5 ms·

Yeah, the ad-funded model and how that supports reviewers seems to have damaged well structured and comprehensive independent review sites. It's all in videos

by emn13 4y ago

Yeah, the ad-funded model and how that supports reviewers seems to have damaged well structured and comprehensive independent review sites. It's all in videos or really low-effort stuff nowadays, and that makes it hard to draw conclusions without significant effort - and even then, considerable risk of drawing the wrong conclusions. I think this affects far more than just coolers; it's simply that for categories that have few options (say, CPUs) it's easier to slog through all the youtube videos, and there still exist a few text-based reviewers. But cases, ram, motherboard AIB versions, GPU AIB versions... even power supplies often - reviews are suprisingly sparse and hard to compare and rarely comprehensive.

mrlucax 4y ago
The Gamer Nexus reviews are independent and extremely methodical and honest. It's by far the best PC components reviewer on YouTube right now.
- newsclues 4y ago
  “It's all in videos or really low-effort stuff nowadays,” GN doesn’t really update their website with written reviews.
  - oblak 4y ago
    https://techpowerup.com https://techpowerup.com is still alive. I can think of a few others, including an offshoot of [H] called thefpsreviews.com but I've seen a lot of crappy, low effort "reviews" just in time for the "video cards are finally cheap" manufactured craze last year, which was last straw for me.
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      They have degraded significantly over the last few years. Up to around 2015 it was about my #1 reference source. It's how I found out about the fact many GPUs used to triple or quadruple their power consumption just because of an extra monitor being connected, and that AMD's HBM-based GPUs were at that point a surprising exception (when otherwise AMDs GPUs are usually the worst at it). These days however I have to take everything they measure with a grain of salt, and at some point I even had a discussion with a member of staff on the merits of having idle power consumption measurements at all. Something has definitely changed on their side.
      - oblak 4y ago
        The one I really miss is techreport.com Now, these guys used to deliver some quality stuff, including the big frame pacing thing that finally convinced the masses that no, fps number is not everything. One of the owners joined AMD and yeah, it's been dead for several years. Community was quite nice, too.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  YouTube is almost completely useless for reviews. You can't scroll the video, meaning you have to watch almost all of it to realize they're actually not evaluating the metrics you are interested in. One would think a video would make it harder for a reviewer to just parrot official PR, but alas... The only time I ever find a YouTube review of interest is when e.g you are actually showing some physical characteristic of the product, which is almost never the case for PC components, but maybe the case in some portable devices (tablet PCs come to mind). Notice that on these types of physical aspect reviews the reviewer himself doesn't appear at all on the video. In most PC components "video reviews" you are simply staring at the face of the reviewer. They could literally do without the video at all (save for a couple of still images where tables are presented) and would still be as informative, if not more. Some could even do without the audio...
  - m463 4y ago
    yd-dl / youtube-download helps.
  - pohuing 4y ago
    Have you actually looked at the GN reviews or are you just assuming this... I agree that text would be nicer to have but man. Also there's chapters now at least, so if you don't care about the analysis you can just jump to the numbers.
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      > so if you don't care about the analysis you can just jump to the numbers. I really disagree. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVowYykviM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVowYykviM . Does he measure idle power consumption ? It's impossible to tell from the chapter names. (Spoiler: he doesn't). Also whether he compares the performance of the 7900 sans X with the 7900X at similar power levels (Spoiler: he does, albeit only for 7950X and a minority of the benchmarks.) This is a video which is supposed to be about power efficiency, so it catches my attention; but most of it is about runtime benchmarks with only a couple power/efficiency comparisons early on. And after watching the full video, I cannot think of anything about the visuals that helped made his point clearer. A simple plain page with a couple of tables would have been at least as much helpful, or even more helpful, since it would have been searchable. If you disagree, can you elaborate what did you feel the video/audio provided over a static HTML page ?
yread 4y ago
notebookcheck.net has good written reviews (only the final percentage score is sometimes weird).They do occasionally review desktop hardware too
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  They are for me the only page remaining who still do decent, methodical reviews on metrics that I find of interest. For example, idle power consumption.
delusional 4y ago
Can you really blame reviewers? Doing a comprehensive thorough review is hard work that has to meet a very aggressive deadline to maximize utility. Meanwhile youtube channels like LTT are printing money on low quality low effort content. Obviously you'd rather do that.
- eCa 4y ago
  Some of LTT’s money goes towards the not-yet-launched LTT Labs, which is meant to become a serious test facility.
- lhoff 4y ago
  > Meanwhile youtube channels like LTT are printing money on low quality low effort content. I find this statement rather snarky and it is imho quite close to being against the HN Guidelines. Anyway I also think it is wrong. Sure not all videos from LTT are high-quality well researched and contain thorough testing but when they are really reviewing a product they put a lot of effort into it. They are even in the process of building a decked out lab to facilitate proper testing. An example of this is their review of the recently released Ryzen 7000 non-X CPUs. They tested 11 different CPUs in 9 different games and 14 productivity benchmarks and further testing with regards to thermals and power consumption. The whole 18 minute video is basically Linus explaining result charts for these various tests. https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTiRNnSg0jA&t=9s&pp=2AEJkAIB https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTiRNnSg0jA&t=9s&pp=2AEJkAIB I encourage you to watch this or any of the other hardware review videos and think about reevaluating your opinion. I don’t want to come across as a fanboy but it think your under a quite outdated impression and I think it’s unfair with regards the investment and change LTT is undergoing as of late.
  - rossmohax 4y ago
    Despite all the effort, benchrmak results are still not consistent. The other day I wanted to check how Ryzen 7600 compares to i13600k in code compilation. Ratio in time between these 2 processors reported by different authors were wildly different: LTT: 129% GN: 160% Techpowerup: 105% With results fluctuating up to 2 generational differences it is hard to make sense, despite all the authors effort. This leaves that kind of content more of entertainment rather than informational and from that perspective low effort doesn't bother me.

