Anandtech calls it quits

polonyc2 said:
sad to see them go but they lost a lot of their main tech reviewers over the years and they didn't seem to be as relevant anymore...they should have tried to transition over to YouTube years back...seems like tech sites are all dying while video content is thriving...seems no one likes to read anymore
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Rev. Night said:
i mean i just skip to the graphs
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OMFG I hate video reviews.... I guess its a good thing all GPU's are essentially reference designs, and motherboards dont do anything more than provide sockets for things, really the CPU and GPU are the only thing that needs reviewed these days.

now i'm left with what; userbenchmark garbage?
 
travm said:
OMFG I hate video reviews.... I guess its a good thing all GPU's are essentially reference designs, and motherboards dont do anything more than provide sockets for things, really the CPU and GPU are the only thing that needs reviewed these days.

now i'm left with what; userbenchmark garbage?
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people seem to forget that a lot of YouTube videos nowadays have timestamps...so you can treat it the same way you do a text article by skipping over to the parts that interest you
 
travm said:
OMFG I hate video reviews.... I guess its a good thing all GPU's are essentially reference designs, and motherboards dont do anything more than provide sockets for things, really the CPU and GPU are the only thing that needs reviewed these days.
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Yeah, I can't stand video reviews either. I used to really enjoy reading reviews and articles on the [H], but I know what advertising money looks like these days. I think Kyle knew back then the choice was either turn your site into an infomercial or lose your shirt.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
I think Kyle knew back then the choice was either turn your site into an infomercial or lose your shirt.
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I didn't lose mine, though! (dog hair and all) :D

IMG_1614.JPG
 
polonyc2 said:
people seem to forget that a lot of YouTube videos nowadays have timestamps...so you can treat it the same way you do a text article by skipping over to the parts that interest you
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Still inefficient and crap versus written. People just have shorter attention spans nowadays that they have to be doing something else at the same time. God forbid anybody stops for 10 minutes to, gasp, read.
 
polonyc2 said:
people seem to forget that a lot of YouTube videos nowadays have timestamps...so you can treat it the same way you do a text article by skipping over to the parts that interest you
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Its not the same - occasionally there is specific technical things I want to know... I'm not interested in listening to some techtuber talk about it. Hate review videos. They're also almost always done on a limited budget, so the shootout comparisons just dont exist anymore. I'm trying real hard to not get ranty... i hate review videos.
 
Rev. Night said:
On a personal level, this sucks. They and Toms (back when Toms was good) were the go to sites that got me interested in computers. But the last decade or so has not been kind to them, with their gpu/cpu reviews increasing irrelevant. Still, it's a shame to see a titan go.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/21542/end-of-the-road-an-anandtech-farewell
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I stopped reading AT when 90% of their articles were reviewing mobile phones and Qualcomm processors. When phone innovation became more or less stagnant they’d already lost a good portion of readers for largely abandoning the PC enthusiast space.
 
polonyc2 said:
here's a good example...literally every single thing is timestamped...must be over 50 timestamps...


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlfTHCzBnnQ
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'kay. It gets you to the beginning of a topic. What if I want to ctrl-f something specific? Oh, can't do that.

What if I want to read faster? Oh, can't do that unless I speed up the playback which could start sounding bad, or just read the captions but why am I watching a video then?

What if I want to highlight, copy and paste to take a quote? Can't do that. Copy a chart? Have to snip a screenshot of the video.

It will always be less efficient.
 
NightReaver said:
'kay. It gets you to the beginning of a topic. What if I want to ctrl-f something specific? Oh, can't do that.

What if I want to read faster? Oh, can't do that unless I speed up the playback which could start sounding bad, or just read the captions but why am I watching a video then?

What if I want to highlight, copy and paste to take a quote? Can't do that. Copy a chart? Have to snip a screenshot of the video.

It will always be less efficient.
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the main problem with text reviews (especially the really long ones that are 15+ pages) is that most people just skip to the end- the Conclusion...I guess the same could be true of videos as well but you don't have to stare at your screen for 20+ minutes...you can listen to the video while working on something else...a main reason why audio books have taken off versus traditional text copies
 
Depends on the content. Plenty of written reviews have a ton of fluff just to make you stay on the page longer too.

I did read more of the review when I was younger and had more free time. I also feel like I did a TON more research before buying something then too. Probably the mcdonalds income had to be well spent.

Short and sweet and to the points works well in both video or written. Problem is, they have to pay bills and make money too.

The issue is, not enough people care about in depth reviews of hardware as they used to. And people want to spend the least amount of time as possible to get to a "this is good or bad" and want to pay nothing and have no ads shown to do so. This will never be a sustainable model for anyone.

