AnandTech ends its 27-year run in online tech publishing

[Shawn Knight]

Pour one out: One of the longest-running online technology outlets has reached the end of the road. After more than 27 years of serving enthusiasts around the globe, AnandTech has published its final story.

AnandTech is practically a household name among serious tech enthusiasts that have spent any meaningful amount of time online. The site went live way back in 1997 as the brainchild of Anand Lal Shimpi, a teen with a passion for computers.

Shimpi built AnandTech into one of the most respected online tech sites over the next 15+ years, but decided to step away from the publishing industry in 2014 and took a job with Apple. Ryan Smith, a longtime contributor to the site, was named as Shimpi's successor and has kept the ship afloat ever since.

In his farewell post, Smith noted how written tech journalism is no longer what it once was, or will ever be again. Indeed, with the advent of social media and newer vehicles of content delivery like video, written media has certainly slowed down as of late.

AnandTech is not the first established tech site to go the way of the dodo, and it will not be the last.

All Things Digital, an expansion of the All Things Digital conference, launched in 2007 and ran for roughly six years before being dissolved. Founders Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg launched another site, Recode, in 2014, which was acquired by Vox Media a year later.

Others may recall HardOCP, which catered more to hardware enthusiasts and overclockers, and the dozens of other smaller sites like it that have come and gone over the years including Virtual-Hideout, Bit-Tech, and Hexus, just to name a few. What were some of your favorites that are no longer with us?

As for AnandTech, the site isn't going away entirely. Additional content will no longer be generated, but the site's publisher, Future PLC, will keep the archives online indefinitely. The AnandTech forums will also live on, we are told.

Image credit: Giuse

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AnandTech ends its 27-year run in online tech publishing

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Not really a surprise. their article count and quality have taken a serious beating since Anand left. When Ryan's house burnt down and they spent years saying "oh we're working on it" while acting negatively when asked what the status was, that was the writing on the wall that they were being left to wither.

I'm surprised they lasted this long. They cant have been getting much traffic.

 

[themastergoose]

How long before this site suffers the same fate then? It's almost all entirely written articles too.

 

[yRaz]

Not really a surprise. their article count and quality have taken a serious beating since Anand left. When Ryan's house burnt down and they spent years saying "oh we're working on it" while acting negatively when asked what the status was, that was the writing on the wall that they were being left to wither.

I'm surprised they lasted this long. They cant have been getting much traffic.

That site was peak 2000s tech news and guides. I loved their long format articles. About once a week they'd publish something that pealed my interest amd I could spend hours, some times days, studying the articles.

 

[ZedRM]

Online publishing is still going strong. It's not what it was, true, but to say no one looks for tech websites is just blind to reality.

 

[yRaz]

Online publishing is still going strong. It's not what it was, true, but to say no one looks for tech websites is just blind to reality.

I think the major issue is that zoomers and gen alpha are really taking an interest in much if anything outside gaming and social media. I'm also not blaming them. When I look at the world we live in today I almost become lethargic. Mellenials had it bad enough, I can't imagine how zoomers and gen alpha must see the world around them with the only distraction they have available to them being phones.

 

[Eldrach]

The problem is, it’s getting more expensive and time consuming every year to to do thorough testing. You need an extensive lab as hardware is becoming more complex and nuanced. I’d say Gamers Nexus is a good example of how complex a simple cpu test has become. From a small startup to an entire crew just to create and analyse the data, then re-test to confirm, and do it all again if there’s a signicant update. If you miss anything, the tech savy readers will call you out instantly.
It’s not a big secret that actually knowing what’s inside your computer is getting less and less important to the masses either. Back in the days choices were slim when buying pre-built setups of any quality, so you had to learn quickly, mistakes where made - you turned to sites like Anandtech for advise, and learned to do it proper.
These days you don’t have to spend hours / days finding the correct drivers and tweaking your system just to make it work as intended.
A system will work out of the box, well enough to not have you coaming the web to gain the extra few % of performance.
We’ve become a niche, there’s still room for big sites with good funding, but the smaller sites will die over time

 

[Squid Surprise]

They basically died in 2014 when Anand left… now that sites basically survive on advertising and clickbait, it’s harder and harder to find “good” sites.

Also, search engines have gotten to the point where you can find something almost as easily (or easier) than researching on a site like this..

 

[brucek]

I have fond memories of AnandTech. Before I found his site, I was used to tech "reviews" in monthly magazines that were usually devoid of any hard data. ("This CPU is amazing - everything feels so much faster - my apps open almost immediately!")

