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Anandtech.com is gone

Meh.

Anandtech ceased to be decent years ago when Anand left to go work for Apple.

Pretty much any content that was on the site was either newly created and garbage (mostly copy and pasted press releases from hardware vendors) or so old as to no longer be relevant.

Back before Anand left they used to have the best SSD reviews in the game though. I'll always miss those.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Meh.

Anandtech ceased to be decent years ago when Anand left to go work for Apple.

Pretty much any content that was on the site was either newly created and garbage (mostly copy and pasted press releases from hardware vendors) or so old as to no longer be relevant.

Back before Anand left they used to have the best SSD reviews in the game though. I'll always miss those.
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Its still sad to see all the legends leave. Toms, Anand, Hardcop. Most have a max 2 minute attention span now so the click baiti short format videos are the only things profitable.
 
OKC Yeakey Trentadue said:
Its still sad to see all the legends leave. Toms, Anand, Hardcop. Most have a max 2 minute attention span now so the click baiti short format videos are the only things profitable.
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That is their loss, but it is too bad they drag down the rest of us with them :/

Though if you ask Kyle he'll tell you that was always the case. They apparently did some testing on articles, and it turned out everyone skipped over all of the detailed content, and went straight for the performance charts and conclusions. I forget which thread he was talking about that in. Maybe I can find it.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That is their loss, but it is too bad they drag down the rest of us with them :/

Though if you ask Kyle he'll tell you that was always the case. They apparently did some testing on articles, and it turned out everyone skipped over all of the detailed content, and went straight for the performance charts and conclusions. I forget which thread he was talking about that in. Maybe I can find it.
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Humans like bigger and better numbers, always have, always will. Best of the best n all that crap. Most people just want the best thing they can afford and don't care if an article took weeks or even months to put together. I can see how that mindset works, but also there's certainly been times where there's been a CPU or water block refresh and all I care about is "is it better", and not "why". Incremental updates to me aren't really noteworthy anymore and I for the most part don't care about 1% results or even benchmarks. But winning benchmark races sells product, even though they aren't a true reflection of real-world performance.

I miss reading [H] articles, and every other publication that's fallen by the wayside, but that's industry. You either make the deal with the marketing devils or you get pushed out.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Though if you ask Kyle he'll tell you that was always the case. They apparently did some testing on articles, and it turned out everyone skipped over all of the detailed content, and went straight for the performance charts and conclusions. I forget which thread he was talking about that in. Maybe I can find it.
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I definitely have done that. The first thing I did was skip over everything and get to the charts and conclusions, then go back later for the details. And if I was planning a new build or purchase, I might not even go back and read the details cause I'd soon have the item in question. When I think about it, it is kind of weird, because if I read a book, watch movie or even play a game, I am so dam strict about not seeing spoilers you'd think the same would apply to hardware reviews, but I guess the mindset is different.
 
Man, getting a nostalgia hard-on.
The Hardware Group / Overclockers mailing lists, HardOCP, Anandtech, Sharky, Thresh, StorageReview, BluesNews (still around), VoodooExtreme, etc.
BlueSmoke
 
I finally noticed they removed my moderator privileges on the forum the last time I logged in. Man that place was a cesspool of trolls. Some good folks though but a lot of those good members are here too.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That is their loss, but it is too bad they drag down the rest of us with them :/

Though if you ask Kyle he'll tell you that was always the case. They apparently did some testing on articles, and it turned out everyone skipped over all of the detailed content, and went straight for the performance charts and conclusions. I forget which thread he was talking about that in. Maybe I can find it.
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That's no different than I see in my metrics - MOST traffic goes from page 1 to conclusion page, sometimes the next to last page. I'd say benchmark pages get 20-30% of the views compared to introduction/first pages. That's why the conclusion page restates all of the performance in the charts.... otherwise, people don't seem to understand that performance was actually tested....
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That is their loss, but it is too bad they drag down the rest of us with them :/

Though if you ask Kyle he'll tell you that was always the case. They apparently did some testing on articles, and it turned out everyone skipped over all of the detailed content, and went straight for the performance charts and conclusions. I forget which thread he was talking about that in. Maybe I can find it.
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All the network testing, drive controller testing, DPC latency testing and things like that were the longest and hardest content to write in the motherboard reviews and no one read it. We used the same format initially on TheFPSReview. Guess what? No one read that stuff.
 
