# AMD Radeon RX 560 vs. GTX  1050



## W1zzard (Jun 21, 2017)

For those passionate people playing the latest AAA and eSports titles, gaming has always been a rather expensive hobby. New hardware comes out all the time - AMD and NVIDIA having launched their Polaris generation GPUs just last year - but many users opt out of the constant upgrade cycle in favor of more budget-savvy investments. Those people are eyeing the AMD RX 560, the best value GPU upgrade around right now.

*Show full review*


----------



## Redspeed93 (Jun 21, 2017)

"Advertorial by AMD"

I always took your site pretty seriously. Guess that's over...


----------



## JATownes (Jun 21, 2017)

Redspeed93 said:


> "Advertorial by AMD"
> 
> I always took your site pretty seriously. Guess that's over...


I agree.  Everyone around here knows that I am a huge AMD fan, but this is a little over the top.  An "Advertorial"?  I take it that is an editorial that is clearly paid for?  I don't really care for this type of "RX560 vs GTX1050"...gives the impression of an unbiased review, but appears to be produced by the "advertiser".   

JAT


----------



## IceScreamer (Jun 21, 2017)

I never expected to see this kind of thing on TPU.


----------



## 5DVX0130 (Jun 21, 2017)

This is a joke. It doesn't belong in the reviews section, since it's just an add.
Next time at least run the benchmarks yourself, and do a proper comparison. 

TP is slowly turning into Tom's.


----------



## dj-electric (Jun 21, 2017)

I'm smart enough to know that TPU does this for income. I don't mind these ads, for now.


----------



## _Flare (Jun 21, 2017)

If that is what´s needed to be a early reviewer of Threadripper, what can i say against it.
JOIN THE REBELLION


----------



## notb (Jun 21, 2017)

I really hope AMD pays well, because this commercial will clearly cost TPU a lot. 

I just love the fact that it clearly states that 4GB gives an advantage in gaming and then compares RX560 4GB vs 1050 2GB.
However, in the text a price of 100 EUR is mentioned *3 times*, but for this money one can only buy a 2GB card. The 4 GB variants cost... you've guessed... around as much as 1050Ti (4GB, surprise!).
Everyone can look at TPU reviews and check how 1050Ti compares to a 4GB RX460... of course if they still believe in anything published by this site.


----------



## the54thvoid (Jun 21, 2017)

Wow.

"Advertorial".

This isn't really a great move.  I love TPU but this is bullshit @W1zzard.

Given that Nvidia announced their PCI-e version of the compute Volta card and it hasn't been covered, yet the MI25 (which has already been covered before) is up again, this looks very much like pro AMD hijacking.  I've always defended this site as neutral but putting a marketing slide up on the review front page is crass and low level.  The review page is for reviews by you guys, not infomercials.

Sure, put it on the news list but not the review section.  I went there expecting a nice review - not even got that - one page of AMD is der greatest.  Nope, silly move for this site.

Not saying you're an AMD site now mind, just that this is a bit 'completely not TPU' style.


----------



## MagnuTron (Jun 21, 2017)

ew


----------



## JATownes (Jun 21, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> I went there expecting a nice review - not even got that - one page of AMD is der greatest.  Nope, silly move for this site.



This threw me for a loop as well.  Went to click to another page, and it was just user comments. That is when I realized that it was NOT a TPU review.


----------



## WVL!VN (Jun 21, 2017)

I would like to see TPU doing their own review of RX 560, just for the sake of things


----------



## notb (Jun 21, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> Not saying you're an AMD site now mind, just that this is a bit 'completely not TPU' style.



IMO this casts a negative light on a lot of what was happening here lately.
The flood of AMD-related news and reviews.
The move to review all Ryzen CPUs (despite not having much experience with CPU reviewing, which they admitted).
The very high marks for both AMD CPUs and AM4 boards...

Lately even TPU editors and moderators started taking side of AMD fanboys and taking part in AMD-Intel flame wars.
Well... let's be honest. AMD might not be the largest company on the planet, but they surely can afford an enthusiast site - even the most popular one at the moment.


