NVIDIA Bans Reviewer for Concentrating on Rasterization Instead of Ray Tracing

You're right. There are a lot of those $499 3070's around also :rolleyes: . The one I ACTUALLY have in my computer right now cost me $609 for a "$499" card. The RX 6800 that I ACTUALLY have cost me $630 for a $579 card. For $20, the RX 6800 is a better card.
I mean if you go out and get a better deal on one vs the other I'm not sure how that changes what I said. If you can actually get a 6800 for the same price or even less than a 3070, I'm not sure why you would ever pick a 3070. Are you trying to say 6800s are easier to get?
 
Lol, you've obviously never watched GamersNexus. Steve will shit on anyone, at anytime, for just about any reason. He's probably the most thorough and complete reviewers that is around(for what he reviews). He's definitely not an "influencer" like Linus and Jay.

Just watched a GN video where Steve was interviewing Der8auer had him labeled as thermal paste sniffer under the video caption.
 
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I mean if you go out and get a better deal on one vs the other I'm not sure how that changes what I said. If you can actually get a 6800 for the same price or even less than a 3070, I'm not sure why you would ever pick a 3070. Are you trying to say 6800s are easier to get?

Anecdotally I have had zero luck getting FE cards of any variety but at least I did find a 6800 reference card. So maybe they are an easier reference card to find?

My point was that it is disingenuous to call out one set of AIBs over another when they are both well over MSRP. I don't think either company really wants to sell reference models at discounted prices or else there would be more of them available. To put it in perspective my 3060Ti AIB card was more than what the 3070 FE sells for. That's a hard pill to swallow.
 
Refer to the above quoted post of mine.

My post was about skewed/favorable reviews, not whether or not Nvidia was an asshole in how they handled it, nor about the usefulness or lack thereof of Raytracing.

My post was about skewed/favorable reviews, not whether or not Nvidia was an asshole in how they handled it, nor about what some youtube reviewers' viewers 'want'.

My post was about skewed/favorable reviews, not whether or not Nvidia was an asshole in how they handled it, nor whether or not the youtube reviewer covered Raytracing.

My post was about skewed/favorable reviews, not whether or not Nvidia was an asshole in how they handled it, nor whether or not the youtube reviewer covered Raytracing.

you are wrong, it wasn't about asking people to review all features, its about demanding focus on those features and not the much more relavent raster performance.

name one major group that didn't talk about dlss and rtx, yet nVidia felt compelled to be a shitheel anyway.
 
I mean if you go out and get a better deal on one vs the other I'm not sure how that changes what I said. If you can actually get a 6800 for the same price or even less than a 3070, I'm not sure why you would ever pick a 3070. Are you trying to say 6800s are easier to get?
Think he was just pointing put that MSRP right now is complete BS. The market sets the price... and considering where AMD has been for years the actual street price on these cards seems to be really really close.

The MSRP may be $80 more (which really double the ram and +10% raster not counting SAM if your building new... which I would suggest many in the market for a $500+ card probably are) street price is within a couple coffees either way. I have also seen the 6800s for less then 3070s... pricing is all over right now. However it seems to me the market is still putting the heavy premium on Nvidia product when you can find it. Yes AMD is getting bumped up 50-100 bucks as well... but man a lot of stores are listing 3070s for what should be 3080 pricing.

Giving Nvidia a "win" on bang for the buck when their cards are basically being universally bumped up one performance notch in terms of street price, seems out of touch to me. Yes 6800 is 20% more expensive in MSRP.... but real world street pricing is basically zeroing that out.
 
Detected a strong tone of arrogance from the email snippet. What I find troubling is the fact nVidia has punished an reviewer for, from what I understand, reviewing their card the way games are currently being played since not everyone has the performance overhead to fully support RT in all its glory. That said, I'd really like to know what the reviewer posted in a forum that would trigger nVidia to go off the deep end.
 