Dan_D said:
All the network testing, drive controller testing, DPC latency testing and things like that were the longest and hardest content to write in the motherboard reviews and no one read it. We used the same format initially on TheFPSReview. Guess what? No one read that stuff.
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What have we become? 😞
 
I will say that the shorter formats are a lot less work to produce. The old school [H]ard|OCP reviews were 25-30 hours worth of work per article and more if something went wrong or you had weird anomalies during testing that you had to figure out.
 
Dan_D said:
All the network testing, drive controller testing, DPC latency testing and things like that were the longest and hardest content to write in the motherboard reviews and no one read it. We used the same format initially on TheFPSReview. Guess what? No one read that stuff.
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I think there are some who still appreciate that sort of thing. While I think its normal for people who aren't the most absolute hardcore of the [H] to want to look at general overviews and conclusions, the methodology and details that support it are important in establishing credibility. Even if not everyone reads all of the minutia, when there are issues of contention within or between communities over who does the "best reviews", this is the kind of thing that separates the high quality work from surface-level near advertisement, and people will begin to gravitate to sites that are willing to go the extra mile and have good methodology. Ideally, if this is combined with an independent, reader/community first ideology that is willing to spit in the industry's face when it does something shitty instead of just writing puff pieces and advertorials - even when doing so means potential friction and loss of free/early review samples et al (Something that [H} went through on several occasions I remember) - then by proving this reliability readers will make the site one of their favored reviewers.

Speaking of some other OG review sites, I remember JonnyGURU was noteworthy for their in depth PSU reviews and analysis, going far deeper into the weeds than most at the time and since. As I recall he ended up being hired by...Corsair?...for his expertise so I can understand the site closing, but his reviews became a focal point for making decisions for PSUs even if not every user was reading ever bit of every test. However, highly technical users and those on other sites who could verifyh is methodology would be able to put JonnyGuru's PSU analysis saying the latest big name wiz-bang thing was an overpriced dud next to a flowery language puff piece from elsewhere basically repeating the specs off the box and calling it the best thing ever, show the contrast, and have a strong case for why Jonny's assessment was the correct one.

This not only enhances the community, but indicating that those who do the work well and prove themselves reliable builds and identifies a standard of credibility. Over the past 10-15 years or so we've seen the effects when credibility and interest is given to those who seek "engagement" instead of demonstrating consistent proficiency and user/community focus, so I can appreciate those who put in the work in the 'old way' even more.
 
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I look back on the 2008-2012 time pretty fondly when forums and sites like this we're alive and thriving. I always enjoyed reading and participating in this and a few other forums. Now this forum is the only one I still visit and most of the time I'm just checking the political memes thread.

I remember when Mass Effect 3 came out and we had a big thread here talking about the game, coming in with strategies, theories etc. Yeah those were the days.

Another cool memory, about 2010 I went to Best Buy to buy a new power supply. I posted a question here about the Corsair TX750 when I hit the parking lot. By the time I'd made it into the store I had several replies vouching for it including once from a Corsair rep that was a member here lol....
 
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Dan_D said:
All the network testing, drive controller testing, DPC latency testing and things like that were the longest and hardest content to write in the motherboard reviews and no one read it. We used the same format initially on TheFPSReview. Guess what? No one read that stuff.
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To be fair, there wasn't much difference in network or drive controller testing after a certain point. In the case of network testing the biggest difference was the CPU usage and by the time of multi-core CPUs the usage was already a really low % of CPU usage and adding in extra cores to be offloaded onto made it basically irrelevant. Storage controller testing was also basically moot at around the same point.

DPC latency testing was a different story. That is still an issue today and it was something I would look at.

For the most part I would read basically the whole article for things like CPUs, motherboards, RAM and video cards with the exception of the testing hardware and things of that nature. It's good the extra stuff was there for reference but not of great importance to me most of the time especially since [H] was trustworthy. I didn't need to scrutinize certain things simply because [H] could be trusted not to screw up or mislead. That wasn't the case for a number of other sites. I've seen some wildly different hardware configurations in testing setups over the years from various sites. Differences large enough to make the comparison testing completely and totally worthless.
 