----------



## phanbuey (Jun 21, 2017)

need a new category for "ads" so i don't accidentally click on them.


----------



## Darksword (Jun 21, 2017)

Fake news.


----------



## qubit (Jun 21, 2017)

An AMD "advertorial" on TPU? Well, that's novel and I hope that AMD paid well. I thought this site never needed money? (Check the PayPal donation page where TPU says not required)

Balance and impartiality in reviews is what I've always known TPU for, but this clearly isn't it.  Why didn't you ask the community in the feedback section to see if we'd like to see something like this, first? I'll go have that shower now.

@notb and @the54thvoid - very well said.


----------



## Mescalamba (Jun 21, 2017)

Nobody forces us to click it.. you catched me off guard tho.  Wont happen again.


----------



## qubit (Jun 21, 2017)

Mescalamba said:


> Nobody forces us to click it.. you catched me off guard tho.  Wont happen again.


You won't be able to help clicking on a similar article again, because there's nothing on the front page to indicate what it is. The first impression is that it's a comparative review by TPU when that's clearly not the case.


----------



## PerfectWave (Jun 21, 2017)

so finally wizzard will have vega gpu to test for free Kappa


----------



## renz496 (Jun 21, 2017)

lol hardware unboxed (techspot) just released proper RX560 vs GTX1050 vs GTX1050Ti yesterday:










to be honest i was expecting this kind of review here at TPU then only saw test done by AMD on selected tittle.


----------



## VSG (Jun 21, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> Wow.
> 
> "Advertorial".
> 
> ...



We got all the AMD compute GPU news from the event yesterday when w1z was present in person and passed on the news live. I can let the news guys know about the NVIDIA compute Volta card but to be honest I myself had no idea there was a new release from AMD or NVIDIA (aside from EPYC) 

Edit: Found it, passing on the info now.


----------



## Supercrit (Jun 21, 2017)

TPU is one of the few sites I go through everything to disable all the adblock, I guess my efforts aren't enough.


----------



## KainXS (Jun 21, 2017)

The only good thing about this is that Roy won't cry about it on twitter at least, I hope it was worth the damage your doing to your reputation though.


----------



## ArchStupid (Jun 21, 2017)

I don't understand who thought this was a good idea.


----------



## qubit (Jun 22, 2017)

I haven't seen one positive comment about this on here. I've never seen TPU score such a massive PR own goal before. 

If you absolutely must have these articles, then I think that they should be clearly labeled as such on the front page, so that people aren't bait'n'switched into reading them thinking they're another objective TPU review when they're not. In my case, I was quite pissed off when I saw what it was and only skim-read a bit of the article.


----------



## Xzibit (Jun 22, 2017)

qubit said:


> An AMD "advertorial" on TPU? Well, that's novel and I hope that AMD paid well. I thought this site never needed money? (Check the PayPal donation page where TPU says not required)
> 
> Balance and impartiality in reviews is what I've always known TPU for, but this clearly isn't it.  Why didn't you ask the community in the feedback section to see if we'd like to see something like this, first?* I'll go have that shower now.*
> 
> @notb and @the54thvoid - very well said.



Only 7 mins *Post #16* - *Post #18* ? Did you take your puter or phone in with you ?

Did you even wash behind the ears and in the important places ?


----------



## Dimi (Jun 22, 2017)

The 1050 Ti at 10 dollars more DEMOLISHES this overpriced piece of garbage that can't even compete with the much cheaper 1050 2gb.


----------



## Steevo (Jun 22, 2017)

It's highly possible that if you don't run something like this on a website then you don't get first dibs on a Vega card. That being said it's worth remembering how much crap has been shoveled on AMD for their poor performing products in the past in reviews and in competitive reviews pointing fingers at how poorly they have done. Lastly I wonder how many 560 cards are available with the mining craze


----------



## Dimi (Jun 22, 2017)

Steevo said:


> It's highly possible that if you don't run something like this on a website then you don't get first dibs on a Vega card. That being said it's worth remembering how much crap has been shoveled on AMD for their poor performing products in the past in reviews and in competitive reviews pointing fingers at how poorly they have done. Lastly I wonder how many 560 cards are available with the mining craze



You don't say, i was eyeballing a zotac 1070 mini last month for my wife's pc when it was 329$. 2 weeks later it was 429, and now its close to 500.

