How to spot a horrible review from a top YT'r

tangoseal

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So I now own a 6900xt and I am impressed. Having been a power GPU owner for quite some time from quad r290x to hd6990 dual gpu cards, to sli 1080tis and sli 2080tis. Even own a 3090 as well, I have quite a bit of direct experience in architectural differences and how they perform.

I finally watched Jayz2cents 6900xt review out of sheer boredom and I was disgusted with what I seen, not of the card, but of Jay. Then luck struck and the YT algorithm led me to a video that absolutely explains my disgust with the modern super youtuber hardware reviews.

I never watch Linus or Jayz 2 pennies because I frankly cant stand them. However, short of me putting out 500 reasons in a list here I found a YouTuber that hits the nail on the head.

I personally find Jayz review and most of them abyssmally hard to digest. This guy hits the nail on the head on just what makes a giant reviewer damn near fake news.

This is not a rant post or a defend AMD. It is jusy my attempt to show that even so called trusted reviewers on YT can and do commit the sin of fud.
 
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I don’t consider him a reviewer. I also don’t consider him an overclocker. All I consider him as is a system builder. He can build some nice custom water cooled setups. Other than that, he really doesn’t offer much. I did watch his 6900 review and was really puzzled by his benchmarks (if you can call them that). So many synthetics and really odd game choices. No sam test.
The only YouTube “reviewers” I think are good are gamers nexus and hardware unboxed.
 
Youtuber's go for clicks, stick with reading actual hardware reviewers, as many as you can. The 6900XT is no worse a buy than a 3090. Some just want the best they can get.
 
Well, even Jay doesn't think he's a reviewer and admits such in his videos. He knows his channel is more for entertainment than actual reviewing. His fans like him more for entertainment too. Take him for what he is and don't try to make him fit the "real reviewer" mold like GN or HUB.
 
Well, even Jay doesn't think he's a reviewer and admits such in his videos. He knows his channel is more for entertainment than actual reviewing. His fans like him more for entertainment too. Take him for what he is and don't try to make him fit the "real reviewer" mold like GN or HUB.
Speaking as, arguably, a real scientist, I find the GamersNexus guy to be just absolutely insufferable. The way he throws down jargon and talks about "methodology," and "degrees delta-T over ambient" reminds me of a tenth grader who just won second place in the high school science fair trying to pick up good looking psychology grad students at a party. The HUB dude is way less pretentious, if equally long-winded.

I actually like Jay for his "two or three idiots screw around with computer parts" schtick. He does a good job with the aesthetic side of the hobby, putting together showpieces using materials and techniques that most normal PC enthusiasts can get access to.
 
i think he is a "showcaser", not a reviewer. pimps stuff, tosses in some basic testing and product highlights.
 
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Gamers Nexus has the most boring reviews, but so much info, so it's good :) I watch Linus for the entertainment value as well.
 
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HUB does reviews the way they all should except the leanings toward being cheap and only buying the best performance/dollar stuff.
 
Once I thought of jayz2 more as a showpiece/entertainer and not as a reviewer - i became happier with the world.
 
Guy started his channel because he wanted a business, if it wasn't computer parts it'd would have been car parts, or weight loss or something else he could milk views from
 
I like Jayz channel. I don't consider him a diehard tech journalist or a serious reviewer but like others have said, a showcaser and entertainer. His videos are entertaining, give me a good laugh and give me some useful benchmarks. If I want the in depth, hardcore reviews, I still use websites like FPS Review, Tech Power Up and even Anand still has some good content.

I used to really like Gamers Nexus but can't stand it much anymore. For one, Steve's nasaly, high pitched, monotone delivery starts to hurt my ears after a couple minutes. Second, he seems to have let it go to his head and has this "I'm smarter than you" chip. He really lost me when he chastised gamers for "consumerism" when we all got pissed off about the 3080 launch. Mind you that was right after him hitting you up to buy a Mod Mat or one of his t shirts.

One guy I really like is Buildzoid of Actually Hardcore Overckocking. I like his PCB breakdowns of motherboards and GPU's.

But yeah, I like Jayz, Hardware Unboxed and even Linus. Yes I'm wanting information but I'm also wanting some entertainment, otherwise I'd just read a website.
 
I like Jayz channel. I don't consider him a diehard tech journalist or a serious reviewer but like others have said, a showcaser and entertainer. His videos are entertaining, give me a good laugh and give me some useful benchmarks. If I want the in depth, hardcore reviews, I still use websites like FPS Review, Tech Power Up and even Anand still has some good content.

