# Jonnyguru.com may be permanently dead



## Chrispy_ (Jun 30, 2021)

I haven't seen any news about it but I couldn't access it today and a quick search shows a reddit thread saying it's been down for over a week.

I know Jonny left to work for Corsair years ago and OklahomaWolf wrote his last article a couple of years back but I certainly will miss the site so I'm just posting this to raise awareness and pour one out for jonnyguru.com, perhaps_ the_ definitive site for identifying good or bad PSUs back in the beige tower days when so many PSUs were garbage and specs were all lies.

RIP.


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## puma99dk| (Jun 30, 2021)

I think I remember hearing that Johnny will keep the site online for as long as possible even when he works for Corsair.

Correct me if I am wrong.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 30, 2021)

@jonnyGURU can probably answer that


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## qubit (Jun 30, 2021)

There was another thread about this ages ago and the site was down then. So yeah, I think it's down for good. Shame, it was a really good resource.


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## W1zzard (Jun 30, 2021)

wayback machine should work?


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## Bones (Jun 30, 2021)

He's very active over at LTT, if you have an account there just ask. 
All I can say is as long as the link works and takes you to his site, use it.


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## phill (Jun 30, 2021)

Its the place to go for a PSU review in my opinion   There's just something about the way he writes and has a laugh doing it....


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## xrror (Jun 30, 2021)

phill said:


> Its the place to go for a PSU review in my opinion   There's just something about the way he writes and has a laugh doing it....


Most of the PSU articles were written by Oklahoma Wolf. He retired i think around November .. 2020? 19? Time flies.

And yea JonnyGuru.com and Wolf's articles really were the gold standard for PSU reviews. It's a huge loss - doubly so if the old articles are lost.


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## Bill_Bright (Jun 30, 2021)

It does, however, it looks like someone might have some intention of keeping it from dying completely. But for what reason, no clue. Hopefully to bring it back to full life and usefulness as one of the two best review sites on the Interwebs. I note it was great when JG gave a PSU a great (or bad) review. It was even greater, and a decision clincher/no brainer, if TPU did too. No offense to W1zzard but it is always nice to have a second professional opinion.

But there is even a lot of confusion about the future of the domain name. I note Whois shows someone renewed the domain name registration last month for 1 year. And while it shows Jonny Guru is out of Alexandria, Va in the US, the registrar is Key-Systems GmbH. Note that GmbH is the German term for a limited liability company. But if you look even further, it shows the registrar's phone number has a country code of "64". 64 belongs to New Zealand!

None of that leads to any conclusions. It does not mean the site is coming back, or if someone just wants to hang on to the domain name for sentimental reasons, or if someone is going to turn it into a religious teachings and spiritual guidance in Hinduism site, lead by some inspirational "Guru" whose name is "Jonny". 


Edit comment: Fixed a couple typos.


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## dirtyferret (Jun 30, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> I haven't seen any news about it but I couldn't access it today and a quick search shows a reddit thread saying it's been down for over a week.
> 
> I know Jonny left to work for Corsair years ago and OklahomaWolf wrote his last article a couple of years back but I certainly will miss the site so I'm just posting this to raise awareness and pour one out for jonnyguru.com, perhaps_ the_ definitive site for identifying good or bad PSUs back in the beige tower days when so many PSUs were garbage and specs were all lies.
> 
> RIP.


It went dead a while ago, we posted about it on and off








						jonnyguru down?
					

He already quit that business and went to work for Corsair PSU R&D division, so dont expect him to review PSUs anymore, even if he did, he would maybe do that to promote Corsair PSUs with a huge bias because its his new employer now.  He sold the site to Tony maybe a decade ago now?  Its been a...




					www.techpowerup.com
				






puma99dk| said:


> I think I remember hearing that Johnny will keep the site online for as long as possible even when he works for Corsair.
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong.


Jon sold it to Taz about a decade ago and Taz had health issues plus there is no money  in the upkeep of the site, in fact it's a financial drain.

(posted by me back in February in the link above) 

_The site has been down for almost two weeks, hopefully everything is ok with Taz but sucks to lose a great community of knowledge._

via Jon, "Yeah... I hope Tony is ok.  Haven't heard from him for a while.  First his truck broke down (via Facebook) then the site went down. No word as to what's up now."



Bill_Bright said:


> if someone is going to turn it into religious teachings and spiritual guidance in Hinduism site, lead by some inspirational "Guru" who's name is "Jonny"



now let's all meditate to Vishnu for our PSU fans to never stop, our rails to be within 2% ATX spec, and our efficiency to never dip below 87%


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 30, 2021)

Bill_Bright said:


> No offense to W1zzard but it is always nice to have a second professional opinion.


With JG down and both Jonny and OklahomaWolf no longer writing PSU reviews, @crmaris does some of the best on the net. At least the best that show up in an english-language web search.

His reviews lack some of the entertainment of OklahomaWolf's off-topic interjections but the meat is there - full teardowns, analysis and rigorous testing that surpasses many if not all websites. PSU reviews aren't glamourous but they're an underapreciated necessity that helps keep PSU manufacturers honest. So long as reviews subject PSUs to demanding standards and find flaws that delivering a MVP, we will not see the turds that plauged the industry 20 years ago.


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## dirtyferret (Jun 30, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> crmaris does some of the best on the net. At least the best that show up in an english-language web search.



