The AMD Reality Check Challenge

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Legit Reviews has an article posted today on the AMD Reality Check Challenge demonstration we had on display at the AMD [H]ardOCP FX GamExperience 2012. It was a blind test that pit an AMD system against an Intel system, letting attendees decide which system they preferred based solely on gameplay experience.

The Pepsi Challenge has been an ongoing marketing promotion run by PepsiCo since 1975. It all started when a Pepsi employee setup a table with two blank cups: one containing Pepsi and one with Coca-Cola. Shoppers were then encouraged to taste both colas, and then select which drink they prefer. Then the representative then revealed what brands were in each cup. At the end of the day the public was doing a blind taste test and the company was getting a consensus of what brand was preferred by more consumers. Over the years this test has been copied by thousands and today AMD is putting their own twist to the challenge down in Dallas, Texas for the FX GamExperience.
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From the article:
Pretty interesting test and we are glad to see companies doing challenges like this and willing to risk coming out the loser.
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I can guarantee that if AMD thought they had a chance of coming out as the loser, they wouldn't have hosted this "test".
 
interesting results on the second test, but exactly what games were they playing? I would have at the very least thought you'd see a high no difference...but what could people have gotten out of the AMD rig to make it preferred i wonder? If anything, wouldn't this be the apex of "real world testing", and draw some revisiting of previous reviews?
 
I understand the 1st test results, in fact it's a little suprising the Intel system got any votes.
However, if they tried some video editing or other CPU intensive app the vote would have been the other way.

As for the 2nd test, I'd have to assume they picked games that favored AMD CPU's or they optimized the settings to give AMD an advantage.
 
conscript said:
interesting results on the second test, but exactly what games were they playing? I would have at the very least thought you'd see a high no difference...but what could people have gotten out of the AMD rig to make it preferred i wonder? If anything, wouldn't this be the apex of "real world testing", and draw some revisiting of previous reviews?
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Best guess is that the monitors were slightly different (IPS or something on the AMD). They could have messed with the bios, but I suspect that could bite them a little too hard. I don't really think that the motherboard support (AMD supporting AMD boards as opposed to Intel supporting AMD boards) is really going to be enough. It might be enough to make sure the tester plays the AMD rig first and is blown away by a 9870+Eyefinity (although sufficiently [H]ard players have likely seen as good or better) and is slightly jaded when trying the intel box.

They might have found a bad intel controller/SSD combination that doesn't effect AMD controllers.

Lastly, they might have been honestly expecting a "no difference" verdict and got lucky. There is a reason marketing absolutely hates to let a customer make a decision on his own (google "customer confusion"), and will only do such a thing if their back is a much against a wall as AMD (the CPU division anyway) is now.

Any word on how careful they had to be in selecting non-CPU limited games? My guess is that anything running Eyefinity on 8 thread CPUs is going to be GPU limited, 9870 or no. This would at least answer the howls of the difference once you overclock those two CPUs (my CPU can execute NOPs faster than your CPU!).
 
I'm very surprised AMD got any votes in the second test, assuming it's actually consistent.

Is there a list of all the games? Or was it only BF3?
 
The "blind taste test" concept is ill-fitting for something that can be compared using actual performance metrics. Take for example, Test #2, with the two high end systems with the same high end graphics card.

System C (Intel Core i7-2700K): 40 Votes
System D (AMD FX-8150): 73 Votes
No Difference: 28 Votes

These results do not reflect what we know the gaming performance of these two processors to be.

Unless we are now claiming that there is some hidden quality that can make a slower processor superior to a faster one in an objective test.
 
nutzo said:
As for the 2nd test, I'd have to assume they picked games that favored AMD CPU's or they optimized the settings to give AMD an advantage.
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I dont know about games favoring AMD cpus but they did use an eyefinity setup which is clearly gpu bound. I think they were shooting for a draw here and just lucked out that they won. They probably could have thrown an amd hex and i7 950 into the mix and people still wouldn't have seen a difference.

To prove their cpu is a better bang for the buck they also compared the cpu to intels i7 2700k. The i5 2500k would have gamed about just as well and not been a major price difference between the intel and amd. Who knows maybe they played BF3 which runs worse with hyper threading.

It was cool of amd to do but it definitely was well thought out on their end.
 
These results make no sense. Bulldozer's numbers can't compete with Sandybridge. Why does a slower processor seem better? I'm calling BS-rigged.
 
Or, you know, the numbers all of us geeks masturbate over all day long don't mean as much as you think they do.

Nah, couldn't be that, it makes too much sense!
 
Wumpus said:
Best guess is that the monitors were slightly different (IPS or something on the AMD). They could have messed with the bios, but I suspect that could bite them a little too hard. I don't really think that the motherboard support (AMD supporting AMD boards as opposed to Intel supporting AMD boards) is really going to be enough. It might be enough to make sure the tester plays the AMD rig first and is blown away by a 9870+Eyefinity (although sufficiently [H]ard players have likely seen as good or better) and is slightly jaded when trying the intel box.

They might have found a bad intel controller/SSD combination that doesn't effect AMD controllers.

Lastly, they might have been honestly expecting a "no difference" verdict and got lucky. There is a reason marketing absolutely hates to let a customer make a decision on his own (google "customer confusion"), and will only do such a thing if their back is a much against a wall as AMD (the CPU division anyway) is now.