I go to microcenter to maybe find a sweet deal.. cheapest 1060 they had was 349$. Literally 0 AMD cards in their whole store. These miners are just cancer for the gaming community. Now my wife is still stuck with a shitty gtx 760.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Jun 22, 2017)

Here is a review, Roy "reviews need to be fair" Taylor would kinda approve of (if you remove the games where GTX 1050 wins):

http://www.techspot.com/review/1430-radeon-rx-560-vs-geforce-gtx-1050/

Ultimately both decent cards for the money, if you happen to do this thing called "gaming".


----------



## mtcn77 (Jun 22, 2017)

renz496 said:


> lol hardware unboxed (techspot) just released proper RX560 vs GTX1050 vs GTX1050Ti yesterday:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If you would be so kind as to watch the 'proper' review, they aren't recommending the 1050, either. There are many discrepancies in that review, like how 1050 is mentioned as an internal power adapter, but the one reviewed does come with an external connector. They say nothing has changed in the last 8 months when 560 does beat 1050 to the curb in Doom, but that gets overlooked...


----------



## MrGenius (Jun 22, 2017)

WTF kind of BS is this? 







> **Test environment specifications*
> Testing done by AMD Performance Labs March 1st 2017 using an Intel Core i7 6700K (@4.0GHz), 2x4 GB DDR4-2667 MHz memory, AMD web driver 17.1.1, NV WHQL Driver 378.49 and Windows 10 (64bit). PC manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. The following games were tested at 1080p: *Civilization 6* (*Medium Presets*, DX12), *Mass Effect: Andromeda* (*Low Preset*, DX11), *Resident Evil 7* (*Medium Presets*, DX11), DOOM (Ultra settings, Vulkan) and *Hitman* (*Medium Presets*, DX12). The Radeon™ RX 560 (4 GB) scored 64.5, 69.8, 65.4, 67.5 and 62.5 respectively. The ZOTAC GTX 1050 scored 48.5, 50.4, 63.4, 56.8 and 42.1 respectively. All scores in average FPS and as an average of three runs with the same settings. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers.



So...with the exception of DOOM...the chart is a complete lie. Made to look like an RX 560 4GB can actually run modern AAA games at 1080p, with High to Ultra settings applied, and average 60+ FPS doing so. At least they were honest enough to admit that's a total crock of shit.


----------



## 0x4452 (Jun 22, 2017)

Damg, now with AMD sponsoring TechPowerUP content, I can only hope the site will stay impartial.

Consider HardOCP: they slammed AMD VR performance, than AMD brought the editor on stage and no more negative words about AMD since.

PS: 
As linked above, other website show that the GTX 1050 is in fact a better buy than the RX 560, while this article clearly is trying to convey the reverse.


----------



## AndreiD (Jun 22, 2017)

This is by far the worst thing TPU has ever done for its image, at least don't splay this paid article in the review ticker.


----------



## TheGuruStud (Jun 22, 2017)

Dimi said:


> The 1050 Ti at 10 dollars more DEMOLISHES this overpriced piece of garbage that can't even compete with the much cheaper 1050 2gb.



Which is why anything under a 470 is a waste of money. They perform like doo doo and still cost too much.


----------



## AndreiD (Jun 22, 2017)

renz496 said:


> lol hardware unboxed (techspot) just released proper RX560 vs GTX1050 vs GTX1050Ti yesterday:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
HU chose the 1050 over the 560, guess TPU might do so too if Nvidia pays them more than AMD since clearly that's how it's going to be from now on on this site....