Detected a strong tone of arrogance from the email snippet. What I find troubling is the fact nVidia has punished an reviewer for, from what I understand, reviewing their card the way games are currently being played since not everyone has the performance overhead to fully support RT in all its glory. That said, I'd really like to know what the reviewer posted in a forum that would trigger nVidia to go off the deep end.
No punishment given, Nvidia apologized, we will see if Nvidia provides samples in the future. Time to move on I say. As for Nvidia, their behavior is rank systemic dealing with trying to control everything possible, I would say paranoid like -> my observation. Their products, software and even service are top notch so it is like a bitter pill being swallowed. A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde company.
 
Lol, you've obviously never watched GamersNexus. Steve will shit on anyone, at anytime, for just about any reason. He's probably the most thorough and complete reviewers that is around(for what he reviews). He's definitely not an "influencer" like Linus and Jay.
What are you talking about? I never mentioned GN at all, and I've seen plenty of their videos. They have also been blacklisted before for "shitting on anyone" as well, but since they get Patreon money they don't have to care about that. If anything that just proves my point, if you get funding elsewhere you can say whatever you want.
 
Think he was just pointing put that MSRP right now is complete BS. The market sets the price... and considering where AMD has been for years the actual street price on these cards seems to be really really close.

The MSRP may be $80 more (which really double the ram and +10% raster not counting SAM if your building new... which I would suggest many in the market for a $500+ card probably are) street price is within a couple coffees either way. I have also seen the 6800s for less then 3070s... pricing is all over right now. However it seems to me the market is still putting the heavy premium on Nvidia product when you can find it. Yes AMD is getting bumped up 50-100 bucks as well... but man a lot of stores are listing 3070s for what should be 3080 pricing.

Giving Nvidia a "win" on bang for the buck when their cards are basically being universally bumped up one performance notch in terms of street price, seems out of touch to me. Yes 6800 is 20% more expensive in MSRP.... but real world street pricing is basically zeroing that out.
MSRP is largely a marketing device now for cards. It's being used as a tool to get people in the door to pay street price, then common perception will adjust, then nVidia, AMD and AIBs will adjust actual prices upwards. Not sure why people still don't get this -- it's all part of the plan.
 
MSRP is largely a marketing device now for cards. It's being used as a tool to get people in the door to pay street price, then common perception will adjust, then nVidia, AMD and AIBs will adjust actual prices upwards. Not sure why people still don't get this -- it's all part of the plan.

I would like to see proof of your claim.
 
Have you looked at newegg for example, or the fact that it is literally a suggested price?

That is not proof of his claim. That is simply higher prices.
We've seen absolutely zero evidence that the OEM's, AMD, and NVIDIA have raised the MSRP of their cards.
 
That is not proof of his claim. That is simply higher prices.
We've seen absolutely zero evidence that the OEM's, AMD, and NVIDIA have raised the MSRP of their cards.
Manufaturer Suggested retail pricing, its right in the name 'nuff said.

Why do people take msrp as gospel? outside of the US it never has been, the price is always what the market will bear, and now that other countries are genuinely competing with the US as consumers it will change.

its a little early for amd and nvidia to be adjusting msrp, but if you realize that nvidia was initially discounting chips by $30 you can see where things are headed.
 
Steve will shit on anyone, at anytime, for just about any reason. He's probably the most thorough and complete reviewers that is around(for what he reviews). He's definitely not an "influencer" like Linus and Jay.
This should be a shirt that Jay and Linus sells, and send the proceeds to Steve.
 
That is not proof of his claim. That is simply higher prices.
We've seen absolutely zero evidence that the OEM's, AMD, and NVIDIA have raised the MSRP of their cards.
AIB direct-to-vendor prices have raised nearly categorically vs prior gens. These are incremental AIB prices to resellers, directly across model and chip line e.g. 2080 vs 3080 Gigabyte Gaming, and this is before resellers jack up prices further.

And remember, MSRP is an abstract concept at this point. The only tangible pricing is 1) wholesale/reseller prices and 2) street prices. While wholesale/reseller prices have marginally gone up this gen, street prices have risen drastically. As the market stabilizes and nVidia/AMD raise direct prices further, an equilibrium will form that ultimately establishes a new baseline price/psychological price threshold that is considerably higher than prior gens. All of this is, of course, in addition to and augments the long game nV has been playing for the past 5-6 years to drive up prices across the board.