Yes but the real problem is ten years ago you had more than a half dozen sites doing good to great PSU reviews with two-three really dedicated to PSU reviews or it was one of their main hardware peaces to review .  Now we have three sites?  Same guy does it for two of them and none consider the PSU as one of their flagship review items.  I also realize few people read PSU reviews compared to CPU, GPU, coolers & cases so I'm not knocking the business decision but as consumers the scarcity of quality PSU reviews across PC hardware web sites sucks.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 30, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> Yes but the real problem is ten years ago you had more than a half dozen sites doing good to great PSU reviews with two-three really dedicated to PSU reviews or it was one of their main hardware peaces to review .  Now we have three sites?  Same guy does it for two of them and none consider the PSU as one of their flagship review items.  I also realize few people read PSU reviews compared to CPU, GPU, coolers & cases so I'm not knocking the business decision but as consumers the scarcity of quality PSU reviews across PC hardware web sites sucks.


That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.

In a market where you can name a dozen reputable PSU manufacturers and be almost certain that what they make will be fine, there's no real need for a site that's dedicated primarily to calling out fake specs, bluescreen generators, and fire hazards.

My fondness for jonnyguru.com is purely nostalgia, and the fact that we don't need as many PSU reviews now is a testament to the way the PSU industry has changed for the better, in part because of jonnyguru's work 20 years ago.


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## Shrek (Jun 30, 2021)

I learned a lot from that site, and its fall drove me here... so now you know who to blame ;-)


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## eidairaman1 (Jul 1, 2021)

Bones said:


> He's very active over at LTT, if you have an account there just ask.
> All I can say is as long as the link works and takes you to his site, use it.


Linus is a shill.



Chrispy_ said:


> That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.
> 
> In a market where you can name a dozen reputable PSU manufacturers and be almost certain that what they make will be fine, there's no real need for a site that's dedicated primarily to calling out fake specs, bluescreen generators, and fire hazards.
> 
> My fondness for jonnyguru.com is purely nostalgia, and the fact that we don't need as many PSU reviews now is a testament to the way the PSU industry has changed for the better, in part because of jonnyguru's work 20 years ago.



There are still plenty of subpar and crap units floating around


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## Bones (Jul 1, 2021)

eidairaman1 said:


> *Linus is a shill.*
> 
> 
> 
> There are still plenty of subpar and crap units floating around


I'm not going to argue that point.  
It's just he's over there and active right now, I've noted he hasn't been here lately and only he can say why that is. 

BTW good to see you back!


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## Solid State Soul ( SSS ) (Jul 1, 2021)

The place for PSU discussions today is LTT Forms PSU sections, jhonny guru is very active there

Also toms hardware has a healthy PSU form


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## Frick (Jul 1, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.



Sure, if you buy the expensive stuff. Many people don't.


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## Chrispy_ (Jul 1, 2021)

Frick said:


> Sure, if you buy the expensive stuff. Many people don't.





eidairaman1 said:


> There are still plenty of subpar and crap units floating around


Absolutely true - the choice to buy garbage still exists because lots of it is still made, but if you *want* to buy a decent PSU you can do so very easily now. 20 years ago it really was a total crapshoot and other than brand reputation you had very little info to go on, which wasn't much use because companies like Sparkle, Fortron, Superflower, Enermax, and Antec all made products across a wide price spectrum with the low-cost stuff often being little better than the 'fake specification' garbage.

80Plus certification has probably helped with this the most because although it's impossible to truly judge a PSU's quality based on its 80Plus rating, you're unlikely to get a turd with a Gold rating or better - simply because it's damn near impossible to meet that standard with shonky no-name parts and a corner-cutting design. At worst today, you'll buy a cheap 80+ Bronze model that barely meets its spec and has subpar performance compared to the competition, but that's still adequate for most users and compared to the PSUs of 20 years ago, that cheap 80+ Bronze is light years ahead of the garbage we used to tolerate.


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## Valantar (Jul 2, 2021)

I've essentially counted JG as dead ever since they tried to refresh the site and (from what I saw) never even managed to get articles listed in reverse chronological order after moving to the new setup. Navigating to a site to find reviews from the 2000s listed on the front page doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The search function was also borked IIRC. It's a damn shame, but it happens. From reading OW's writings on retiring from the site, I understand him completely - in-depth PSU testing like that sounds _exhausting_, especially if that's the only thing you do. Extremely repetitive, yet labor intensive, requiring a lot of attention to detail and manual labor despite the process each time being essentially the same. I assume from a writer's perspective writing up reviews also turns into .1% variations on the same theme over time. Not many people can live with working conditions like that without burning out.

That being said, I'm very much looking forward to GamersNexus starting PSU reviews in the near future. From what they've shown off so far they've got a proper test lab set up and qualified personnell, and, crucially IMO, are focusing early on on investigating terrible quality units from mainstream brands. There's a ... I want to say Gigabyte? model that they're running a long-term, large-scale test on to see why it seems to like blowing up. With their also announced in-depth fan testing (using five figure cost industrial measurement equipment, not some cheapo anamometer setup) coming along some time in the not too distant future, GN seems to be growing into a go-to source for quality in-depth component reviews. Let's hope TPU can keep up


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## ExcuseMeWtf (Jul 2, 2021)

Yeah, it was dead for months already, I think unreachable since Feb/Mar.