I used to really like Gamers Nexus but can't stand it much anymore. For one, Steve's nasaly, high pitched, monotone delivery starts to hurt my ears after a couple minutes. Second, he seems to have let it go to his head and has this "I'm smarter than you" chip. He really lost me when he chastised gamers for "consumerism" when we all got pissed off about the 3080 launch. Mind you that was right after him hitting you up to buy a Mod Mat or one of his t shirts.

One guy I really like is Buildzoid of Actually Hardcore Overckocking. I like his PCB breakdowns of motherboards and GPU's.

But yeah, I like Jayz, Hardware Unboxed and even Linus. Yes I'm wanting information but I'm also wanting some entertainment, otherwise I'd just read a website.
Buildzoid is legitimately great, but one thing you have to remember is that he sometimes just guesses as to what the components on a particular board are. I've found that he's just plain wrong about certain details in a few of his vids, when I'd get a particular part on my workbench, and discover that what he said is different from what the part actually has.

One of the great things about Youtube is that it has built-in peer review to some degree. There's nothing stopping any of us from making a video of our own and presenting conflicting data to that shown by a JayzTwoCents or GamersNexus. If you wanted to be a real dick about it, you could use a clickbait title or thumbnail that says something like "How could JayzTwoCents get this so wrong?!"
 
One thing I can't stand with hardware social media influencers is bagging on Intel without even considering price and availability.

First they recommend 3300x, a CPU you can't even buy unless you import it from China.

Then they say 10400 is the worst CPU of the year. In Canada a Ryzen 3600 is selling for $330 right now, while i5 10400F is $215. For budget gaming it's the best bang per buck CPU right now.
 
My 2 cents, Jay2Cents. As an entertainer, wat? I find much better entertainment else where.

I've seen some good ground up system builds by him. Too bad he does not do that sort of stuff more routinely with more updated stuff.

I've seen some good how to do hard tubing water builds except lacking some of the most basic most important aspects. As in how does it improve cooling, noise, performance with real testing and data (must be too hard for him to do), longevity, ease of maintenance etc. All show and not much more. RGB and color coordination and pretty cable wraps as most important -> pretty much bottom of my concerns.

His reviews? Pure garbage for the most part and he seems really not concerned if the audience is mislead or not or if he is even remotely accurate and takes the lazy route. Which to me shows that mostly he is in it for the money how ever he can get it. I like businesses who are in it for the money with the stipulation that they provide you with a good or superior product well worth your time and money. He falls short most of the time.

I still end up watching him time to time on something I think might be interesting, I have two monitors so one playing a video while I do something else at the same time, which can cancel out wasted time on worthless videos.
 
I don't watch tech jesus or 2jaycents, they're both idiots like literally. I do like level1techs though, Wendell is rather knowledgable.

Tech Jesus provides pretty good information. He's long winded, so it's not the easiest thing to watch but the information is pretty solid. That said, their Cyberpunk data is way different from mine, but I'm still working out what's going on with it.
 
I don’t consider him a reviewer. I also don’t consider him an overclocker. All I consider him as is a system builder. He can build some nice custom water cooled setups. Other than that, he really doesn’t offer much. I did watch his 6900 review and was really puzzled by his benchmarks (if you can call them that). So many synthetics and really odd game choices. No sam test.
The only YouTube “reviewers” I think are good are gamers nexus and hardware unboxed.
It's like you're not even giving him credit for his imaginative youtube thumbnails - "The facepalm". "Surprised face". "Confused guy". A rollercoaster of emotions that let his fans know just what he's thinking, and what to think!

This one time, he really flew the black flag - he put a beer can on top of a GPU. The comment section exploded- "did he really just do that?" ... "OMG!"

And it sickens me the way genius is never appreciated in its own time.

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I don't watch tech jesus or 2jaycents, they're both idiots like literally. I do like level1techs though, Wendell is rather knowledgable.
I like both of the Steve's (Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus). I agree with most that Steve from Gamers Nexus is long winded and a little monotone so not the easiest to sit through.

JayZ and Linus suck. They're the Fisher Price of tech reviewers on YouTube. They're also biased, especially Linus.
 
It's like you're not even giving him credit for his imaginative youtube thumbnails - "The facepalm". "Surprised face". "Confused guy". A rollercoaster of emotions that let his fans know just what he's thinking, and what to think!

This one time, he really flew the black flag - he put a beer can on top of a GPU. The comment section exploded- "did he really just do that?" ... "OMG!"

And it sickens me the way genius is never appreciated in its own time.

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He is imitating a clown. Well maybe not.
 
