Nvidia's RTX 5060 launch and the erosion of independent GPU reviews

[dmoros]

If you really wanted to send a statement to Nvidia, you should have done the review of the 5060 with the driver available even if it tanks the performance by 25%.

That would have make them understand the message.

Dude the driver wont even install if the GPU is not on the whitelist of GPUs... >.>

 

[dmoros]

Ironically, Tim's latest article preferred to bash the pricing of the 9070 XT because it was obviously the biggest problem out there in the GPU world right now...

So much for saying to not listen to other reviewers when your own analysis are flawed.

SMH

One thing has nothing to do with the other, that nvidia is doin shady business paying reviewers for fake areticles does not mean AMD can release their GPUs with a false MSRP

 

[Sleepybp]

Ironically, Tim's latest article preferred to bash the pricing of the 9070 XT because it was obviously the biggest problem out there in the GPU world right now...

So much for saying to not listen to other reviewers when your own analysis are flawed.

SMH

Ironically, Tim's latest article preferred to bash the pricing of the 9070 XT because it was obviously the biggest problem out there in the GPU world right now...

So much for saying to not listen to other reviewers when your own analysis are flawed.

SMH

Ironically, Tim's latest article preferred to bash the pricing of the 9070 XT because it was obviously the biggest problem out there in the GPU world right now...

So much for saying to not listen to other reviewers when your own analysis are flawed.

SMH

Ironically, Tim's latest article preferred to bash the pricing of the 9070 XT because it was obviously the biggest problem out there in the GPU world right now...

So much for saying to not listen to other reviewers when your own analysis are flawed.

SMH

This is why the article bashing AMD for poor availability of 9070XT was incredibly off base.

The only reason you can’t buy a 9070XT is because the dominant and largest supplier of GPU has abandoned the mid-range market .
AMDs Lisa Su states AMD sold 10-12X more cards in the 9070 launch than any other new card launch in AMD history. AMD has increased volume but it can’t fill the void Nvidia created which only provides 8Gb or 12 GB cards in the mid range bracket (obsolete at launch).

 

[Sleepybp]

It’s almost as if Nvidia abandoned the mid range market (16GB around $500) and left the entire market demand for AMD to fill.

It’s no surprise you can’t buy a 9070XT when Nvidia clearly has no interest in selling mid range gpus because they can sell for 5X more to ai buyers .

 

[Beerfloat]

Dude the driver wont even install if the GPU is not on the whitelist of GPUs... >.>

I was wondering how long until someone came along who is aware of this basic fact. This community is zealous but not that technical.

 

[Beerfloat]

hah, what. Are you mental? Wit are you on about mate. They're calling out companies trying to control the media and maintain a monopoly and you're like 'oh well maybe you should stop reporting it?' Maybe you should just stop sharing your opinion. Wild.

HUB would do well to change things up, though. Subscriber numbers have plateaued. The channel seems to despise innovation and caters primarily to a rather toxic vocal minority of multiplayer twitch shooter fans. Any content not involving Tim has become so miserable and sneering that it is barely watchable.

Also, I'm not your mate.

 

[ActualViking]

While this is definitely shady on Nvidia's part, hopefully people are able to sort out real reviews from fake previews and consequently be able to make informed purchases.

My stance has always been - if it's not an independent, nonbiased review, then it's just advertising.

I think your hopes are in vain.
How is people seeing "reviews" to realize they are seeing something manipulated, there won't be labels warning of the problematic content and even with videos and articles telling about the issue, that information won't come to light if you search for "5060 review" or something similar.

The only one can do is to get to know the media one reads/watches by critical thinking and following several outlets, but not many have time to do so for their normal* news media and even fewer will do so for gaming gear unless they really follow the scene.

*Just see what has happened in the US.

 

[Nintenboy01]

Keep fighting the good fight. This dumb thing should also be called the 4050 anyway. It's an insult to great cards like the 1060 that matched the previous gen's 80-series card (even the 3060 wasn't far off from the 2070 Super and 2080)

 

[BogdanR]

One thing has nothing to do with the other, that nvidia is doin shady business paying reviewers for fake areticles does not mean AMD can release their GPUs with a false MSRP

Only that article wasn’t all that well researched and it ended up a hit piece on AMD.
Almost like commissioned by Nvidia. It turned out AMD was 10% over MSRP, just as Nvidia.