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## Chrispy_ (Jul 3, 2021)

Valantar said:


> I've essentially counted JG as dead ever since they tried to refresh the site and (from what I saw) never even managed to get articles listed in reverse chronological order after moving to the new setup. Navigating to a site to find reviews from the 2000s listed on the front page doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The search function was also borked IIRC. It's a damn shame, but it happens. From reading OW's writings on retiring from the site, I understand him completely - in-depth PSU testing like that sounds _exhausting_, especially if that's the only thing you do. Extremely repetitive, yet labor intensive, requiring a lot of attention to detail and manual labor despite the process each time being essentially the same. I assume from a writer's perspective writing up reviews also turns into .1% variations on the same theme over time. Not many people can live with working conditions like that without burning out.
> 
> That being said, I'm very much looking forward to GamersNexus starting PSU reviews in the near future. From what they've shown off so far they've got a proper test lab set up and qualified personnell, and, crucially IMO, are focusing early on on investigating terrible quality units from mainstream brands. There's a ... I want to say Gigabyte? model that they're running a long-term, large-scale test on to see why it seems to like blowing up. With their also announced in-depth fan testing (using five figure cost industrial measurement equipment, not some cheapo anamometer setup) coming along some time in the not too distant future, GN seems to be growing into a go-to source for quality in-depth component reviews. Let's hope TPU can keep up


I've been really impressed by GN over the last year. Steve's doing wonders in holding cheats/scammers in the industry to account and the Gigabyte PSU in question is going to be an interesting piece in addition to what they've already done on it. Expect content/quality to drop off for a while as they concentrate on relocating to the new premises though.


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## dirtyferret (Jul 3, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> I've been really impressed by GN over the last year.



if Steve was in the music industry instead of the PC hardware review industry and knew what he was talking about he would be...


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## eidairaman1 (Jul 3, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> Absolutely true - the choice to buy garbage still exists because lots of it is still made, but if you *want* to buy a decent PSU you can do so very easily now. 20 years ago it really was a total crapshoot and other than brand reputation you had very little info to go on, which wasn't much use because companies like Sparkle, Fortron, Superflower, Enermax, and Antec all made products across a wide price spectrum with the low-cost stuff often being little better than the 'fake specification' garbage.
> 
> 80Plus certification has probably helped with this the most because although it's impossible to truly judge a PSU's quality based on its 80Plus rating, you're unlikely to get a turd with a Gold rating or better - simply because it's damn near impossible to meet that standard with shonky no-name parts and a corner-cutting design. At worst today, you'll buy a cheap 80+ Bronze model that barely meets its spec and has subpar performance compared to the competition, but that's still adequate for most users and compared to the PSUs of 20 years ago, that cheap 80+ Bronze is light years ahead of the garbage we used to tolerate.



Don't forget CWT, Corsair, Coolermaster, OCZ. Coolmax, Raidmax.

Do the research.


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## Valantar (Jul 3, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> I've been really impressed by GN over the last year. Steve's doing wonders in holding cheats/scammers in the industry to account and the Gigabyte PSU in question is going to be an interesting piece in addition to what they've already done on it. Expect content/quality to drop off for a while as they concentrate on relocating to the new premises though.


Yeah, no doubt the content will be simpler and more straightforward for a while. But IMO it's all good - their simple and straightforward stuff is still head and shoulders above the rest of tech youtube in terms of quality of analysis and perspective, let alone the technical side of things. I also appreciate how straightforward they are being about stuff taking time - there aren't many media outlets that have the guts to say "hey, so half a year ago we ordered a $40 000 fan testing rig thanks to all of you buying our mod mats and merch, and it's just been delivered. We need to learn to use it and develop a testing protocol, so you might see the first reviews in 6-12 months." That kind of rigor, attention to detail, transparency and straightforwardness is exactly what is lifting them to their current position. At this point, I would honestly put them about on par with AnandTech - not in the in-depth tecnhnical analysis of architectures and the like, as nobody can match AT there, but they are head and shoulders above AT in many respects, while churning out reviews at a _much_ higher rate. If GN and TechTechPotato (Ian Cuttress) start doing collaborations on hardware launches and architectural deep-dives, that would be an unbeatable team.


dirtyferret said:


> if Steve was in the music industry instead of the PC hardware review industry and knew what he was talking about he would be...


Oooooohhh. I just pictured GN Steve with Weird Al's lyrical skills. That would be _epic_. I mean ....


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## Selaya (Jul 3, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> [ ... ]
> 
> 80Plus certification has probably helped with this the most because although it's impossible to truly judge a PSU's quality based on its 80Plus rating, you're unlikely to get a turd with a Gold rating or better - simply because it's damn near impossible to meet that standard with shonky no-name parts and a corner-cutting design. [ ... ]


That might've been true a few years ago but unfortunately Gold is now quite full of crapshoots. If you want something that positively works, you will have to aim for Platinum or higher.
A friend of mines ordered a prebuild with a 3090 and they shipped it with the worst crapshoot 1,000W 80PLUS Gold they could find and it'd produce BSODs on an hourly basis. After I told him to swap out the PSU for a Prime these issues went away.
Granted, a 3090 that can spike to like 600W is hardly your average daily use case, but unfortunately Gold rating alone doesn't cut it anymore these days. The crapshoots are getting far too efficient.


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## Valantar (Jul 3, 2021)

Selaya said:


> That might've been true a few years ago but unfortunately Gold is now quite full of crapshoots. If you want something that positively works, you will have to aim for Platinum or higher.
> A friend of mines ordered a prebuild with a 3090 and they shipped it with the worst crapshoot 1,000W 80PLUS Gold they could find and it'd produce BSODs on an hourly basis. After I told him to swap out the PSU for a Prime these issues went away.
> Granted, a 3090 that can spike to like 600W is hardly your average daily use case, but unfortunately Gold rating alone doesn't cut it anymore these days. The crapshoots are getting far too efficient.