I use to watch golf to help put me to sleep. Now I just turn on Digital Jesus and am knocked out within five minutes. Jayz is for entertainment and some informational things. Phil makes the cuts funny. I have never considered him bias either. He just did his all AMD systems for himself and was using the Intel/Nvidia system for the Port Royal challenge they had. For straight reporting I like Hardware Unboxed. Not boring, gets to the point, and leaves it there for you to digest. Definitely not biased either. Grown up Linus isn't bad now, a little squirrelly here and there but he has his finer points..
 
I like the depth of GN, but Steve can be a little too sure of himself at times.

Wendell is great but does not put out enough content. Don’t particularly care for the daily news that they do with the crew. Might be better as a Podcast.

Linus is fine for what he does.
HUB is the perfect mix for me. It also helps that they do great monitor reviews.

I really miss the good old days when written reviews we king. HOCP is gone and Anandtech is a shell of its former self...
 
Go to https://www.thefpsreview.com/ and read Brent reviews on graphics cards (plus other reviews), they are outstanding and a joy to flow through. Best part about written reviews you can go through at your pace, skip, go back much easier etc. Then going to the forums which are set up 100x better than the YouTube comment section, the review continues on. Another issue with YouTube reviews is the utter crap, noise to useful stuff in the comments which is mostly a waste of utter time.

I like the depth of GN, but Steve can be a little too sure of himself at times.

Wendell is great but does not put out enough content. Don’t particularly care for the daily news that they do with the crew. Might be better as a Podcast.

Linus is fine for what he does.
HUB is the perfect mix for me. It also helps that they do great monitor reviews.

I really miss the good old days when written reviews we king. HOCP is gone and Anandtech is a shell of its former self...
 
Now I get to eat my words, J2Cents did a very nice AMD build, 3 parts. The ref 6800 XT which he used he put an EKB water block, he said originally did not OC well with the air cooler, it hit after water cooling a virtual constant 2.6ghz clock speed when he properly cooled it. Plus he used flexible tubing and not the Hard BS crap. He said he is sending back and AMD is giving him a different 6900 XT due the issues he had, he just messed up the review royally and hopefully can do better in the future.
 
I like Jayz channel. I don't consider him a diehard tech journalist or a serious reviewer but like others have said, a showcaser and entertainer. His videos are entertaining, give me a good laugh and give me some useful benchmarks. If I want the in depth, hardcore reviews, I still use websites like FPS Review, Tech Power Up and even Anand still has some good content.

I used to really like Gamers Nexus but can't stand it much anymore. For one, Steve's nasaly, high pitched, monotone delivery starts to hurt my ears after a couple minutes. Second, he seems to have let it go to his head and has this "I'm smarter than you" chip. He really lost me when he chastised gamers for "consumerism" when we all got pissed off about the 3080 launch. Mind you that was right after him hitting you up to buy a Mod Mat or one of his t shirts.

One guy I really like is Buildzoid of Actually Hardcore Overckocking. I like his PCB breakdowns of motherboards and GPU's.

But yeah, I like Jayz, Hardware Unboxed and even Linus. Yes I'm wanting information but I'm also wanting some entertainment, otherwise I'd just read a website.
I'm with you but... the RTX3080 and 6800XT reviews were so all over the map. I like to think I have my fav's but...?
One show better 1% lows but lower avg. fps and another site the reverse! It has been the hardest review cycle of my life. I live for this shit and it is all over the map.
Game/bench choice.
Different hardware test bench.
So hard to get "the" review since the [H] shut its doors. It was a one stop shop for me.
 
A bad review is bad review. Bad advice is bad advice. They are doing a disservice to the community no matter how you slice it, whether they are just a builder, a youtube'r or actual reviewer. Find others that are consistent and considered fair. There are way to many good websites out there willing to give you better information so you don't have to deal with bullshit, bias or not.
 
This YouTubers are just a humans in the end of all and they know that they will be liked just from "some" people but not from everyone.

And this is normal as we (all?) know.
 
Eh, most entertaining (and informational) reviews I've gone through were psu tear downs over at jonnyguru. I miss those.

Sorry, videos will always suck outside of some "how-to" stuff.
 
Some people just like entertainment, other want a deep dive on the tech, engineering, architecture, cooling, power ect. For some people we have NCIS, for others, true detective.

Almost everyone just buys at their price point, so most of it is meaningless, especially when both brands sell similar performance at every price point. In the end the decision is actually pretty simple.

Personally, I usually watch at least a dozen GPU launch, and follow up review videos from various publications, but I just like hardware a lot. Does it ever change what I was probably going to buy? Not really, but i enjoy it nonetheless. Also, comparing wildly different results of the same hardware from various outlets is hilarious.
 
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