Also written pages are so easily stolen and parsed to use elsewhere taking peoples hard work.
 
Airbrushkid said:
All these years I’ve never gone to their site. Just to many other ones.
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Would you mind listing some of the more popular sites. I did some quick searches recently and nothing really stood out. For me my top three favorites were Hardocp, Anandtech and Overclock.net. Two are now defunct and overclock hasn't been the same since they changed their forum layout.
 
samduhman said:
Would you mind listing some of the more popular sites. I did some quick searches recently and nothing really stood out. For me my top three favorites were Hardocp, Anandtech and Overclock.net. Two are now defunct and overclock hasn't been the same since they changed their forum layout.
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https://www.thefpsreview.com/

Some names might look familiar.
 
I haven't read an article there for a while. but I used too back in the day. Good times.
 
Armenius said:
Tom's is garbage. It is hilarious to me that this is the site they're pointing to for people who still want to read tech news.

Speak for yourself. I don't watch techtube videos. I hate watching idiots recite their scripts for 30-60 minutes when they could just publish them and let me read them at my own leisure.
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You Sir, for better or worse, are now in a minority. I'm not saying you're wrong, as few adults remain.
 
Print reviews would be better... but unfortunately there is basically Zero Money in doing that at this point... advertising revenue potential is essentially nonexistent.... This is why everything that should be a 2min skim to see if it is worth while to read the whole thing is now a 30Minute YouTube video..... because Video's pay the bills text reviews do not.
 
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I am also a former Anandtech reader.

While HardOCP was my primary site, I'd occasionally read both Anandtech and Toms hardware (way back when they were good).

But, as far as I am concerned, Anandtech has been a shell of its former self since Anand left for Apple back in 2014, and sold off the site. Since then the good reviews slowly died off and were replaced by copy & paste industry press releases.

It's probably good that the zombie corpse of once great Anandtech was finally put to rest.

I always throught of the "big three" tech sites as:

  • Toms Hardware
Pretty good back in the day. I particularly enjoyed the collaboration with HardOCP on the 1.16Ghz Pentium III fiasco in 2000. The site - however - started going downhill as soon as Dr Pabst himself moved on in 2001. They did some OK content for a couple of years there, but then completely went to shit.

  • Anandtech
As previously mentioned, pretty good site from its founding all the way until 2014 when it completely fell apart under the new ownership pf Purch (the same company that owned Toms Hardware. I always wondered for how long they planned on operating two parallel tech review sites in a shrinking industry (traditional web review sites)
I'm the 2010-2014 era Anandtech was the best site out there for SSD reviews, IMHO.

  • HardOCP
I don't need to tell any of you here about HardOCP. Loved the site and its reviews for always speaking its mind, even when that meant offending sponsors and attracting lawsuits. Its too bad Kyle decided it was time to move on back in 2017, but I understand why he did it. Among advertiser consolidation, web adblockers, and all content and money moving to YouTube, it was becoming increasingly impossible to make the money side of things work for traditional websites. It really is a shame.



I still would prefer the traditional tech review website over the modern YouTube "influencer" nonsense, but there are a couple who still do a decent job and are not just "influencer" sellouts. I'd rank GamersNexus at the current top. TechJesus Steve is really doing what Kyle used to do (but with a completely different aesthetic). The whole "no fucks given, I'm going to tell the truth and take on the powerful in the industry" has always been my favorite. GamersNexus also posts their reviews and pieces as web articles now, but sadly this is mostly just for posterity. I'd choose to read them instead of watch the Youtube nonsense, but unfortunately by the time they go up, they are already "old news".

Wendell over at Level1techs has slowly grown to become another favorite of mine. Yet another completely different vibe, but similar "no fucks given, lets see what the data says" approach. And he runs separate mainstream and linux channels, and even has a website and a webforum (albeit with some really shitty forum software with terrible usability) and sells KVM Switches in his store for some reason, which I guess is cool.

Of course, got to mention the (many ex [H]) good folks over at TheFPSReview as well, who are fighting the good fight and trying to make the good old review website with forum model work. They put out good content, and even still have Tsing posting news. The forum has very much of a "small old hardforums" vibe.

While there is a lot of utter garbage out there in our modern Youtube era, that doesnt have to mean it is ALL trash.
 
John Ransom said:
I got to be honest, I took them out of my list probably 10 years ago or so when, if i remember correctly, there was a political screed in an intel article. I don't really remember the details. That being said, still sorry to see them go. I'd rather bought and paid for press go down.
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Their forums have been great for 20 years, tech wise. Though I would say that the busiest part of the forums for many years has been the political sub forum. Sad to see them go, hopefully the forums stay up for awhile at least.
 