From nVidia, AMD and AIB's perspective...
Screenshot 2021-01-04 113039.png

AI
 
I've said that all along. Nvidia's magical $699 price point for the 3080 was a complete illusion. Look at how many Ampere FE cards are available compared to Turing FE cards. It was all a psychological game after the fiasco of Turing's pricing.
 
This is opinion.

May currently be "popular" opinion, but opinion none the less.

You ignore the reason you are wrong to cherry pick a sentance, which only further proves you wrong.

You claim that nVidia only wants reviews to review all features, which they actually all did. Hence being wrong and ignoring why you are categorically incorrect in your defense of nVidia, that it is indeed not about reviewing all features, but promoting only features that support nVidia product performance.

So again, name one legitimate reviewer that did not talk about both DLSS and RTX. I'll wait.
 
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Just like GPP didn't go over well when it was brought up. People don't care and just want the best performance. They will bitch and moan and say they are AMD forever but end up buying the next Nvidia product. This like everything else will not hurt their bottom line.
I'm looking at my next card to be an Nvidia card (currently RX470 4GB, was 6670, and before that it was an GeForce 4 MX440) for one reason: CUDA and the lock-in that they have on the data science community, even the "open source" projects where "everyone can contribute" have actively refused to accept code that allows acceleration on non-CUDA platforms in the past. As far as I can tell, the situation still isn't much different.
https://towardsdatascience.com/on-t...g-outside-of-cudas-walled-garden-d88c8bbb4342

Everyone saying “this won’t go over well with enthusiasts” - I have to ask, how many of you guys switched to AMD after nvidia pulled the same stunt with [H] after the GPP nonsense?

because as near as I can tell everyone was upset about it but still buying nvidia anyways.
This would actually be rather interesting to investigate further. Maybe start a forum post with a poll that asks if people got upset at GPP and, if so, what was their next graphics card purchase brand.

Edit: Listed current and previous GPUs for clarification.
 
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Everyone saying “this won’t go over well with enthusiasts” - I have to ask, how many of you guys switched to AMD after nvidia pulled the same stunt with [H] after the GPP nonsense?

because as near as I can tell everyone was upset about it but still buying nvidia anyways.

The problem is nVidia solidily held the performance crown, and in duopoly a flub like GPP isn't enough to cause a switch.

Enthusiast by their nature want the best/fastest or darn near close, AMD was always a generation behind, now they have caught up. So yes, now I have switched to the 6900xt because it is both almost as good, and I am fed up with nVidia being a complete shit. Intel's getting the boot next in my system.
 
The problem is nVidia solidily held the performance crown
So they could have done as they liked, and they did. Now, IMHO, they still have the marketing inertia ("RTX ON!") amongst the less-technically inclined to still do whatever they want, at least for another two years or so I think.
 
So they could have done as they liked, and they did. Now, IMHO, they still have the marketing inertia ("RTX ON!") amongst the less-technically inclined to still do whatever they want, at least for another two years or so I think.

He was talking about enthusiasts. Plebs should be ignored until they can be converted into enthusiasts (that is a joke for the literalists out there).
 
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This should be a shirt that Jay and Linus sells, and send the proceeds to Steve.


I am a longtime viewer and recent Patreon supporter of GN,but,the last several months,Steve at GN has come off as a bit arrogant in his presentation. That said he is as close to a Kyle(Brutally Honest with gamers) as we are going to get in the techtuber space. Tim I really like,but Steve from HU I do not fully trust either. I would like to know what else led up to this email exchange between him and Nvidia marketing reps. All that said,I am glad he went public with this $ht Nv tried to pull,its not far off from what MSI tried to pull with that British techtuber GN came to defend.
 
So when is Nvidia just gonna stop looking to gaming influencers and move directly to crypto mining influencers....I quit watching these reviews until inventory is back in stock. why get all excited over something I cannot even purchase...and more importantlly paying no more than the listed MSRP.
 
You ignore the reason you are wrong to cherry pick a sentance, which only further proves you wrong.

You claim that nVidia only wants reviews to review all features, which they actually all did. Hence being wrong and ignoring why you are categorically incorrect in your defense of nVidia, that it is indeed not about reviewing all features, but promoting only features that support nVidia product performance.