Guess it's becoming cheap enough to use the more up-to-date reference designs for the budget crap units to adopt them as well - you can easily make a bad Gold unit if it has DC-DC conversion for minor rails but garbage components, after all. I don't think I'd buy a PSU without reading a review regardless, but then I'm gradually moving on to custom industrial AC-12VDC PSUs + picoPSUs for everything except the main rig anyhow


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## Oklahoma Wolf (Jul 10, 2021)

Valantar said:


> From reading OW's writings on retiring from the site, I understand him completely - in-depth PSU testing like that sounds _exhausting_, especially if that's the only thing you do. Extremely repetitive, yet labor intensive, requiring a lot of attention to detail and manual labor despite the process each time being essentially the same. I assume from a writer's perspective writing up reviews also turns into .1% variations on the same theme over time. Not many people can live with working conditions like that without burning out.



I did burn out. Still can't write anything, and I've been out of the review business since late 2018. I don't regret doing it for so long, really, but after 11 years of it not even coming close to leaving the four figure yearly income bracket doing it I just had to stop. My income had actually been going _down_ in the 2-3 years prior because excessive shipping rates killed my chances of reselling the review units. Even so, the challenge of trying to find new ways to write the same stuff over and over like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill did keep me going for a little while.

Currently trying to put together a Youtube channel. Nothing on it yet... it'll be photography most of the time, electronics projects in the off season (I don't do a lot of camera stuff in winter). No power supplies. I've still got all the load testing gear but no desire to ever use it again.


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## tabascosauz (Jul 10, 2021)

Oklahoma Wolf said:


> I did burn out. Still can't write anything, and I've been out of the review business since late 2018. I don't regret doing it for so long, really, but after 11 years of it not even coming close to leaving the four figure yearly income bracket doing it I just had to stop. My income had actually been going _down_ in the 2-3 years prior because excessive shipping rates killed my chances of reselling the review units. Even so, the challenge of trying to find new ways to write the same stuff over and over like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill did keep me going for a little while.
> 
> Currently trying to put together a Youtube channel. Nothing on it yet... it'll be photography most of the time, electronics projects in the off season (I don't do a lot of camera stuff in winter). No power supplies. I've still got all the load testing gear but no desire to ever use it again.



Since the reviews petered out I've basically stuck to Seasonic Focus Plus and hoped that all of them at least would still be somewhat deserving of the name. So far so good, but I'm not making any bets, SSR-550FX, SSR-550PX, SGX-650 so far

I've been really feeling the loss of the Gutless Wonders though, I loved those lol. Best of luck in your current endeavours, I can't remember which thread it was from but I thought your photography was pretty awesome.


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## R-T-B (Jul 10, 2021)

Oklahoma Wolf said:


> trying to find new ways to write the same stuff over and over like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill did keep me going for a little while.


FWIW you were excellent at this.  Your articles were always enjoyable as much for the way you wrote them as they were for their technical analysis.



tabascosauz said:


> I've been really feeling the loss of the Gutless Wonders though, I loved those lol.


Some of those were friggin gold lol.


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## Chrispy_ (Jul 10, 2021)

Oklahoma Wolf said:


> I did burn out. Still can't write anything, and I've been out of the review business since late 2018. I don't regret doing it for so long, really, but after 11 years of it not even coming close to leaving the four figure yearly income bracket doing it I just had to stop. My income had actually been going _down_ in the 2-3 years prior because excessive shipping rates killed my chances of reselling the review units. Even so, the challenge of trying to find new ways to write the same stuff over and over like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill did keep me going for a little while.
> 
> Currently trying to put together a Youtube channel. Nothing on it yet... it'll be photography most of the time, electronics projects in the off season (I don't do a lot of camera stuff in winter). No power supplies. I've still got all the load testing gear but no desire to ever use it again.


Well thanks for your service.
Do what you enjoy, unless the pay is good enough that you'll accept doing what you can only tolerate.


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## lexluthermiester (Jul 10, 2021)

Valantar said:


> Oooooohhh. I just pictured GN Steve with Weird Al's lyrical skills. That would be _epic_. I mean ....


One of WeirdAl's best. What makes it even funnier? It's still mostly relevant to this day... And yeah, I could totally see GN-Steve rockin a video like this if he had the skills.


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## Shrek (Jul 10, 2021)

Jonnyguru.com will be sorely missed by many; it was an education for me and people were quite patient in explaining things.


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## watzupken (Jul 13, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.
> 
> In a market where you can name a dozen reputable PSU manufacturers and be almost certain that what they make will be fine, there's no real need for a site that's dedicated primarily to calling out fake specs, bluescreen generators, and fire hazards.
> 
> My fondness for jonnyguru.com is purely nostalgia, and the fact that we don't need as many PSU reviews now is a testament to the way the PSU industry has changed for the better, in part because of jonnyguru's work 20 years ago.


I don't deny one can find a decent PSU quite easily nowadays, but there are also an influx of "new" PSU brands which could use some vetting through. Case in point, Gigabyte's legendary exploding PSU which looks and sounds good on paper.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 13, 2021)

Andy Shiekh said:


> Jonnyguru.com will be sorely missed by many; it was an education for me and people were quite patient in explaining things.



yeah it was a great resource. I read all of those reviews... I became quite addicted to the hot testing/ cold testing sections. I have no idea why but I just found it all fascinating.



watzupken said:


> I don't deny one can find a decent PSU quite easily nowadays, but there are also an influx of "new" PSU brands which could use some vetting through. Case in point, Gigabyte's legendary exploding PSU which looks and sounds good on paper.



we still have a good PSU reviewer here on TPU and of course Steve from GN as two good resources left at least. the industry would be lost without Steve. He deserves to be bigger than Linus.


