Most trusted hardware site?

duby229

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OK, I was just discussing what might be the most trusted hardware site on the web.

The point of this post is to share with you guys who I think is the most trusted hardware site on the web, and why I think so. I'll be commentating on each data point presented, to show why I think what I do. I realize that there are a ton of hardware sites on the web. The truth is I do not have the resources to analyze them all. What I can do is analyze some of them, which includes the following...

I'll be looking at.....
THG
Anandtech
Techreport
LostCircuits

To minimize data points I'll only be looking at the views expressed on AMD's current top line chip, and Intel's current top line chip. I realize that this may not be a fair analysis, due to the limited nature of the data being collected, This should privide a fair look at the data points collected. So without further delay.... Let us begin.

THG​


Let's just hop right into it. First I was unable to find a single standalon review for --either-- FX-62, or for Core2 6800XE. What I was able to find was a comparison of the two
THG Tuning Test: Core 2 Extreme vs. Athlon 64 FX-62
This article has several things to note right away. 1: They dont seem to have any independant analysis of these two products. 2: They jump right into an overclocking comparison. 3: The benchmarks they run are almost entirely canned. And the variety of benchmarks are very narrow.

Ok lets elaberate on the variety of benchmarks used.we've got...
Games
Video
Audeo
Multitasking
Synthetics

Hmmm Seems that there is quite a bit of usage scenarios that are being ignored. Here is the short list of what I think seems to be missing, that I do pretty much every single day.
Graphics rendering.
File Encryption and Compression
Compiling (gcc MSc Intelc)
Sci (F@H, science mark, etc)

AnandTech​


Again their are right away several things that jump right out at ya! 1: They dont have an independant review of FX62. The newest they have is FX60. 2: They have more articles about Intel products then they do AMD by almost 3-1 3: The variety of benchmarks are very narrow, and in no way reflect actual real world usage.

Lets look at the benchmarks.
Games
Video
Audio
File Compression
Multitasking
Synthetics

Still a little on the slim side. Slightly better then THG, but still very much lacking. Here is what I think is still missing.
Graphics rendering
File Encryption
Compiling
Sci


TechReport​


Once again their are a few things that jump out at you :D 1: No Overclocking! Yay! Finally I actually get to see what I'm buying and not waht someone else is capable of doing with his hand picked golden sample. 2: They have a wider selection of beches, tho still not complete.3: They have about a 1:1 ratio of Intel, and AMD articles.

Lets take a look at benches that were run
Games
Video
Audio
File Compression
Image editing
Sci
Power consumption

Still a few things missing, but better then the rest so far Still I'd like to see.
File encryption
Graphics rendering
Compiling

Lost Circuits​


This one here is a bit harder to analyze. They seem to have some very fair subject matter, but the site itself is a bit difficult to navigate. But still their are some very interesting observations to be made. 1: They seem to have a fair mix of AMD, and Intel content. 2: They have independant reviews!! Thank you! No more having to wade through the FUD to find the real useful data. 3: They dont have a good mix of benches, They got a long way to go before they can consider themselves inclusive.

The benches they do cover include
Synthetics
Graphics rendering
Games

Seems like they dont have coverage for
Audio
Video
File encryption and compression
Sci
Multitasking
Compiling.

I think these guys try to be fair, and they certainly dont seem to be biased in any way, But I'd like to see a much broader mix of benches included....

So that is it.. I've made very simple comparisons with 4 of the top hardware review sites on the web. What I think of them each. I've found things that I like about all of them, and I've found things that I dont like about all of them. But the question remains which do I trust the most?

Not easy to answer I tell ya :D However I think the one site there with the best intentions is Lost Circuits. However due to the very limited nature of there bench suite it is almost impossible to get a clear picture of what is actually going on. THG? Well let's just say they haven't been exactly trutworthy in many years. What about the famous Anantech? I think in the last two years Anantech has lost every single last shred of respect they once commanded. That leaves only the TechReport. I think that of these sites I've looked at here today they have been the only one that has fit most of the criteria for "trust" They do lack in the variety of benches they run, but they make up for it in the quality of data they present.