----------



## RealNeil (Jun 22, 2017)

Dimi said:


> You don't say, i was eyeballing a zotac 1070 mini last month for my wife's pc when it was 329$. 2 weeks later it was 429, and now its close to 500



Crap! I'm glad that I locked in a pair of 1070 G1-Gaming cards for 575 (for both) before these price fluctuations.


----------



## Mistral (Jun 22, 2017)

I don't mind the advertorial, as it's clearly marked as such, but it would be nice to have some independent TPU performance numbers to go with it for comparison.


----------



## KainXS (Jun 22, 2017)

You know I just noticed it says "AMD and NVIDIA having launched their Polaris generation GPUs just last year"


----------



## Yukikaze (Jun 22, 2017)

I clicked this from the top reviews bar. Nothing told me what I was getting into at that click. I suddenly did not see the usual review layout. It looked fishy. Then the graph format hit me and scrolled back to the top: Advertorial? Holy shit. Techpowerup is dead/dying? This isn't why I come here.


----------



## qubit (Jun 22, 2017)

Xzibit said:


> Only 7 mins *Post #16* - *Post #18* ? Did you take your puter or phone in with you ?
> 
> Did you even wash behind the ears and in the important places ?


Have you got nothing better to do than obsess over my posting rate?  I see I have a stalker on TPU.


----------



## Smanci (Jun 22, 2017)

Where can I deactivate my account?


----------



## Xzibit (Jun 22, 2017)

qubit said:


> Have you got nothing better to do than obsess over my posting rate?  I see I have a stalker on TPU.



I guess i could complain about an article that is marked on a forum.

Nah. I rather laugh.


----------



## XiGMAKiD (Jun 22, 2017)

At first I was confused as to why the article is unusually short, and reading the comments reveal that this is an advertorial.

While at least it's just a page long, you guys need to make sure people see it clearly that it is an advertorial if there's going to be more like this in the future.


----------



## HD64G (Jun 22, 2017)

renz496 said:


> lol hardware unboxed (techspot) just released proper RX560 vs GTX1050 vs GTX1050Ti yesterday:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Watched this yesterday and 560 is -2% from 1050 in average of 30 games, while last year 460 was -18%. So, mature drivers fro polaris arch, more DX12 games and the fully unlocked chip brought the battle to a draw practically.


----------



## the54thvoid (Jun 22, 2017)

The real damage in this is not about which card is actually better.  Hell, I dont care if the 560 is far better, the effect is knock on.  *Once you place a highly preferential commercial piece of PR (where it really does not belong) it reduces your neutrality bias*.  Now this has happened, if indeed TPU gets a VEGA card to review, how can you be sure the conclusion wont be red slanted, owing to this favour to AMD, or this paid advert direct from AMD.   
I believe the reviews (real ones not POS adverts) will still be neutral but this PR stunt, putting a company sponsored, company 'tested' review into your own review section is HIGHLY misleading and deeply polarising (no pun intended).  It really is a huge step backwards for the integrity of neutrality for TPU.  
Just move it to the nes section and mark it PR.  Where it sits it looks like a wizz review so we click it for info.  What an awful let down when you open the page.

Have some more of these:


----------



## renz496 (Jun 22, 2017)

mtcn77 said:


> If you would be so kind as to watch the 'proper' review, they aren't recommending the 1050, either. There are many discrepancies in that review, like how 1050 is mentioned as an internal power adapter, but the one reviewed does come with an external connector. They say nothing has changed in the last 8 months when 560 does beat 1050 to the curb in Doom, but that gets overlooked...



What they said was the 6 pin was not making sense on such card. because power consumption wise the card will not going to consume more than 75w even when they have those 6 pin. even the much faster 1050ti was like that. 

MSI GTX1050: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Gaming_X/25.html
MSI GTX1050Ti : https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Ti_Gaming_X/25.html
Gigabyte GTX1050Ti: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_1050_Ti_G1_Gaming/27.html

but board partner most likely include the card with 6 pin to ensure overclocking stability. or they simply want to ease the burden from the mobo by pulling majority of the power from the power connector. 