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## dirtyferret (Jul 13, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> TPU and of course Steve from GN as two good resources



I would personally disagree with the latter.  In fact I regard anything coming from Steve as nonsense unless he is just regurgitating something Patrick has reviewed for him (mostly cases)


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## trparky (Jul 13, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> I would personally disagree with the latter.  In fact I regard anything coming from Steve as nonsense unless he is just regurgitating something Patrick has reviewed for him (mostly cases)


Well everyone has to have someone on the stage and Steve's it.


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## ExcuseMeWtf (Jul 13, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> I would personally disagree with the latter.  In fact I regard anything coming from Steve as nonsense unless he is just regurgitating something Patrick has reviewed for him (mostly cases)


Steve took lessons from Jon himself, so it's pretty fair to consider him up there now.


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## Valantar (Jul 13, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> I would personally disagree with the latter.  In fact I regard anything coming from Steve as nonsense unless he is just regurgitating something Patrick has reviewed for him (mostly cases)


How come? Do you have any specific reason to distrust his analyses? Beyond that though, it's rather natural for a channel to have a single presenter for videos even if the review work was done by others on the team.


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## dirtyferret (Jul 13, 2021)

ExcuseMeWtf said:


> Steve took lessons from Jon himself, so it's pretty fair to consider him up there now.


He had him on his show once, it hardly makes his a master (much less "up there") which goes into the next answer...


Valantar said:


> How come? Do you have any specific reason to distrust his analyses? Beyond that though, it's rather natural for a channel to have a single presenter for videos even if the review work was done by others on the team.


A few reasons;
I find him arrogant when he declares other people's work "flawed" yet comes running into PC hardware review segments as a novice but declaring his reviews as the gold standard.
I find he makes mountains out of mole hill issues (mostly to extend his segments, more on that below) yet fails to really look into the issue to see if it even impacts users.
I find his videos far too long and can easily be condensed to five minutes if you remove the hair flipping, the constant use of "ums", and the repetitive dialogue.   Now from a business stand point I totally understand the decision of long videos.  Youtubers make far more money once their videos pass ten minutes but from the consumer side of watching them, they are painful to me.  
The whole TPU issue with him a few years ago could have been handled with a simple statement from him (on air or on his site) instead he makes a 20 minute video so he can make money off of it.
Many of the GN web site reviews are video only now, I get the business decision of this but still sucks as I personally prefer written reviews.

That said the case reviews are excellent in my opinion.


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## RealKGB (Jul 13, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> the hair flipping


That's just a side effect of long hair. I grew mine out for a year or so and had to constantly push it back so I could see anything. I chopped it short because I had to do stuff in the tech lab (saws, belt sanders, drill press, etc.) for school and when I leaned down to use a tool I could see maybe 1 foot from my feet which was not great.


dirtyferret said:


> the constant use of "ums"


I personally don't mind that since I feel it makes the videos more than a talking head. One of the reasons I unsubbed from LTT (I like their forums but am not a fan of the videos) is that everything was scripted and while they do their best to make it seem not just reading a script it's not too great. "um" is just a part of everyday life.


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## Valantar (Jul 13, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> He had him on his show once, it hardly makes his a master (much less "up there") which goes into the next answer...
> 
> A few reasons;
> I find him arrogant when he declares other people's work "flawed" yet comes running into PC hardware review segments as a novice but declaring his reviews as the gold standard.
> ...


I can understand part of what you're saying, but I also have some issues with your reasoning. The first reason you present is an outright logical fallacy. Inexperience does in no way render one incapable of telling if something is flawed or not. More difficult? Sure. Less likely to know what to look for? Sure. But that's statistics. Some people still manage to analyze things well despite not having much experience with those things in particular. An outside perspective can help you see things in a different light or see past bad conventions. For this to be a problem, you need to demonstrate that their takes are significantly wrong in some way. Also, hasn't GN been running PC hardware reviews for like a decade? Sure, that wasn't their focus in the early years, but calling them inexperienced at this point is rather strange. And whether it's Steve or other team members doing various parts of the work is immaterial to this.

Also, saying he fails to see if issues affect users - how would they do that? Run a survey? Wouldn't they first need to present the problem to do that? And if a bad design gets by due to not breaking anything, is that a reason to not call it out? I'd rather say they have a set of principles and adhere to them. That makes their reviews trustworthy and less biased than most, even if it also at times causes them to overemphasise small elements.

I agree it's a shame that their reviews are often video only, but I never found their written reviews particularly good, so it seems they're just better at audiovisual presentations than written ones. And that's fine, even if it would be great if they did both.

I don't think I remember any GN+TPU thing happening. So it can't have bothered me much. 

As for video length etc...Meh. It is what it is. GPU reviews and the like need to present all the data, so they're stuck with that even if it's all very skippable. I skip past 90% of individual game benchmarks in written reviews too, so that's a moot point to me. The videos where they discuss and analyze things tend to spend their time on arguments and looking into issues, which I find worthwhile, even if I might watch the video split into three. A shorter version of those videos would just come off as hyperbolic and poorly argued, which would be far, far worse IMO.

Are they perfect? Obviously not. But among tech reviews today, they're still among the most technically detailed, principled and - crucially! - curious ones out there.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 14, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> I would personally disagree with the latter.  In fact I regard anything coming from Steve as nonsense unless he is just regurgitating something Patrick has reviewed for him (mostly cases)



Steve holds the industry accountable with his influence, he is a great asset to our hobby/community imo.

I would not have known about the Gigabyte PSU issues for example if it wasn't for the team HE created to test lots of stuff. Steve is awesome man.