So what is your favorite hardwrae site? (excluding [H] :D)
 
People whine about how there's nothing on AMD now. Well, there wasn't much on Intel either back during the time of A64 domination. Face it, the A64 is a secondary processor now, for those with smaller budgets or those upgrading. It's performance cannot match that of a C2D, no matter how cheap a X2 3800+ is, or how well it overclocks. Most people are not like you; Most people don't care about the secondary processors now, and review websites aren't going to waste their time (because it takes time) to review relatively boring processors.

Be assured, when K8L is released, regardless of the performance, everyone is going to cover it. Reviewers try to review that which they think the public wants to know about. The A64 has been done to death in the past 3 years, now it's time for Intel's wunderkid to have the spotlight. Unbiased reviewing has absolutely nothing to do with how often a certain company is put up to reviewing.

Feel free to look at the results when they compare two processors though, and to make your own decisions. To those reading this thread, its easy to manipulate benchmarks, even to manipulate the analysis of those benchmarks, so no matter what you read in the thread, go look at those benchmarks yourselves and use what you know to see if they are biased/trustworthy or not.

Myself, I see our very own [H] review of the Core 2 Duo as shamelessly AMD-biased. Its ironic that you ask what website I trust, other than 'obviously' trusting [H]. Well, fact is that I don't trust [H] worth crap anymore, because of that review. I just stick around because this place has one of the best Hardware Forums on the 'net, regardless of whoever may run the place.
 
Feel free to look at the results when they compare two processors though, and to make your own decisions. To those reading this thread, its easy to manipulate benchmarks, even to manipulate the analysis of those benchmarks, so no matter what you read in the thread, go look at those benchmarks yourselves and use what you know to see if they are biased/trustworthy or not.

That is exactly right. Actually that is the entire point of me writing this thread. I thought I'd share my opinion, and see what opinions others have. I showed how I go about making up my opinion on things and why.

Now the interesting part is to see how others form their opinions, and why.

Personally I hate it when a review is designed to pit one chip against another. That is not going to do anything more then spread FUD. I 'd like to see comprehensive testing done on that chip, and that chip alone. At stock speeds. I want to see memory latency. Memory bandwidth. I want to see High resolution framerate. Low resolution framerate. I want to see file encryption. File compression. I want to see Graphics erndering performance, and even power consumption. I want to see Integer sensitive benches as well as FP sensitive benches.

I really want to see a well rounded bench suite. The truth is we havent had ANYBODY do that since the tbird days.
 
Not to push my luck, but the things you want to see aren't exactly the most important topics to those reading the review. Allow me to speak for others (and others can feel free to correct me if I am wrong) when I say that the topics picked by the benchmarkers are the most popular topics focusing on the most popular processors for people.

Its nice to know how much more memory bandwidth (one of the rather popular topics) the FX-62 has than a E6700 C2D. But when the FX-62 gets smoked, by a lot, by the cheaper processor, the end performance somewhat overshadows whatever the surprise of memory bandwidth may have given.

Biased reviewing, the making of an untrusted site, is introducing a new way of reviewing at the dawn of a new processor. A new way of reviewing that makes that processor appear to be absolutely useless. :rolleyes: [H] can make all the excuses it wants, but the fact remains that they did everything short of bashing the processor to make the C2D look bad. I suppose I'm going against what I've been saying above when I say that the media benchmarks of the C2D should have been more clearly presented. However, that's part of a reviewing site, putting the obscure topic benchmarks in a hidden place for the curious to find.
 
The only reason It seems to get smoked is becouse it was artificially made to look that way. It's simple really. The truth is if these sites would include a more comprehensive testing suite that stressed......

Memory
Integer
Floating Point.
Task scaling
Thread scaling..
Clock scaling

Screw Multitasking. I'm more interested in seeing how it --scales-- with more tasks. Scew multithreading. I'm more interested in how well it --scales with more threads. Screw overclocking. I'm more interested in seeing how well it --scales-=- with more clock. I want to know what the maximum memory bandwidth is, and the lowest memory latency is. I want to know what Integer IPC is. I want to know what FP IPC is. And I want to know all of this on --stock-- settings.

Do this individually. And users can compare results on different chips theselves. Butr it is NOT the reviewers duty to do so.... His job is to present DATA.... That is simply it. Tjhat is where his duties end.