 

[SRB]

It is the biggest problem in the gpu world right now. You do not expect the market leader to undercut the competition, it's against their own interest. But you expect it from the underdog.

If the market "leader" releases cards at a trickle so they only sell a handful of cards at MSRP, why should the underdog fall on their sword, especially since the at least tried to release a decent number of cards?

Let's also not forget AMD does not manufacture cards at volume, they get them from and OEM to resell. How much do you think AMD was quoted to make a "founder's edition "? Especially when they've already been shafted by selling a fraction of the Nvidia they thought they would.

There was NEVER any chance that AMD was going to keep prices in check, when their 20% of the market were the only cards available for sale. And guess what, despite AMD selling for over MSRP, the sheep are paying even more money for the equivalent Nvida card, when they could get one.

Supply and demand! The market will charge what the market will bear. Especially when the public can't hand over their hard earned cash fast enough!

 

[ScottSoapbox]

So glad our media is moving towards many independent “creators”. It's a lot harder to buy everyone off when everyone isn’t 3-5 major publishers.

 

[redgarl]

It is the biggest problem in the gpu world right now. You do not expect the market leader to undercut the competition, it's against their own interest. But you expect it from the underdog.

The biggest problem right now, is the 9070XT price matching the 5070 NON-TI?

Give me a break and stop doing damage for HU!

In the meantime, Blackwell is having the worst generational uplift, it has issue with 12VHPWR, Nvidia drivers are broken because they dropped 32 bits CUDA support, stating a 5070 is as fast as a 4090, and the prices of the GPUS are ridiculous. AMD has nothing to do about a 5070 NON-TI retailing at the same price as a 9070 XT... but blame high prices on AMD like a good old Nvidia fanboys trying to purchase their Nvidia GPU at MSRP due to good guy AMD forcing Nvidia to drop their prices...

 

[redgarl]

I was wondering how long until someone came along who is aware of this basic fact. This community is zealous but not that technical.

Then you are as clueless as the fellow gentleman before. My point was not about either it run or not, my point is to provide a review on day one in the state it is, as a statement...

 

[Beerfloat]

Then you are as clueless as the fellow gentleman before. My point was not about either it run or not, my point is to provide a review on day one in the state it is, as a statement...

Hey did you know that just not digging any further whenever your rabid Nvidia nonsense has put you in the hole again is actually an option?

 

[Strawman]

The biggest problem right now, is the 9070XT price matching the 5070 NON-TI?

Give me a break and stop doing damage for HU!

In the meantime, Blackwell is having the worst generational uplift, it has issue with 12VHPWR, Nvidia drivers are broken because they dropped 32 bits CUDA support, stating a 5070 is as fast as a 4090, and the prices of the GPUS are ridiculous. AMD has nothing to do about a 5070 NON-TI retailing at the same price as a 9070 XT... but blame high prices on AMD like a good old Nvidia fanboys trying to purchase their Nvidia GPU at MSRP due to good guy AMD forcing Nvidia to drop their prices...

Uhm, what? Nowhere across europe is the 9070xt the same price as the 5070. Actually the 5070 is a lot cheaper than the regular 9070. In fact even at lower price points the only cards with more than 8gb of vram are nvidias and intels. What the heck are you talking about?

 

[Strawman]

If the market "leader" releases cards at a trickle so they only sell a handful of cards at MSRP, why should the underdog fall on their sword, especially since the at least tried to release a decent number of cards?

Let's also not forget AMD does not manufacture cards at volume, they get them from and OEM to resell. How much do you think AMD was quoted to make a "founder's edition "? Especially when they've already been shafted by selling a fraction of the Nvidia they thought they would.

There was NEVER any chance that AMD was going to keep prices in check, when their 20% of the market were the only cards available for sale. And guess what, despite AMD selling for over MSRP, the sheep are paying even more money for the equivalent Nvida card, when they could get one.

Supply and demand! The market will charge what the market will bear. Especially when the public can't hand over their hard earned cash fast enough!

If the market will charge what the market will bear remind me, why are we using this argument for amd and not for "ngreedia". Amds prices are dictated by market pressures but nvidias by greed,, yeah right.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

If you really wanted to send a statement to Nvidia, you should have done the review of the 5060 with the driver available even if it tanks the performance by 25%.

That would have make them understand the message.

There is no driver for it so it simply won't run at all. That's the entire point of withholding the driver.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

If the market will charge what the market will bear remind me, why are we using this argument for amd and not for "ngreedia". Amds prices are dictated by market pressures but nvidias by greed,, yeah right.