About DOOM RX560 most likely really pulling ahead because of the VRAM. they did mentioned this when they concluded the test to see how many games that RX560 able to win/tie/lose against 1050. they also mention removing Doom from the chart did not affect the average score that much either.


----------



## renz496 (Jun 22, 2017)

HD64G said:


> Watched this yesterday and 560 is -2% from 1050 in average of 30 games, while last year 460 was -18%. So, mature drivers fro polaris arch, more DX12 games and the fully unlocked chip brought the battle to a draw practically.



to be honest all this time i was thinking RX560 will be performing on the same level as 1050ti. because to me i have this idea about 460 = 1050 < 1050ti. so 560 with all it's shader being enabled will make the card on par with 1050ti or even faster than 1050ti in any games that favoring AMD card more.


----------



## Assimilator (Jun 22, 2017)

Disappointed, @W1zzard. Very disappointed.


----------



## natr0n (Jun 22, 2017)

There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.


----------



## JalleR (Jun 22, 2017)

So now there is Commercials on the TOP Rowe...    SAD.......


----------



## Warrgarbl (Jun 22, 2017)

This should not be filed under Reviews. It is irritating, to say the least... clicked, expected a review, got a single page with untested info. Not cool.

EDIT: I really like how the result for Resident Evil shows 63 fps, yet AMD saw fit to stop the bar right at 60 fps... can't have a 1050 manage 60 fps+, huh?


----------



## Hugis (Jun 22, 2017)

This shouldn't be on the front page under reviews or it should state on the front page its an advert, sad times really didnt want to see this on my favorite site.
Please either move it elsewhere or rename it......


----------



## Chaitanya (Jun 22, 2017)

IceScreamer said:


> I never expected to see this kind of thing on TPU.


Then you havent been to TPU in recent months: spreading FUD(AMD polaris rumours), reposting rumours and using random misleading images in press releases. Welcome to new Toms.


----------



## qubit (Jun 22, 2017)

Xzibit said:


> I guess i could complain about an article that is marked on a forum.
> 
> Nah. I rather laugh.


Ummmm... Yeah, you really are short of a bob or two.


----------



## sergionography (Jun 22, 2017)

So much salt on this thread SMH. Dont you guys have better things to do?


----------



## Readlight (Jun 22, 2017)

These benchmarks all is incorect, card is super slow canot handle superantialiasing, games where lots of objects, slow texture loading,
Tomb rider 10-24 dirt 4 whit turned off grass 30fps almous all new games dont work or game engines is made like shit. not 100euro its 150 and pc whit 130-200w to run all day i beter run mining to get mony back. even witcher 2 haw 24 fps
Awesemnouts  dont starve left 4 dead 2 works. and steam is stupid to get good game for my cpu gpu.


----------



## cyneater (Jun 22, 2017)

Sigh so AMD is paying the bills now? 

Not even the normal review format... 

So much salt because its pretty much an Re-advert


----------



## bug (Jun 22, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> WTF kind of BS is this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I was wondering if anyone else spotted those.


----------



## Assimilator (Jun 22, 2017)

sergionography said:


> So much salt on this thread SMH. Dont you guys have better things to do?



I guess telling obnoxious trolls like yourself to STFU is a better use of my time.


----------



## ZeppMan217 (Jun 22, 2017)

Wait, is this just one page? It says "Introduction", was there more?


----------



## lZKoce (Jun 22, 2017)

Aaahh the vehement comment section....relentless, cruel. I can't believe people will give up TPU, because they posted one or two advertorials. The years of consisted community and news feed, reviews etc, doesn't matter ? The fact that the landing page doesn't have a bazillion ads all over it as some other tech-related websites is also of no importance ? If something is taking you more than a few hours a week, it's not just a hobby any more. It's a kind of a business, I totally understand they need to cover monthly costs and I can't remember donating money to their account, so I don't mind some ads here and there. Never been obtrusive on this website in my opinion. And AMD did change their value proposition in a way, that made me buy their cards on my latest PC, so I gotta hand it to them this time around.