The only thing I'm interested in is the complete picture with the raw numbers at stock. I dont care what your numbers are on your overclocked hand picked golden sample. It doesnt matter. They do not in any way reflect what I might possibly get. Gimme stock numbers that stress the --whole-- chip. From Integer to FP to memory to clock scaling....

I want the big picture. I can compare results from two seperate reviews. I dont need reviewers to inject the bias. I just need them to present the hard facts. The only hard facts come at stock speeds. With comprehensive testing.

The truth is most benches being run today (games primariily) are mostly bottlenecked at the video card. The only way to reduce that is to lower resolution to a level where the CPU becomes the bottleneck. In this case it becomes --largely SSE sensitive. We all know that Core2 Duo Kicks AMD's ass in SSE performance. And then we got Scisoft Sandra. Ummmm I hate to say it, but it really aint that accurate. I actually have a tbird that smokes a 754athlon. Sorry but in the real world that just simply aint gonna happen. Intewl pays good money for Sandra to say what they want it to say.

Then we got 3Dmark? Another video card trich the same as all the damn game benches. Artificial inflation. Let's see what else is there? ....

I think that is about it really. Sandra and games and worldbench (again Intel pays good money to know that it will say what they want it to say.)..... Do you really think this is a fair comparison? I dont think so. It certainly isnt very comprehensive.
 
Reading your posts, I have to ask. You can't seriously argue that the Athlon 64 is as efficient/powerful of a processor as the Core 2 Duo. Simply the hardware specs say otherwise.
 
xFlankerx said:
Reading your posts, I have to ask. You can't seriously argue that the Athlon 64 is as efficient/powerful of a processor as the Core 2 Duo. Simply the hardware specs say otherwise.

That is not what I'm saying at all. But 20% is bullshit. It's actually based on my two systems here its closer to about 7% And my Athlon system runs a full 10 degrees cooler at the same clock.

Games the Core2 does well. Compiling with gcc The Athlon is about 10% faster. Encoding video the Core2 is about 10% faster. Encoding audio the core2 is about 3% faster. Grahpics rendering the core2 is about 5% faster. and so on. It's certainly not as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be. And if reviewers were doing there jobs this would be much clearer.

Besides how is asking for compehensive benches argueing for or against anything? I'm simply asking for more comprehensive benches. Thats it. I could care less for the 90% of benches run are games, or game-like ie 3dmark. Gimme some --real-- benches for once. I want to know how the system is actually going to perform.
 
Lets raise our hands if we have ever had to compile something with gcc...

I don't even know what that is.

Thing is, benchmarks only need to be so comprehensive. The reviewers aren't metahumans, they only spend as much time as is needed on the benchmarks. If they deem something to be not worth noting, or something that not enough people care to know about, then it shall be omitted. If the Athlon 64 is amazingly superior to the Core 2 Duo in an application that .05% of the readers use, that is obviously not going to be worth the reviewer's time.

Your system may run 10% cooler, but the Core 2 Duo, with its substantially higher IPC rate and architectural candy, does run about 25% faster. I believe the question you're asking is -- "In what programs?" Well, the benchmarkers lay out the most popular programs, and they DO let you make your own decisions more than not.

Using a Core 2 Duo, I'm going to notice that its a faster processor because I can encode MP3s Uberfast, and because I do it everyday. I will not notice it to be a slower processor because I cannot compile something in gcc with it, something I may do rarely, if ever.
 
What are you talkin about? 90% of the benches run are games.... That's it. Or they are game-like ie 3dmark. The other 10% are canned benches that are --heavily-- funded by Intel. ie worldbench, or sisoft.

I mean come on? I'm sure I'm not the only person who has the need to complie things. Hell if not gcc then use Intel's compiler. Something. anything that can stress the system,. The simple matter of truth is that there is more to computing then games. The simple matter of fact is that gamers are the minority,. period. end of story. Thje only few things that Intel has a lad in, are the only few things that actually get tested. Think about that for a few minutes..... Why is it that soooo many benches run are games.... Gamers are in the minority.;... games are one of the things Intel has a lead in. Followed by the canned benches that Intel PAYS for....

I'm just simply asking for more comprehensive testing... And games dont compehensively stress the system period. Theres more to computing then that. Far more.
 
Oh come now. There was hardly a shortage of gaming benchmarks when AMD was sitting on the throne. And I'm quite sure that AMD does not have the money to waste on bribes.