So again, name one legitimate reviewer that did not talk about both DLSS and RTX. I'll wait.
Raster performance is important, but it is also good on EVERY CARD OUT THERE that is new, these days. It's great even going back a few generations.. 1080ti anyone?

480FPS1?!!? vs 495 FPS!! OMG IMPORTANT DROP EVERYTHING COVER THIS NOW NOW NOW!!

I never said the reviewer didn't cover it. Go back and reread my posts. Or keep replying shit that has already been covered in the prior 12 thread pages.
 
Raster performance is important, but it is also good on EVERY CARD OUT THERE that is new, these days. It's great even going back a few generations.. 1080ti anyone?

480FPS1?!!? vs 495 FPS!! OMG IMPORTANT DROP EVERYTHING COVER THIS NOW NOW NOW!!

I never said the reviewer didn't cover it. Go back and reread my posts. Or keep replying shit that has already been covered in the prior 12 thread pages.

and I quote: "Is it unreasonable to ask that a reviewer who is getting free product, review all of the features of said product?"

they did review all features, so try again with the gaslighting.
 
What is the purpose of hardware manufacturers giving these guys free hardware? Why are they no longer allowed to stop for their own reasons? I get its not great for consumers, but its odd.
 
What is the purpose of hardware manufacturers giving these guys free hardware? Why are they no longer allowed to stop for their own reasons? I get its not great for consumers, but its odd.
They don't have to give away hardware. But if nVidia is going to enforce that reviewers who receive hardware focus on positive and features that nV tells reviewers to cover, that's not an objective review, it's an advertisement.
 
What is the purpose of hardware manufacturers giving these guys free hardware? Why are they no longer allowed to stop for their own reasons? I get its not great for consumers, but its odd.

Free marketing essentially. Well, almost free. For the price of the GPU, they are guaranteed to reach at minimum the number of subscribers the Youtube channel has, and usually far more than that. An ad campaign that can reach that many people will usually cost far more than the cost of the GPU.
 
What is the purpose of hardware manufacturers giving these guys free hardware? Why are they no longer allowed to stop for their own reasons? I get its not great for consumers, but its odd.
Its not free hardware. Its hardware for review. No review no hardware. (no eyeballs to read the review also no hardware) Joe with 10 subs on Youtube doesn't get a free 3080 for review. However if your going to ask a reviewer to follow your script then "paid commercial program" should accompany said review. (in fact if it was a review on TV that would be the law)

Nvidia thinks they can treat reviewers like employees. If they want to do that fine... your right its their right to engage reviewers however they like and reviewers can take it or leave it. It isn't what any other company does, still it is their right. Of course if that is their public stance... then I think its fair to say any Nvidia launch day review should be considered complete horse shit.

Now review it and follow our script is NOT Nvidias public stance. Their public stance is they give early access to reviewers for impartial reviews so average consumers can choose to purchase Nvidia product. (which is what everyone says... and basically everyone but them acutally does).

At this point its clear Nvidia expects reviewers they deal with to follow their scripts... focus on their talking points... and in general talk up whatever Nvidia directs them to talk up. IMO Nvidia launch day reviews are suspect... and I don't trust pretty much any of them anymore. If they say X game runs at X frame rate I'm not sure I believe basically anyone that deals directly with Nvidia. How can you when something like this happens and basically every reviewer that has enough of a following to get away with it says... ya Nvidia is shit and they pressure you to cast their crap in the best possible light and will stoop to threatening to cut you off if you don't hail all their crap even if its something like RT which you can only test in a handful of games, or DLSS which only works properly in even fewer titles. Its funny how something like this happens and the "big" reviewers all have Nvdia horror stories about hours long pressure tactic phone calls and out right threats against their businesses if they don't go along.

For myself I take anything I read about any Nvidia wonder feature or driver feature ect ect with a massive grain of salt. To my eyes DLSS is obviously crap, and RT is pretty much a cool screen shot tech for now (even with 3000 class hardware). I would expect a reviewer to cover these things sure cause Nvdia is marketing them as major selling features. However if a reviewer tells me there must have features... I know instantly their paid advertising, and I treat it like I would a 80s infomercial. And ya DLSS is a miracle for gamers in the same way GLH hair in a can was a miracle for bald men.