OKC Yeakey Trentadue said:
Yeah kind of the problem. Everyone today wants their pretty graph dopamine rush. Guess it's a reflection of the dumbing down of society.
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Not the problem at all. I don't need to reach 20 pages of text to look at a graph and determine for myself if product X is better than product Y.
 
I hit the site up a lot many years ago. I can't remember why but they did something like 4-5 years ago that made me stop using their site. I think they had a really stupid take on something anti-consumer or something that I completely disagreed with. Dunno, but a while so I don't remember.
 
Another one down, here and anand were the 2 go to sites for reviews for me for years. :oops:
 
Can't say I did not see this coming over six or seven years ago... The derivations in the GPU market since mining very much exacerbated the monetization issues and the "tech journalism" business model overall.
 
Rev. Night said:
Not the problem at all. I don't need to reach 20 pages of text to look at a graph and determine for myself if product X is better than product Y.
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To each their own. I personally like to dig into the nuisances of tech and the direction of the industry rather than the endless march for 'new part make fps go brrrr'.
 
NightReaver said:
'kay. It gets you to the beginning of a topic. What if I want to ctrl-f something specific? Oh, can't do that.

What if I want to read faster? Oh, can't do that unless I speed up the playback which could start sounding bad, or just read the captions but why am I watching a video then?

What if I want to highlight, copy and paste to take a quote? Can't do that. Copy a chart? Have to snip a screenshot of the video.

It will always be less efficient.
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use the transcript button.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I'd much rather read an article, skip around, etc. than listen to someone blather on and on or go on some personal anecdote for a few minutes. I like to get to the meat and potatoes and straight to the point. I don't care about their dog, how they dropped a screw 8 years ago, or whatever else they want to go on about. Give me the details, I'll click the pages that are relevant to me and read those parts. [H] reviews were the best with that. You didn't get dumber, you actually learned a thing or two (and not about some YouTubers personal life, which I don't care about). I love YouTube and a lot of technical stuff, but it's more about the documentary style not the reviews style. "Hey guys! Make sure to slam that like and subscribe button! Here's a word from our sponsor! HAHAHA Did you see my dogs?!".

I can count on one hand how many times I've visited Anandtech. Nothing against the site, it just wasn't very appealing to me. Just found others more interesting. Definitely was informative when I did visit, but it just lacked something for me personally. Still, after Anand left, I rarely heard of them anymore.
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The thing is that makes you a dinosaur.

Personally, I don't get it of why people prefer videos. They're far less convenient. It's as if people have an innate tendency to want their time wasted.
 
Nytegard said:
The thing is that makes you a dinosaur.

Personally, I don't get it of why people prefer videos. They're far less convenient. It's as if people have an innate tendency to want their time wasted.
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I'm fine with being a dinosaur. I'll toss on my 1.5x reading glasses and read all day long. Tablet, PC, laptop, physical book... If it's a GOOD book, it'll be physical. But, watching a video for what I feel works best as written word and images? Nah. Some things are EXCELLENT as videos (watched one on how to replace the head gasket on a 98 Civic and it was 100% spot on, perfect narration, and just a great use of my time), but too many contributors are just long winded and can't get to the damn point. I feel the same way about cooking blogs. I did see one that was great that had a link at the top "Just take me to the recipe". :) I know people like that, and it's exhausting. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I just want to get to the point of what's going on, not a long leadup with a lot of other filler instead of the actual content. Even on a website I have trouble with it. I know I can be long winded at times, but not like that...
 
Maybe I'm just getting up there in my years, but I always preferred reading an article, as opposed to listening to someone trying to sensationalize or demonize something with emotional vocal statements.

Yes, yes, I know that personal bias will still show up in the written articles, but when you can easily see the methodologies, and look at them with an informed mind, the bias is easy to see.

For me, [H]ardOCP, Anandtech, Guru3D, Johnnyguru, and Ace's Hardware were all part of my viewing routines a long time ago, when it came to hardware reviews. I never really did like Tom Pabst's stuff, and to be honest, anything that was on his site was on the other sites in some way as well.

I haven't been to Anand Shimplai's tech site in quite a while, since I can find all of the information I need regarding computer hardware on these forums, and I know who I can trust over here.

As a guilty pleasure, I did occasionally pop up in the forums anonymously, just to see some of the rantings by people who were banned from this community. The "I Hate Kyle Bennett!" posts were quite entertaining, to say the least, and gave me a pretty good insight into some aspects of their psychology. :)
 
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