Any word on how careful they had to be in selecting non-CPU limited games? My guess is that anything running Eyefinity on 8 thread CPUs is going to be GPU limited, 9870 or no. This would at least answer the howls of the difference once you overclock those two CPUs (my CPU can execute NOPs faster than your CPU!).
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You probably have newspapers stapled all over your walls in your house and think that Barney was behind 9/11. It's not a conspiracy.

The one game that picked, BF3, BD is actually on par with Intel. There is no debating that.
Had they chose a different game, the story would be different aswell.
 
Kardonxt said:
I dont know about games favoring AMD cpus but they did use an eyefinity setup which is clearly gpu bound. I think they were shooting for a draw here and just lucked out that they won. They probably could have thrown an amd hex and i7 950 into the mix and people still wouldn't have seen a difference.

To prove their cpu is a better bang for the buck they also compared the cpu to intels i7 2700k. The i5 2500k would have gamed about just as well and not been a major price difference between the intel and amd. Who knows maybe they played BF3 which runs worse with hyper threading.

It was cool of amd to do but it definitely was well thought out on their end.
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It's obvious they were pulling the value card by throwing in the ridiculous 2700k.
 
They're playing a psychology trick. The high end systems are GPU limited and therefore probably equal in frame rate performance, but they ask people to test the low end systems first, where "B" is clearly superior. When people are then asked to tested two system labelled A and B that perform equally, not many will choose the "No Difference" option because of the distinction fallacy, and more will choose "B" because it won over "A" in the last test.
 
They staged one of these events around 2002 that I went to. Only went because they were raffling xp 2400+ CPUs :)

Perhaps they have gotten better, but it was a total farce. The intel machine was clearly set up to have issues (like random BSODs), and they were not using equivalent graphics cards.
 
I'm not for AMD or Intel but god damn there is a whole helluva lot of AMD hate in this thread.
 
WasntMe said:
I'm not for AMD or Intel but god damn there is a whole helluva lot of AMD hate in this thread.
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We don't hate AMD, atleast i don't think most of us do, but the Intel SB is superior is almost all benchmarks. We can't see how the AMD CPU is rated higher. So it's assumed that something else is at play. The hate might be for what AMD might be doing to sway people's ideas of their chips and the performance.
 
The second test simply proves that in a high-end gaming rig that includes a high-end GPU, the CPU plays second fiddle to the GPU when playing a modern game.

All other attempts at different more satisfying explanations points to the poster's own stance vis-a-vis Intel and AMD.
 
AMD video cards have some CPU instrctions that are only avalible to AMD CPUs in their FSA right?
 
"So System A comes with $500 cash, and System B does not come with the cash. Which do you prefer?"
 
Yep, you could see it coming. Gamers basically showed they couldnt tell a difference in games between the AMD and Intel system. Its gotta be rigged, and cheating and sabotage and all kinds of general shenanigans. Anybody can tell a difference in a game running at 80 fps and one running at 70 fps.

People want AMD to suck so bad its funny.
 
are we sure the flashlight wasn't blasting in your eyes throughout one of the tests? :p
 
MacLeod said:
Yep, you could see it coming. Gamers basically showed they couldnt tell a difference in games between the AMD and Intel system. Its gotta be rigged, and cheating and sabotage and all kinds of general shenanigans. Anybody can tell a difference in a game running at 80 fps and one running at 70 fps.

People want AMD to suck so bad its funny.
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Yeah agreed, these are the same people that would be calling Intel a failure over 10fps if it was the other way around.
 
And besides, wasnt this a [H]ardOCP, co-sponsored event? If AMD had been cheating and rigging this test, I gotta think [H] wouldve been on them like stink on shit.
 
I played BF3 on one of them (A, I think), but I didn't know it was part of a contest. I didn't see anywhere to vote.
 
MacLeod said:
And besides, wasnt this a [H]ardOCP, co-sponsored event? If AMD had been cheating and rigging this test, I gotta think [H] wouldve been on them like stink on shit.
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I don't know that any one is saying the event was rigged. I certainly don't think it was. That doesn't change the fact that the i5 2500k would have preformed almost just as well as the 2700k and blown the price comparison point out of the water. The machines were clearly gpu bound because of the eyefinity setup in the first place. So even a 1366 i7 or older amd hex would have produced similar results.

I think what we are getting at is that the whole setup didn't prove anything. Any one who's idea of bulldozer performance has changed from this is on crazy pills.

[H]s own review of bulldozer was pretty damn harsh. Personally I think they are already between a rock in a hard spot and I doubt [H] calling them out would help things at all. If apple tried to pull the same thing with a mac // pc comparison booth we all know [H] would have torn them apart. Pissing on your co-sponsor twice isn't good for business. Steve's news posts tend to include a comment or are written in a way that gives the reader a general idea of what his take on the matter is. You will see it's missing from this one
 
Can someone who actually played on these a voted for this test give any insight?
 
The only possible wayt his test could be plausible is if all hardware and software setting are exactly the same, verified by independent judges. I don't think anyone here is stupiod enough to trust that AMD (or any other company, for that matter) would be completely truthful, fair and honest in testing their own systems.
 
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