Fact of the matter is, gamers make up a very large part of the reviewers' audience. And I, for one, would be utterly shocked if a review did not cover every type of game out there.

Whether CPUs have a place in reviewing of games when they are bottlenecked by videocards, however, is another thing entirely. People still want to know which is the better processor though, and that is why places like Anandtech remove the GPU bottleneck.
 
But you see it still doesnt tell them what is the better processor. Sure Core2 Duo is the better processor for gaming. No doubt about that. After all 90% of all the benches run are game benches, and they all tend to agree that Core2 Duo is the better chioce. No doubt about that.

But what about Integer sensitive loads?
What about FP sensitive loads?
What about Clock sensitive loads?
What about Thread sensitive loads?
What about Memory sensitive loads?
What about IO sensitive loads?

None of these topics get covered to any extent. Sure they might throw in one or two video encodes. Possibly one or two audio encodes. Maybe if your lucky you might see some file compression. But that is certainly a rarity. You may be able to catch some memory latency test, but most of those are done with cachemem and that application is about as usefull as a ten foot pole and a pitch fork.

I just want to see some real benches. Games sure. Fine. I have no problem with that.... But I'd also like to see something alse as well. I'd like all reviews to be done at stock speed with overclocking as a foot note at most. And no comparisons made to other chips. I think this is certainly reasonable. Most of these tasks are just a simple matter of firing up a photo editor, or firing up a file compression.or firing up a video encode or firing up a make job. None of it is real difficult. It doesnt require any real skill. And if these fools would stop trying to compare one chip to the next, they could free up MOST of the time they spend.
 
duby229 said:
That is not what I'm saying at all. But 20% is bullshit. It's actually based on my two systems here its closer to about 7% And my Athlon system runs a full 10 degrees cooler at the same clock.

Lame, you should know that the clock speed isn't everything, it's the design of the chips themselves.

</rant>

Edit: Where's our poll OP?
 
Jon855 said:
Lame, you should know that the clock speed isn't everything, it's the design of the chips themselves.

</rant>

Edit: Where's our poll OP?

Oops. Sorry I didnt actually intend that to be there. I edited the first post accordingly. However if you want to say what you favorite hardware site is, please feel free to do so, and tell us why you think it's the best :D Altho the [H] is tempting, it might be a bit unfair seeing as how this is the [H]forums. ;) Maybe if this is your favorite, tell us what your second favorite is, and why.
 
xFlankerx said:
Reading your posts, I have to ask. You can't seriously argue that the Athlon 64 is as efficient/powerful of a processor as the Core 2 Duo. Simply the hardware specs say otherwise.
this isn't about intel vs amd, it's about the reliability of hardware sites. let's keep it on that, eh? ;)

duby, you know my opinion on the matter.. of the ones listed, techreport is the only one that doesn't seem to be overly sentimental. while they do leave out some performance numbers, it's stuff i honestly don' care about :p
 
I personally think anandtech and techreport do an excellent job of showing how good or bad a certain processor is.

I am very interested in your gcc benchmarks though! Please provide the link to that review, this interests me greatly!
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
I personally think anandtech and techreport do an excellent job of showing how good or bad a certain processor is.
anandtech has dropped a lot in my eyes, from how they are handling memory reviews. hitting a motherboard limit and not mentioning it in the overclocking section, when a lot of the review is based on the max speed it was able to hit? :confused:
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
I personally think anandtech and techreport do an excellent job of showing how good or bad a certain processor is.

I am very interested in your gcc benchmarks though! Please provide the link to that review, this interests me greatly!
I agree, those are the 2 main sites I like to frequent for my processor/video card reviews.

Some secondary sites that I like to go once in awhile are HotHardware and FiringSquad.
 
coldpower27 said:
I agree, those are the 2 main sites I like to frequent for my processor/video card reviews.

Some secondary sites that I like to go once in awhile are HotHardware and FiringSquad.


I like firing squad too. Yhey tend to focus on video cards, and not processors. I think that is a good niche for them, becouse they are concerned with games primarily.
 
xFlankerx said:
Everything is about Intel vs. AMD. :D
As long as the underlying architecture is explained, I can deal with having both processors in a Single Review.