Yes lol
DLSS is to gamers as
GLH is to bald men
 
and I quote: "Is it unreasonable to ask that a reviewer who is getting free product, review all of the features of said product?"

they did review all features, so try again with the gaslighting.
No, I completely agree with these statements.
 
you are wrong, it wasn't about asking people to review all features, its about demanding focus on those features and not the much more relavent raster performance.

name one major group that didn't talk about dlss and rtx, yet nVidia felt compelled to be a shitheel anyway.
I am not sure if focus on those feature over raster would make sense (that seem impossible most of the reviews of everyone was obviously raster performance, we are far away of RT only game to even exist)

My feeling they had a suggestion/mandate with the NDA to have something like this:
Always have DSSL/RT performance in your material, Hardware Unboxed created some material in which they compared cards without having the DSSL/RT numbers in their charts in them with dedicated video on those feature on the side, creating the situation of a customer consuming a review of an Nvidia card that didn't show the RT advantage over the competition possible and the DSSL advantage.
 
I am not sure if focus on those feature over raster would make sense (that seem impossible most of the reviews of everyone was obviously raster performance, we are far away of RT only game to even exist)

My feeling they had a suggestion/mandate with the NDA to have something like this:
Always have DSSL/RT performance in your material, Hardware Unboxed created some material in which they compared cards without having the DSSL/RT numbers in their charts in them with dedicated video on those feature on the side, creating the situation of a customer consuming a review of an Nvidia card that didn't show the RT advantage over the competition possible and the DSSL advantage.
Well HUB in fact did include RT numbers in every review video they have made. They had RT numbers in their launch day 3080... yes they released more detailed follow ups of RT performance for Watch Dogs and Cyberpunk after. (making their RT coverage border on overkill imo). Still their initial review had the exact right amount of RT coverage. They covered it with benches from the 2-3 games on the market that actually have semi decent RT implementations. (they didn't cover silly things like 24 year old games with RT mods) Nvidia was probably upset that the RT benchmarks where the last numbers they covered in their video... and HUB rightly didn't say look RT performance is up its a MUST buy. lol
 
Raster performance is important, but it is also good on EVERY CARD OUT THERE that is new, these days. It's great even going back a few generations.. 1080ti anyone?

480FPS1?!!? vs 495 FPS!! OMG IMPORTANT DROP EVERYTHING COVER THIS NOW NOW NOW!!

I never said the reviewer didn't cover it. Go back and reread my posts. Or keep replying shit that has already been covered in the prior 12 thread pages.

This is ridiculous to the point that it's almost hyperbolic.

My 1080ti has been a great card for years, but compared to a 3080 or 6800xt the difference in raster is 50-100 PERCENT.

We're taking going from 60 to 90-120 fps.

1080ti is roughly equivalent to 5700xt/2070 super, but there are still reviews that compare is directly.

https://www.thefpsreview.com/2020/11/18/amd-radeon-rx-6800-xt-and-radeon-rx-6800-review/4/

https://www.techspot.com/review/2017-geforce-1080-ti-vs-rtx-2070-super-vs-radeon-5700-xt/

https://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-rx-6800-xt-and-radeon-rx-6800-review_223774/3
 
Well HUB in fact did include RT numbers in every review video they have made
I could be looking too fast, but for example:


I just read the title of the tag and clicked a bit on the benchmark, I do no see one mention of DSSL, not one benchmark that compare the 3090 to the 3080/2080TI with RTX on, etc...

I imagine that it could have simply be, that not a product our target audience care about, we will not take time to seriously review it for games more than not wanting to specially talk of the extra feature for any particular reason, just save time.

When they compare particular model and not the initial launch review, they tend to also have skip dssl/RT benchmark, assuming the people watching already watched the FE review at launch and just interested in oc/noise between each model and expressing the difference in regular raster performance.

Cyberpunk they also splitted in 2 video with one that didn't show the RT/DSSL performance (but that was after Nvidia decision was made I would imagine anyway timing wise)
 
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