The market sets the prices for both...

...BUT part of AMD's glowing review was the value that it brought relative to Nvidia. These were based on MSRP which were both fake but AMD's market price has (currently) settled higher relative to Nvidia's which removes some of that value (at current market prices).

The point of Tim's follow up video is to attempt to update the value portion of the original review. Not doing so would incentivize AMD and Nvidia to lie even more about MSRP to win the day one reviews value category.

 

[godrilla]

Hey look it's a coordinated strike. Oh and please buy more merch. Because IDGAF(?).

I donated $5 without merch. I'm a sucker for type of journalism. .

 

[candle86]

I was wondering how long until someone came along who is aware of this basic fact. This community is zealous but not that technical.

Actually I can force the driver to install on anything I want. Maybe it's because I am technical but there's definitely ways to force the driver onto quote unsupported hardware.

 

[Beerfloat]

Actually I can force the driver to install on anything I want. Maybe it's because I am technical but there's definitely ways to force the driver onto quote unsupported hardware.

That's so cool. You should've totally let HUB and GN and HardwareLuxx and igor's LAB know that they never had a problem to begin with and all this complaining was inappropriate!

 

[hwertz]

they told us that the $200 RTX 5060 wasn't aimed at enthusiasts who read reviews at TechSpot or YouTube channels like Hardware Unboxed, so launch-day reviews were less important.
....
This is not only inaccurate – it's also a weak excuse

A *very* weak excuse. Arguing that enthusiasts don't read reviews, if Nvidia really believed this, would argue AGAINST them trying to prevent honest reviews at release (why would they bother if they think the people that would buy a 5060 won't read reviews anyway?)

I will note, incidentally, that at least in Linux you can *install* the Nvidia drivers no matter what hardware is in there, it does not look for a whitelist of Nvidia GPUs in any way. I don't know if this helps actually run them though (I thought the NV drivers had some option to just use a non-listed PCI ID but it seems it might not.)

Anyway... my take on it. Is the 5060 disappointing? Yes, having nearly 0 generational speedup compared to 4060 is pretty lame. Should it be called the 5050 instead? Most likely yes.

But to be honest the better cards from both AMD and Nvidia are overpriced (the 5060 is too, but since it's a relatively weak card at least the total price is not too high... as long as it stays vaguely near MSRP.) When I'm ready to replace my GTX1650 I'll *probably* get some model of Arc, if I'm going to upgrade from a 4GB GPU I might as well get 16GB VRAM rather than settling for 8GB; but I could see getting a 5060 as long as the price doesn't inflate. At least the power consumption (total, and per frame) is nice and low so it'll run relatively cool and quiet.

 

[TooQik]

I think your hopes are in vain.
How is people seeing "reviews" to realize they are seeing something manipulated, there won't be labels warning of the problematic content and even with videos and articles telling about the issue, that information won't come to light if you search for "5060 review" or something similar.

The only one can do is to get to know the media one reads/watches by critical thinking and following several outlets, but not many have time to do so for their normal* news media and even fewer will do so for gaming gear unless they really follow the scene.

*Just see what has happened in the US.

As you've pointed out, people need to use multiple sources to determine whether what they are purchasing meets their requirements. Yes, this does take up some of your time, but you ultimately benefit from it in two ways - you find a source of information you trust, and you don't waste your money.

Anyone who doesn't do research before making any purchase they can't afford to waste their money on, only has themselves to blame.

All information sources are salesmen until they prove themselves otherwise.

 

[Marco Mint]

I wonder if Nvidia employees sit around the canteen drinking coffee and asking themselves, "are we the baddies?"
Mitchell and Webb ref, if anyone gets the whooshing sound..

 

[Megalomaniac]

I really don't like the current state of gpu reviews and I hope Nvidia cuts all of them off. Let them simple put their products in stores and let the "pro reviewers" stand on line to get one. They can write that in as yet another reason they dislike Nvidia, but it won't influence my buying decision either way. I bought a 5090FE knowing it was the best - just like my 4090 and my 3090 FTW3 before it. Nvidia is on top whether you like them or not. Their product is good regardless what the reviewers say. I'm more disappointed in the lack of good new games. You get Doom and CoD releases but the game you really want: GTA6, has been pushed back a whole year and in between you get nothing but old, boring games to play.