by emn13 4y ago

mrlucax 4y ago

The Gamer Nexus reviews are independent and extremely methodical and honest. It's by far the best PC components reviewer on YouTube right now.

newsclues 4y ago
“It's all in videos or really low-effort stuff nowadays,” GN doesn’t really update their website with written reviews.
- oblak 4y ago
  https://techpowerup.com https://techpowerup.com is still alive. I can think of a few others, including an offshoot of [H] called thefpsreviews.com but I've seen a lot of crappy, low effort "reviews" just in time for the "video cards are finally cheap" manufactured craze last year, which was last straw for me.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    They have degraded significantly over the last few years. Up to around 2015 it was about my #1 reference source. It's how I found out about the fact many GPUs used to triple or quadruple their power consumption just because of an extra monitor being connected, and that AMD's HBM-based GPUs were at that point a surprising exception (when otherwise AMDs GPUs are usually the worst at it). These days however I have to take everything they measure with a grain of salt, and at some point I even had a discussion with a member of staff on the merits of having idle power consumption measurements at all. Something has definitely changed on their side.
    - oblak 4y ago
      The one I really miss is techreport.com Now, these guys used to deliver some quality stuff, including the big frame pacing thing that finally convinced the masses that no, fps number is not everything. One of the owners joined AMD and yeah, it's been dead for several years. Community was quite nice, too.
AshamedCaptain 4y ago
YouTube is almost completely useless for reviews. You can't scroll the video, meaning you have to watch almost all of it to realize they're actually not evaluating the metrics you are interested in. One would think a video would make it harder for a reviewer to just parrot official PR, but alas... The only time I ever find a YouTube review of interest is when e.g you are actually showing some physical characteristic of the product, which is almost never the case for PC components, but maybe the case in some portable devices (tablet PCs come to mind). Notice that on these types of physical aspect reviews the reviewer himself doesn't appear at all on the video. In most PC components "video reviews" you are simply staring at the face of the reviewer. They could literally do without the video at all (save for a couple of still images where tables are presented) and would still be as informative, if not more. Some could even do without the audio...
- m463 4y ago
  yd-dl / youtube-download helps.
- pohuing 4y ago
  Have you actually looked at the GN reviews or are you just assuming this... I agree that text would be nicer to have but man. Also there's chapters now at least, so if you don't care about the analysis you can just jump to the numbers.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    > so if you don't care about the analysis you can just jump to the numbers. I really disagree. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVowYykviM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVowYykviM . Does he measure idle power consumption ? It's impossible to tell from the chapter names. (Spoiler: he doesn't). Also whether he compares the performance of the 7900 sans X with the 7900X at similar power levels (Spoiler: he does, albeit only for 7950X and a minority of the benchmarks.) This is a video which is supposed to be about power efficiency, so it catches my attention; but most of it is about runtime benchmarks with only a couple power/efficiency comparisons early on. And after watching the full video, I cannot think of anything about the visuals that helped made his point clearer. A simple plain page with a couple of tables would have been at least as much helpful, or even more helpful, since it would have been searchable. If you disagree, can you elaborate what did you feel the video/audio provided over a static HTML page ?

yread 4y ago

notebookcheck.net has good written reviews (only the final percentage score is sometimes weird).They do occasionally review desktop hardware too

AshamedCaptain 4y ago
They are for me the only page remaining who still do decent, methodical reviews on metrics that I find of interest. For example, idle power consumption.

delusional 4y ago

Can you really blame reviewers? Doing a comprehensive thorough review is hard work that has to meet a very aggressive deadline to maximize utility. Meanwhile youtube channels like LTT are printing money on low quality low effort content. Obviously you'd rather do that.

eCa 4y ago
Some of LTT’s money goes towards the not-yet-launched LTT Labs, which is meant to become a serious test facility.
lhoff 4y ago
> Meanwhile youtube channels like LTT are printing money on low quality low effort content. I find this statement rather snarky and it is imho quite close to being against the HN Guidelines. Anyway I also think it is wrong. Sure not all videos from LTT are high-quality well researched and contain thorough testing but when they are really reviewing a product they put a lot of effort into it. They are even in the process of building a decked out lab to facilitate proper testing. An example of this is their review of the recently released Ryzen 7000 non-X CPUs. They tested 11 different CPUs in 9 different games and 14 productivity benchmarks and further testing with regards to thermals and power consumption. The whole 18 minute video is basically Linus explaining result charts for these various tests. https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTiRNnSg0jA&t=9s&pp=2AEJkAIB https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTiRNnSg0jA&t=9s&pp=2AEJkAIB I encourage you to watch this or any of the other hardware review videos and think about reevaluating your opinion. I don’t want to come across as a fanboy but it think your under a quite outdated impression and I think it’s unfair with regards the investment and change LTT is undergoing as of late.
- rossmohax 4y ago
  Despite all the effort, benchrmak results are still not consistent. The other day I wanted to check how Ryzen 7600 compares to i13600k in code compilation. Ratio in time between these 2 processors reported by different authors were wildly different: LTT: 129% GN: 160% Techpowerup: 105% With results fluctuating up to 2 generational differences it is hard to make sense, despite all the authors effort. This leaves that kind of content more of entertainment rather than informational and from that perspective low effort doesn't bother me.