that content is exclusively YouTube videos since that is their go to for pretty much anything. The same people watching YouTube for reviews may be in the same demographic of people that hurl money at Twitch channels. If those people have $100 to send to a Twitch streamer on a regular basis, they may easily have $650 for a GPU.
 
I can see reach on social media being more important in the low to mid range segment but people who are spending $600+ on cards, it seems like they would want more detailed analysis. Speaking for myself here, as someone who has always bought high end, I like reading the detailed reviews from [H], Anandtech, TechReport, etc...
.

I don't think they have an objection to review sites. There are many that are receiving them. There are a couple of things that AMD does have a valid point on. The first of which is having review sites give their opinion on the card, perf/$ and all without even testing it. If I saw that about a product that I was about to launch the first thing that would come to my mind would be "does he/she really need the product to review if they have already made their mind up about it?" Especially since companies have been charging more for big performance in small packages since forever. This shit ain't new and for anyone to pretend like it's taboo or it's never been done when we have products from phones to preassembled HTPC's and laptops that follow that same pricing structure is really not being that honest with themselves. [H] never really has been that much about small form factors but the others in your list most certainly have.

Now is $650 too much? Maybe/maybe not but from a professional standpoint it's best to say nothing and put that into a review then to go giving your opinion before reviewing it. That's an area where I'm sorry they have a right to be pissed and to do whatever they want as a result of it. I just think they could have handled it better. Instead of being bitches and withholding the hardware if it were me I would have done that and then released a press release detailing exactly why. AMD really needs to get a handle on their marketing department because some of the things they do or don't do really leaves one wondering if anyone is at home and I don't really even know why TPU didn't get one.
 
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If review sites are the new "old media" and youtubers and twitch streamers are the new "new media" (and I'd be inclined to say that's pretty much how it is now); I can't say I'm all too surprised to see AMD trying to capitalize on such a rapidly expanding market.

Not saying I agree or disagree with what they might be doing here, just saying I'm not surprised if this is their current mindset or strategy.

Both Linus and Jay have one so maybe that is part of it but given Roy's comments on Twitter there are probably other reasons as well.

I don't think they have an objection to review sites. There are many that are receiving them. There are a couple of things that AMD does have a valid point on. The first of which is having review sites give their opinion on the card, perf/$ and all without even testing it. If I saw that about a product that I was about to launch the first thing that would come to my mind would be "does he/she really need the product to review if they have already made their mind up about it?" Especially since companies have been charging more for big performance in small packages since forever. This shit ain't new and for anyone to pretend like it's taboo or it's never been done when we have products from phones to preassembled HTPC's and laptops that follow that same pricing structure is really not being that honest with themselves. [H] never really has been that much about that but the others in your list most certainly have.

Now is $650 too much? Maybe/maybe not but from a professional standpoint it's best to say nothing and put that into a review then to go giving your opinion before reviewing it. That's an area where I'm sorry they have a right to be pissed and to do whatever they want as a result of it. I just think they could have handled it better. Instead of being bitches and withholding the hardware if it were me I would have done that and then released a press release detailing exactly why. AMD really needs to get a handle on their marketing department because some of the things they do or don't do really leaves one wondering if anyone is at home.

After the Fury X and the Non-X AMD shouldn't be surprised if even some reviewers are really skeptical about the value of the card, especially when AMD themselves are calling it an underclocked Fury X.
 
After the Fury X and the Non-X AMD shouldn't be surprised if even some reviewers are really skeptical about the value of the card, especially when AMD themselves are calling it an underclocked Fury X.

Most products that go after small form factors are. As I said before this isn't new. Don't think so? Check out the prices for ULV laptops, or the BRIX. They are 3 and 4 times the cost (and usually perform worse) then their larger representatives. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
 
Honestly with how compact Fury X is already, AMD should've just scrapped the Nano, and use those cherry picked binned dies on the Fury X instead so it at least has a bit more legroom.
 
I feel like I must be getting old because I much prefer reading reviews to watching a YouTube video. For one thing, I can read faster than most people can talk, and a lot of tech journalists have obnoxious voices or mannerisms. Maybe that's rude or mean, but it turns me off from watching them.

And I can't get into streaming at all. I'd rather be playing the games myself than watching someone else play them.

I get that's where a lot of viewership is these days, but I somehow doubt the people willing to shell out $600+ for a top of the line GPU are the kids watching LoL on Twitch...
 
I feel like I must be getting old because I much prefer reading reviews to watching a YouTube video. For one thing, I can read faster than most people can talk, and a lot of tech journalists have obnoxious voices or mannerisms. Maybe that's rude or mean, but it turns me off from watching them.
Haven't you ever heard of Infotainment ?
 
I feel like I must be getting old because I much prefer reading reviews to watching a YouTube video. For one thing, I can read faster than most people can talk, and a lot of tech journalists have obnoxious voices or mannerisms. Maybe that's rude or mean, but it turns me off from watching them.

And I can't get into streaming at all. I'd rather be playing the games myself than watching someone else play them.

I get that's where a lot of viewership is these days, but I somehow doubt the people willing to shell out $600+ for a top of the line GPU are the kids watching LoL on Twitch...

It's not just you. Hell I'm not even 30 yet and I still feel the same way.
 
It's not just you. Hell I'm not even 30 yet and I still feel the same way.

The problem with that is that often, you need to see what is going on to disassemble things most often. Heck, even things you read come with pictorial examples of what is going on. It was much easier to watch a short video to configure the VPN on an RV320 than try to find instructions that at best is cryptic at times.
 
The problem with that is that often, you need to see what is going on to disassemble things most often. Heck, even things you read come with pictorial examples of what is going on. It was much easier to watch a short video to configure the VPN on an RV320 than try to find instructions that at best is cryptic at times.
Sure, in some cases it helps to have a picture reference - when I am working on my car, for example, I check out videos online so I get a better understanding of where the part I'm replacing is located, best angle to get to it, etc. Certainly we should be using the best medium for the task at hand. But reading GPU reviews, it's just a card that we install in a box under our desks. YouTube isn't a good medium for image quality because of compression and you can't accurately compare framerate unless you see it in person. I just personally find text easier to digest.
 
Sure, in some cases it helps to have a picture reference - when I am working on my car, for example, I check out videos online so I get a better understanding of where the part I'm replacing is located, best angle to get to it, etc. Certainly we should be using the best medium for the task at hand. But reading GPU reviews, it's just a card that we install in a box under our desks. YouTube isn't a good medium for image quality because of compression and you can't accurately compare framerate unless you see it in person. I just personally find text easier to digest.

For somethings Youtube reviews are fine but I agree for GPUs. Youtube GPU reviews tend to not be detailed enough and quite frankly I've yet to find any that do GPU reviews in a way that I like or find useful.
 
Sounds to me like the review sites that didn't get a review sample can just go out, buy one, and then rip it to shreds. Technically speaking, the Nano looks great. But not at $650. Fuck that noise.
 
Sounds to me like the review sites that didn't get a review sample can just go out, buy one, and then rip it to shreds. Technically speaking, the Nano looks great. But not at $650. Fuck that noise.
Of course :) There is nothing AMD can do if people post negative comments for products, especially if they have purchased them at retail.
 
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