I found reviews having only the processor alone on it's own not worthwhile as it has no reference point to refer it to.
 
coldpower27 said:
As long as the underlying architecture is explained, I can deal with having both processors in a Single Review.

I found reviews having only the processor alone on it's own not worthwhile as it has no reference point to refer it to.

I can see your point. Maybe what should be done instead (to satisfy both sides) is instead of analyzing two chips in the same review, they could provide links to other reviews for reference, at the appropriate point.
 
duby229 said:
I can see your point. Maybe what should be done instead (to satisfy both sides) is instead of analyzing two chips in the same review, they could provide links to other reviews for reference, at the appropriate point.
That could possibly work for some, but quite abit of efficiency is sacrificed as well as the possibility of changing the benchmark suite as well as intorducing more problems associated with the scientific method.

If I have to load an entirely different graph on an entirely different browser page, I would require the use of either 2 Tabs, or 2 Broswer Windows, both of which are a pain.

As well multi-chip reviews are necessary, as supposed I want to see how the whole Core 2 Duo line scales to one another, what happens when we have the E4300, E6300, E6400, E6600, E6700, E6800, E6650, E6750, and E6850.

Basically your going to be introducing alot more work for the reader by this method, if you require 2 seperate articles for each processor. It's just very convenient to have all the information in a single window.

As well it allows you to keep your benchmark suite fresh as at the time of the review of said processor you cna update your suite as you are benching all contenders.

Suppose I review the Athlon FX 62 in May, to be fair I would have to review the Core 2 Extreme in July with the same suite, which isn't fair to Core 2, as by the time Core 2 Extreme is released new revisions of software could be available.

The alternative is updating the Athlon FX 62 review... which isn't really viable as this would mean all processor reviews would need to be continually updated individually, as we continue to want to compare them to the newer processors.

Hence why I tihnk having all the data on the same review saves alot of headaches, instead of having multiple reviews.
 
While I can certainly understand your line of thinking, it is the readers job to interpret results. And having comparisons made by the reviewer does nothing more then inject his own views. Which in the end, makes any data presented completely worthless anyhow.

But like I said I can certainly understand you view. Maybe a better system would include a database driven web interface, where the user could select various benches,, and various versions of the bench suite and make comparisons that way. It would require a little bit of work on the front end, but the data collection could still be done the traditional way. As hardware becomes outdated, then it will no longer need to be maintained in the database. I think most modern hardware sites certainly have the resources to this.

Either way in order to keep results accurate, and modern, any time the bench suite is updated, or the bench systems have been updated, it will need to be run on all of the bench systems that have been assembled, that are still relevant. So lets say a hardware site builds a bench system, the only thing that would need to be done is a simple matter of swapping out the processor to obtain the results for that specific model. Also for video card reviews would be the same way, but with the side affect of having to do it twice, once on the AMD bench system, and once on the Intel bench system.
 
I think if you don't like what's out there, you should stop whining and make your own website, and cover all those things that you think should be covered. And I sincerely wish you nothing but luck and lots of page hits, which you will need, because it isn't as easy as you seem to think it is.
 
nigerian_businessman said:
I think if you don't like what's out there, you should stop whining and make your own website, and cover all those things that you think should be covered. And I sincerely wish you nothing but luck and lots of page hits, which you will need, because it isn't as easy as you seem to think it is.


I'll be honest I've considered it. Very strongly.

Unfortunately I just simply dont have the resources, and frankly the brand, that alot of these other sites have. There are enough hardware sites. Now it's just a matter of seeing who is the best. I'm not sure, hence why I posted this. So who is your favorite hardware site, and why?
 
Can't say that I have experience running a hardware site. However, I was a co-administrator of a now defunct dating website, and while it was semi-successful it was always a struggle trying to make everyone happy, avoid downtime, increase page hits and at the same time make the site at least break even with advertising so we didn't have to go broke trying to keep it online.

So, it's not too much of a stretch for me to imagine the added stresses of trying to maintain a reputation as a trustworthy review site while also trying to foster close relationships with companies so you don't have to buy every piece of hardware you review. And I do know what it's like to work your ass off on something for the benefit of others, free of charge, only to have them point out everything that's wrong or missing.
 
duby229 said:
I'll be honest I've considered it. Very strongly.