SmokeRngs said:
To be fair, there wasn't much difference in network or drive controller testing after a certain point. In the case of network testing the biggest difference was the CPU usage and by the time of multi-core CPUs the usage was already a really low % of CPU usage and adding in extra cores to be offloaded onto made it basically irrelevant. Storage controller testing was also basically moot at around the same point.

DPC latency testing was a different story. That is still an issue today and it was something I would look at.

For the most part I would read basically the whole article for things like CPUs, motherboards, RAM and video cards with the exception of the testing hardware and things of that nature. It's good the extra stuff was there for reference but not of great importance to me most of the time especially since [H] was trustworthy. I didn't need to scrutinize certain things simply because [H] could be trusted not to screw up or mislead. That wasn't the case for a number of other sites. I've seen some wildly different hardware configurations in testing setups over the years from various sites. Differences large enough to make the comparison testing completely and totally worthless.
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The network controllers and their performance had little to do with CPU usage and multi-core CPUs. There were detectable differences long after that. The difference between say Realtek and Intel controllers was definitely there. Probably still is. Plus the testing uncovered things like the issues the i216v controllers had and that sort of thing. That being said, while the differences were huge in the 100Mbps to 1Gbps days, after a time the gap between controller brands shrunk. By the time of the 2.5GbE, 5GbE, and 10GbE controllers, most people didn't give a shit as they were either doing everything wirelessly or because it was all seen as "good enough." I do get what you are saying as there was a time where things like the Killer NIC made a difference by having dedicated processing power on the card, freeing up CPU cycles. I was still seeing differences between controller brands even in 2018 when HardOCP shut down. Though the gaps weren't as big as they had been previously. Intel and Realtek controllers used to be super far apart in upload speeds with Realtek often being faster for raw downloads.

On the NVMe stuff, that was probably less relevant earlier on as it didn't really matter once we got dedicated lanes to the CPU for storage. Even when you'd compare Intel versus AMD, there should have been more differences but there simply weren't. The testing proved time and time again that there wasn't even a negligible difference between CPU based PCIe lanes and PCH based ones.
 
I miss the days of old, water cooling in 2000 with an Eheim 120V and whatever else you could scrounge up. I miss FrgMstr, HardOCP perf reviews and ASUSboards.com
 

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Auraka said:
I miss the days of old, water cooling in 2000 with an Eheim 120V and whatever else you could scrounge up. I miss FrgMstr, HardOCP perf reviews and ASUSboards.com
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Something i read here back in the day made me take a window unit chop the evaporator off and made a evaporator out of copper tubing and stuck it in an ice chest. Worked really well and would hold -20f water/antifreeze mix and if I remember right I took a 955be up to 4.2-4.3 range if I remember correctly. Was a really cool experience using that rig 24/7 for about 2 years.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Though if you ask Kyle he'll tell you that was always the case. They apparently did some testing on articles, and it turned out everyone skipped over all of the detailed content, and went straight for the performance charts and conclusions. I forget which thread he was talking about that in. Maybe I can find it.
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When people seek information they'll go for the conclusion and charts. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not a cause to stop making long form reviews. Reading long reviews were always entertainment, even when they came in print, the internet, or as video.
 
M76 said:
When people seek information they'll go for the conclusion and charts. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not a cause to stop making long form reviews. Reading long reviews were always entertainment, even when they came in print, the internet, or as video.
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The issue is return on investment for the time put in.
 
Bummer. I joined Anandtech forums before I even joined here at [H]. Probably my first forum account. I was still a high school kid working in a mom and pop computer store removing Bonsai Buddy from PCs. Things sure have changed.
 
Dan_D said:
The issue is return on investment for the time put in.
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The point is not to focus on how many didn't read it. Those are two different audiences. One just wants to see which is the best to buy, and the other is interested in the technical details. The former is always larger than the latter, not just for PC Hardware.
 
Dan_D said:
All the network testing, drive controller testing, DPC latency testing and things like that were the longest and hardest content to write in the motherboard reviews and no one read it. We used the same format initially on TheFPSReview. Guess what? No one read that stuff.
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I will be honest, as I got older and did less tinkering, stopped overclocking completely and just needed something new, I would skip over all the fun details that used to get me deep into the rabbit holes to get ever last bit of performance I could out of a system, spending days tweaking and changing and testing.
 
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