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## looniam (Jul 14, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> Steve holds the industry accountable with his influence, he is a great asset to our hobby/community imo.
> 
> I would not have known about the Gigabyte PSU issues for example if it wasn't for the team HE created to test lots of stuff. Steve is awesome man.


whoa there, that issue was widely reported in (reputable) reviews:










i for one, is grateful for cmaris since OKW/JG stopped writing.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 14, 2021)

looniam said:


> whoa there, that issue was widely reported in (reputable) reviews:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



ok then the Intel debacle a few years ago that Steve reported on. where he went to the review company and sat down with them.

I can keep giving examples if you like.

NZXT, etc.


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## looniam (Jul 14, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> ok then the Intel debacle a few years ago that Steve reported on. where he went to the review company and sat down with them.
> 
> I can keep giving examples if you like.


the topic here is not some investigative journalism hub bub. when it comes to PSUs, tech jesus is far from the only capable reviewer.

but keep liting candles in your shrine, i understand


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## Space Lynx (Jul 14, 2021)

looniam said:


> the topic here is not some investigative journalism hub bub. when it comes to PSUs, tech jesus is far from the only capable reviewer.
> 
> but keep liting candles in your shrine, i understand



I like the way he presents material... no different than a booktuber, some booktubers I like more than others... wth does it matter which one we watch? lol  you go watch yours and I'll go watch mine. its a big world g.


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## eidairaman1 (Jul 14, 2021)

We still need thorough psu reviews


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## looniam (Jul 14, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> I like the way he presents material... no different than a booktuber, some booktubers I like more than others... wth does it matter which one we watch? lol  you go watch yours and I'll go watch mine. its a big world g.


sure, whatever anyone wants to watch is perfectly fine. and GN has some very educational and entertaining videos. but when it comes PSU reviews, then you have to consider GN has done zero of those.

ya know pointing that out doesn't mean i'm trying to throw any shade.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 14, 2021)

looniam said:


> sure, whatever anyone wants to watch is perfectly fine. and GN has some very educational and entertaining videos. but when it comes PSU reviews, then you have to consider GN has done zero of those.
> 
> ya know pointing that out doesn't mean i'm trying to throw any shade.



you apparently don't watch his videos then, because in last few months he mentioned a couple times he has invested heavily in making a new PSU testing space. i don't know if its up and running or not yet. but I do remember him mentioning it, I think he even hired a new guy for it, but not sure on that one.


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## looniam (Jul 14, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> you apparently don't watch his videos then, because in last few months he mentioned a couple times he has invested heavily in making a new PSU testing space. i don't know if its up and running or not yet. but I do remember him mentioning it, I think he even hired a new guy for it, but not sure on that one.


yes i do watch his videos and he is also working on some air flow box for fan reviews; however neither of which still doesn't get a PSU review. there are other reputable sites doing reviews now and in the recent past ie here on TPU, anandtech (albeit brief) and computer base to name a few.

pretty sure that's on point in this thread.


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## trparky (Jul 14, 2021)

Steve did mention something about getting power supply testing up and running (he already has the hardware to do so) but recently he mentioned that he needs space. Apparently, office space that he has is, however big it is, isn't big enough for all of the projects that he has going and/or has planned for the future. Extensive power supply testing is one such project that he wants to do but he's said that he needs space to do so.


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## dirtyferret (Jul 14, 2021)

Valantar said:


> The first reason you present is an outright logical fallacy. Inexperience does in no way render one incapable of telling if something is flawed or not.


Because their reasoning was not flawed and he showed no proof it.  He simply declared it flawed and him the expert to fix it.  It would be the equivalent me stating your PC is flawed and I will spec out a better PC for you to build due to me having read this book.


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## Valantar (Jul 14, 2021)

looniam said:


> the topic here is not some investigative journalism hub bub. when it comes to PSUs, tech jesus is far from the only capable reviewer.
> 
> but keep liting candles in your shrine, i understand





looniam said:


> sure, whatever anyone wants to watch is perfectly fine. and GN has some very educational and entertaining videos. but when it comes PSU reviews, then you have to consider GN has done zero of those.
> 
> ya know pointing that out doesn't mean i'm trying to throw any shade.





looniam said:


> yes i do watch his videos and he is also working on some air flow box for fan reviews; however neither of which still doesn't get a PSU review. there are other reputable sites doing reviews now and in the recent past ie here on TPU, anandtech (albeit brief) and computer base to name a few.
> 
> pretty sure that's on point in this thread.


But that's exactly the point. More good PSU reviews = better. And it's hardly fair to criticise GN for being inexperienced when they haven't published a single PSU review, but are instead taking the time to ensure their methodology, equipment and knowledge of the field is up to par - isn't that exactly what we'd want them to do? I don't quite see how else anyone would ever be able to do a proper review, unless they started with insufficient knowledge and poor equipment and methods and built from there - but we don't want that, do we? Nobody here has said that GN is an authority on PSU reviews. We've said we're happy they're coming into this field, as JG's death has left a vacuum even if there are still other good reviews to be found. GN has the resources to potentially take over such a role - provided they manage to make good reviews in the first place, of course. Only time will tell with that.

Also btw, if as you say in that second quote you're not trying to throw any shade, maybe refrain from saying stuff like the last sentence in the first quote? 'Cause that sure looks like you're trying to do exactly that.



dirtyferret said:


> Because their reasoning was not flawed and he showed no proof it.  He simply declared it flawed and him the expert to fix it.  It would be the equivalent me stating your PC is flawed and I will spec out a better PC for you to build due to me having read this book.