I am not a fan of a lot of content creation moving to video (nor forums being replaced with Discord.) A well written article is still the best way to present and receive many types of technical information. (Just like a well organized game FAQ is often more useful than a 10 minute video that covers maybe a couple sentences worth of what the FAQ did.) I get that video is newer and shinier, but hopefully the pendulum will swing back towards practicality. (or maybe the less efficient videos will then be summarized by AI to get back to a less good written document - ahhh, progress.)

 

[godrilla]

A few months back is the first time I have seen then close a comment section off to an article that I was reading. I didn't realize it would end like this. I will miss their ssd articles.

 

[agentnate009]

HardOCP forums are still going strong with us aging tech enthusiasts! There was some talk of trying to resurrect the site, but that didn't happen. I support HardOCP forums via Patreon because I am a frequent visitor. I have been a long-time reader of AnandTech, but it has been a few years since I read any articles, mostly because they weren't relative to me anymore. The PC enthusiast community has gone from tweaking PC hardware (lead pencil trick on AMD Palomino CPUs to OC) to aesthetics (white or RGB everything).

 

[i like foxes]

I was expecting such a thing . Their tech coverage was getting less and less . The new articles were rare . Anyway . I dont care , sorry .

 

[Puiu]

O7

 

[fps4ever]

They basically died in 2014 when Anand left… now that sites basically survive on advertising and clickbait, it’s harder and harder to find “good” sites.

Also, search engines have gotten to the point where you can find something almost as easily (or easier) than researching on a site like this..

This...

I want tech news/reviews I come here or Gamers Nexus. If I wanted to be pushed to buy merchandising crap and half *** reviews with heavy advertising I go to LTT. Which I don't anymore.

 

[JohnRambo4]

The ads became unbearably obtrusive then I stopped going.

 

[Zahu]

Sad to see AnandTech go. I enjoyed their work a lot when I first found the site way back when ever. But it really has gone downhill after Anand left. Anand and Toms Hardware were my go to sites for a long time but Toms has fallen in quality too. So for the past few years Tech Spot has been my number one and I hope they can stay up and keep the quality. Puget Systems has been a good site for me too on occasion, very relevant for content creation.

Good Anand.

 

[fadingfool]

A shame, as I was previously a regular reader and sometimes contributed in the comments. The in-depth CPU reviews by Dr Ian Cutress were a great read from 2010 to 2022. Seems as each day goes by the internet gets less interesting and less free (as in speech not beer). Indepth articles are not what brings the advertising money in (too busy wasting it on facebook/X/instagram/youtube etc.) or unfortunately what drives SEO (though this is a self fulfilling nonsense as the search engine optimisations are there to drive people to the adverts that pay the search engines). Soon the internet will just be AI produced content being hit by AI bots driving up websites hits paid for by advertisers using AI to pick the AI generated sites for adverts. The few humans online will hide in forums swapping cat pics and Manga.

 

[p51d007]

First time I heard of Anandtech was on the TV show "The Screen Savers". Read the site almost daily after that.

 

[Subset6]

That’s sad but understandable. I used to love them for their very detailed Analysis of high end lcd’s back when the shift away from generic TN panels just started. They were the absolute Authority on this. You will be missed and not forgotten Anandtech.

 

[Starfals]

Everyone has fallen in quality... tom too. What? Is every tech site gonna die?! It sure looks that way. I hope we still got many more years of techspot too. This site is pretty useful for information.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Even only checking the site once a week you'd still struggle for new content. It was already dead 4-5 years ago.

 

[Watzupken]

I feel what made Anandtech stood out were those very technical articles. I really enjoyed reading their analysis of SSDs back in the days for example. Of late, there are more advertisements and not many reviews. So I rarely visit the site, and hence, not surprised that the parent company will shut it down. If I did not recall incorrectly, Anandtech got acquired under the group that owns Tomshardware and I feel that’s when the content quality started deteriorating and more advertising on the site.

 

[noblody]

Sad to see the site closed. There were a few places where you could find some technical analysis, not only benchmarks, but their numbers dwindle. Anandtech was one of them, xbitlabs was another. chipsandcheese still has some interesting articles analyzing cpu architecture. That kind of analysis used to be more wide spread among tech sites. Now we mostly have a few or a lot of game benchmarks and that's it. The how and why part of the reviews is lost ...

 

[Atmajaya2020]

Well, its a shame..
I remember it as the one that provided me a review that inspire me to choose better cpu to replace the old one..

 

[Dr Roboto]

RIP AnandTech

AnandTech, you were the website that introduced me to the world of computers and hardware. I learned so much from you. It was a different era back then, and the media landscape has changed a lot since. Thank you for the memories.