Unfortunately I just simply dont have the resources, and frankly the brand, that alot of these other sites have. There are enough hardware sites. Now it's just a matter of seeing who is the best. I'm not sure, hence why I posted this. So who is your favorite hardware site, and why?

I don't really have a favorite. They all have something to offer, and I wouldn't feel like I was getting the whole picture if I only stuck to a few select points of view. There are certain sites that I read that I might not trust as much as others. THG is one of those. This site is another. I still read the reviews, but if their views are not in line with others, then I don't give much thought to them because they've both (in my opinion) written articles with the sole purpose of getting page views, fact be damned.

If I had to choose an absolute favorite, I would probably go with FiringSquad because I like their review process. But I like the forums here better.
 
nigerian_businessman said:
I don't really have a favorite. They all have something to offer, and I wouldn't feel like I was getting the whole picture if I only stuck to a few select points of view.


Nicely said
 
I know I'm not disputing that one bit. :D It aint easy I'm sure. The hard part is actually getting the hardware. I'm sure not all sites will have the resources to do any of this, but the few listed above, and others certainly do. I think either way they are collecting data, they might as well put it into a database that is user accessable through a web interface.

That might be a bit much to ask for though. Still a good Idea for some of these guys to consider. I think either way, we need better bench suites.
 
I'll chime in here, The [H]ard is my first, most trusted website. Followed by in no particular order PC Perspective for overall hardware, Guru3D for video cards. I still trust and like Anandtech especially if I want an engineers explanation of a new piece of hardware.

I also browse Madshrimps, Bjorn3D and several others. By checking numerous websites I can glean a pretty decent overall opinion on how a piece of hardware might perform and where I might want to spend my hard earned money.

In my opinion [H]ardocp, PC Perspective and Madshrimps are the least biased review sites.

Thats my 2 cents worth...... :)
 
duby229 said:
No Overclocking! Yay! Finally I actually get to see what I'm buying and not waht someone else is capable of doing with his hand picked golden sample
I always thought that the overclocks achieved on most reviews are very modest. At AnandTech, they only overclocked their E6400 to 2.88Ghz (link), while I can easily overclock mine to 3.2GHz at almost stock voltage, and my processor is certainly not a hand picked golden sample.

In a way I think it makes more sense to compare processors while overclocked, as stock speed is nothing more than default settings. Stock speed doesn't say much about the CPU's actual performance.
xFlankerx said:
Myself, I see our very own [H] review of the Core 2 Duo as shamelessly AMD-biased. Its ironic that you ask what website I trust, other than 'obviously' trusting [H]. Well, fact is that I don't trust [H] worth crap anymore, because of that review. I just stick around because this place has one of the best Hardware Forums on the 'net, regardless of whoever may run the place.
If you are refering to the all gaming at 1600x1200 review I agree.
With the same method used in that review I could prove that Michael Jordan is about as tall as a midget. All I have to do is have Michael Jordan and a midget stand ontop of a skyscraper, measure both their heights from the ground up and then round the result down to even 10 meters. The results would be quite shocking.
 
I don't have any one favourite. They're all bought by the hardware vendors to one degree or another. So when I'm researching a new product purchase, I'll visit atleast five to ten sites for reviews and I'll use their collective consensus as a guideline! :D
 
freeloader1969 said:
I don't have any one favourite. They're all bought by the hardware vendors to one degree or another. So when I'm researching a new product purchase, I'll visit atleast five to ten sites for reviews and I'll use their collective consensus as a guideline! :D
And that's exactly what they are for. They are not buyers guides, they do not exist to tell you what processor you should buy. They exist to test processors and compare them to others.
Unfortunately, there's always some people who don't understand this. They get upset and starts complaining as soon as they see a review praising a multi-core processor because the games and applications they run are not multi-threaded, as if the review was written especially for them, or if the review was somehow telling them to buy the CPU.

It's like going to a review of the latest Geforce and complaining:
"I OWN A 14" CRT SCREEN THAT ONLY SUPPORTS 1024X768, WHY WOULD I NEED A GRAPHICS CARD THAT CAN OUTPUT 2560 x 1600?!?!??!!!!!"
"WHY ARE YOU REVIEWING THIS PRODUCT, I TOLD YOU I DON'T NEED A NEW GRAPHICS CARD!!!!"
 
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