Sorry, but this is way too vague to engage with. It sounds extremely out of character IMO, but without a video link I have no way of knowing anything at all. As such I'll stick to trusting my own experience with GN, which is that they generally argue their points (and especially critiques) well and in detail, if a tad hyperbolically at times.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 14, 2021)

Valantar said:


> But that's exactly the point. More good PSU reviews = better. And it's hardly fair to criticise GN for being inexperienced when they haven't published a single PSU review, but are instead taking the time to ensure their methodology, equipment and knowledge of the field is up to par - isn't that exactly what we'd want them to do? I don't quite see how else anyone would ever be able to do a proper review, unless they started with insufficient knowledge and poor equipment and methods and built from there - but we don't want that, do we? Nobody here has said that GN is an authority on PSU reviews. We've said we're happy they're coming into this field, as JG's death has left a vacuum even if there are still other good reviews to be found. GN has the resources to potentially take over such a role - provided they manage to make good reviews in the first place, of course. Only time will tell with that.
> 
> Also btw, if as you say in that second quote you're not trying to throw any shade, maybe refrain from saying stuff like the last sentence in the first quote? 'Cause that sure looks like you're trying to do exactly that.
> 
> ...



also keep in mind, that when GN commits to something they go ALL OUT, way more thorough and in-depth than ANYONE else.  only proof I need is their fan testing setup, insanely impressive. also honorable mentions: the way he tests hotspots with creative engineering sometimes, and testing of CPU's, lot of specialized equipment no one else has to my knowledge.

also GN had Jonny from jonnyguru on his show years ago to talk about PSU's, that was a cool episode to watch.


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## looniam (Jul 14, 2021)

Valantar said:


> And it's hardly fair to criticise GN for being inexperienced when they haven't published a single PSU review, but are instead taking the time to ensure their methodology, equipment and knowledge of the field is up to par - isn't that exactly what we'd want them to do?


ah yes it is fair when the topic is psu reviews. 

and GN's plan isn't the only one, several sites hired more than qualified freelancers that have their own equipment already. such as maris here on TPU, anandtech's  e. fylladitakis or pcper's lee garret to name a few. 



> Also btw, if as you say in that second quote you're not trying to throw any shade, maybe refrain from saying stuff like the last sentence in the first quote? 'Cause that sure looks like you're trying to do exactly that.


i suggest you look again. referring to venerating a personality is different that a YT channel.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 15, 2021)

looniam said:


> ah yes it is fair when the topic is psu reviews.
> 
> and GN's plan isn't the only one, several sites hired more than qualified freelancers that have their own equipment already. such as maris here on TPU, anandtech's  e. fylladitakis or pcper's lee garret to name a few.
> 
> ...



what's wrong with venerating someone who keeps the industry honest? I respect him for that. he has done it with several companies over several years. the NZXT radiator issue one was recently with the fire hazard or w.e it was. no one else did that, he was the first. he does it all the time. 

those are the kind of people you need to keep the industry honest.  that's the whole point.  also awesome that Linus backs him up and gives his findings a bigger voice when they are important.


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## looniam (Jul 15, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> what's wrong with venerating someone who keeps the industry honest? I respect him for that. he has done it with several companies over several years. the NZXT radiator issue one was recently with the fire hazard or w.e it was. no one else did that, he was the first. he does it all the time.
> 
> those are the kind of people you need to keep the industry honest.  that's the whole point.  also awesome that Linus backs him up and gives his findings a bigger voice when they are important.


appreciating, maybe even admiring, sure. and i'll point out that many of the types of things you say steve does now was what kyle bennet did prior and someone else before him. its all really nothing new.

however when it comes to venerating any person, past or present, that would be a solid NO.









good luck with that.


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## Space Lynx (Jul 15, 2021)

looniam said:


> appreciating, maybe even admiring, sure. and i'll point out that many of the types of things you say steve does now was what kyle bennet did prior and someone else before him. its all really nothing new.
> 
> however when it comes to venerating any person, past or present, that would be a solid NO.
> 
> ...



venerating is similar to appreciate as me, so i guess it comes down to our difference of definition.  language is organic and constantly changes over the years.  meh.


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## Athlonite (Jul 15, 2021)

Oklahoma Wolf said:


> I did burn out. Still can't write anything, and I've been out of the review business since late 2018. I don't regret doing it for so long, really, but after 11 years of it not even coming close to leaving the four figure yearly income bracket doing it I just had to stop. My income had actually been going _down_ in the 2-3 years prior because excessive shipping rates killed my chances of reselling the review units. Even so, the challenge of trying to find new ways to write the same stuff over and over like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill did keep me going for a little while.
> 
> Currently trying to put together a Youtube channel. Nothing on it yet... it'll be photography most of the time, electronics projects in the off season (I don't do a lot of camera stuff in winter). No power supplies. I've still got all the load testing gear but no desire to ever use it again.



Good luck with your new adventure sometimes you just need to do the complete opposite to revitalise the mind, body and soul so I do really wish you all the best I'll sorely miss the review articles they taught me alot over the years and it's sad to see it come to an end but like the saying goes all things must end eventually and you can only do so much before it starts taking a toll on the physical and mental wellbeing


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## Valantar (Jul 15, 2021)

looniam said:


> ah yes it is fair when the topic is psu reviews.
> 
> and GN's plan isn't the only one, several sites hired more than qualified freelancers that have their own equipment already. such as maris here on TPU, anandtech's  e. fylladitakis or pcper's lee garret to name a few.
> 
> ...


... Did you read what I wrote at all? I never said they were the only one, so please stop putting words in my mouth. I said it's good that there will be another source for quality reviews, and one with the equipment and know-how to do it well. I specifically pointed out that there are others. Given the volume of reviews done by some of those (AT in particular), which must be in the low single digits a year, wouldn't you say that another outlet (and one with the resources to do this at scale) is a good addition?

But again: how can you criticize them for inexperience when their approach is, specifically, to not publish anything until they have ensured that their equipment and methodology are up to par? Do you have any factual basis for their actual practices being worthy of critique? Have they published anything to make it seem like they don't know what they are doing? Because if not, what you are doing here is making a bad-faith, uncounterable quasi-argument, and not bringing anything of value to the discussion here. I'll gladly be the first to say so if their PSU reviews are crap. But do far, we have no reason to suspect that, and dismissing them before the fact like you're doing is... kind of weird.

Also, it doesn't matter whatsoever what you were referring to. Telling people to "keep lighting candles in your shrine" is throwing shade no matter what you're trying to say beyond that. So please get off your high horse.


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## maxfly (Jul 15, 2021)

Ill be happy to see someone doing top to bottom line up reviews for the big dogs again. Its become more and more of a pita to track down who the oems are for the big companies. To the point that there is more misinformation floating around than ever regarding who builds what. It was so refreshing to simply go to JG and find the psu you wanted to research. Right there was all the information you could want. Now were back to google. Happy happy joy joy.


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## looniam (Jul 15, 2021)

Valantar said:


> ... Did you read what I wrote at all? I never said they were the only one, so please stop putting words in my mouth. I said it's good that there will be another source for quality reviews, and one with the equipment and know-how to do it well. I specifically pointed out that there are others. Given the volume of reviews done by some of those (AT in particular), which must be in the low single digits a year, wouldn't you say that another outlet (and one with the resources to do this at scale) is a good addition?


dude you missed the boat. do i really need to break down?


> and GN's* plan* isn't the only one


what part of PLAN means review site?
nothing. so now maybe it makes sense how i recommend other sites because i'm not saying what you think i am. all the critisms you believe i have given are figents of your imagination.

no words you type will magically change that.

and in the future just for you to know, i really don't care about your opinion of me. nor have i before or now or in the future every care to hear your opinion about anything. 

have a good day


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## Valantar (Jul 15, 2021)

looniam said:


> dude you missed the boat. do i really need to break down?
> 
> what part of PLAN means review site?
> nothing. so now maybe it makes sense how i recommend other sites because i'm not saying what you think i am. all the critisms you believe i have given are figents of your imagination.
> ...


What? Sorry man, but I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Have I claimed or argued towards you caring about what I think of you? I said you're contradicting yourself and arguing against self-made straw men. Those aren't opinions, those are facts. You said you weren't interested in throwing shade literally one post after ridiculing people who think GN makes quality reviews. That's the contradiction. The straw man is that you're pretending that people here are arguing that GN is an authority in PSU testing. They don't do PSU testing yet, so it's rather obvious that they aren't. But if their current review standards and thoroughness is anything to go by, as well as their own descriptions of their road towards starting PSU testing, then there's reason to belive they'll be good. That's all. Going by their overall attention to detail, focus on accurate testing, and detailed presentation, there's reason to believe they'll be good. That might of course be wrong - heck, they might be terrible for all we know! - but if so that would be quite unusual for GN.

On the other hand, you're talking as if people have said that there are no good PSU reviews these days, or that GN will by default be the best once they get going. I haven't seen anyone arguing either of those points. I have never said there's anything wrong with recommending other sites either  - as I said before, the more the better.

It's also perfectly fine if you don't like their style or disagree with their analyses, but for that to result in expecting their PSU reviews to be crap (which would necessarily mean bad on a technical level and not just presentation) would be quite unreasonable.


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## xrror (Jul 16, 2021)

Oklahoma Wolf said:


> I did burn out.


I know I'm late to reply, but just wanted to say Thank You for all the years of awesome PSU teardowns and reviews. I always worried that it was probably a thankless job, but know that there were surly many many lurkers like myself that super appreciated the thoroughness and explanations of your methods and teardowns. Never doubt if your work "made a difference" or "mattered" because I know for me at least, your writings totally "ripped through the veil" so to speak on PSU's and made a profound impact for older PC hardware peeps like myself.

I also super enjoyed your side projects like "can we make this Bestec mobo killer an actual decent PSU?" (kinda, but you essentially built your own secondary side) or "Lets recap this craptastic PSU with Rubiconn low ESD caps" and it surprisingly showed the original capxon (i think?) caps were better for being "soft" and better at smoothing - which was a revelation at the time. They just _really_ didn't like heat.

Sorry to ramble on, it's just that I miss those days / super appreciate that you probably did all that work and wrote those articles thinking that yea, hardly anyone would care enough to read your results. Well darnit I did, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.

That said, best of luck to persuing what you want to do in the future! You deserve it =D

Alright enough fan gushing from me lol.


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## sepheronx (Jul 16, 2021)

They havent have done a dedicated PSU review yet but they have done multiple review of computer builds (you know, crappy pre-builds?) where they actually have gone through testing the PSU through stress tests.  There is a guy with them that does a thorough breakdown of the PSU's and its quite interesting.  Recent one I saw was about the Dell Pre-build with the GTX 1660S.


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## Anoniem (Jul 20, 2021)

I too really look forward to the GN PSU testing and seeing how they evolve in that space. They're tenacious, listen to fair criticism and overall are willing to learn. Steve went from an EX OC rookie to actually posting some cool scores, that takes effort! They're not afraid to take some risks when calling out companies, which helps us in turn get better (less flawed) products. Are the videos long? Yes. Could it have been more condensed? Perhaps. Overall they've made some effort in the last year to make their videos more entertaining  Back to you Steve, thank you Steve hahaha.

And yeah, losing jonnyguru was a hit in the gut but after reading why I totally get it. Best of luck to you @Oklahoma Wolf & Jonny and thank you for your work, it has helped many people.


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