----------



## jabbadap (Jun 22, 2017)

HD64G said:


> Watched this yesterday and 560 is -2% from 1050 in average of 30 games, while last year 460 was -18%. So, mature drivers fro polaris arch, more DX12 games and the fully unlocked chip brought the battle to a draw practically.



They are different cards(not rebrands like the polaris 10 variations), RX560 uses full Polaris 11 core(1024), while RX460(896) does not(Tflops count is 2.6TFlops vs 2.2TFlops). But yeah they(RX560,GTX1050) are quite equal cards... if one not want card without pcie 6-pin connector, which RX560 always has(TDP 80W). 

As that Advertorial debacle, I agree it should not be on site reviews category. But other than that; it's kind of okay to have them, if it helps tpu's financials.


----------



## IceScreamer (Jun 22, 2017)

lZKoce said:


> Aaahh the vehement comment section....relentless, cruel. I can't believe people will give up TPU, because they posted one or two advertorials. The years of consisted community and news feed, reviews etc, doesn't matter ? The fact that the landing page doesn't have a bazillion ads all over it as some other tech-related websites is also of no importance ? If something is taking you more than a few hours a week, it's not just a hobby any more. It's a kind of a business, I totally understand they need to cover monthly costs and I can't remember donating money to their account, so I don't mind some ads here and there. Never been obtrusive on this website in my opinion. And AMD did change their value proposition in a way, that made me buy their cards on my latest PC, so I gotta hand it to them this time around.


I don't think people will "give up" TPU or anything, but the criticism this got is well deserved. For me at least, this would not be that big of a problem if it was clearly labeled as an advertorial and especially if it was not put in the review ribbon menu. 
Also this could possibly cause skepticism with some people regarding bias in reviews towards AMD and such. 
This was a bad move all together, no matter how you look at things.


----------



## bug (Jun 22, 2017)

ZeppMan217 said:


> Wait, is this just one page? It says "Introduction", was there more?


More advertorials to come, I guess.

I have no problem with this, but don't try to pass them as reviews in the future. Please. The quality of the info in there is borderline trolling, though.


----------



## sergionography (Jun 22, 2017)

Assimilator said:


> I guess telling obnoxious trolls like yourself to STFU is a better use of my time.


Dude writes 3 pages worth of ranting comments then tells me to STFU for a 2 line comment  
I guess It takes one tiny needle to pop a huge air baloon lol
Anywho on a serious note, one person already said something about this advertorial in the early comments so no need to keep rephrasing what was said for 3 darn pages of comments. Typically i come to tpu and read peoples comments to learn some insightful things as there are many knowledgeable members here, but this time around i was disapointed to say the least.


----------



## DRDNA (Jun 22, 2017)

natr0n said:


> There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.



That is one of my favorite quotes from the best and most authoritative and educational love filled book on the planet!!!!   

This is W1zzard's web sight and has served me well over the last 11+ years and while the reviews are nice I have always enjoyed the community here at TPU more than anything else, the fact that members here like myself just love to help people out with their PC issues! How we teach each other so much and I have always thought our "Game is bar none top notch" While I don't like ads I do know I don't have to read anything unless I want to.. *Yes this is different but maybe there are reasons we have not been made aware of..........A website such as this can be pretty costly to maintain especially when its size has grown as much as this site has*......TPU is a pretty big presence in the PC arena! Still


----------



## Hugis (Jun 22, 2017)

I guess it's time to lock the comments then as it's all been said......


----------



## dirtyferret (Jun 22, 2017)

Techspot posted an actual review the other day finding the Nvidia 1050 slightly faster and the better buy.


----------



## Frick (Jun 22, 2017)

I thought the article, and the graphic, looked like something from Toms... The ad-thing aside it's just lackluster.

For e-sports I'd want RX550 reviews!


----------



## KainXS (Jun 22, 2017)

jabbadap said:


> They are different cards(not rebrands like the polaris 10 variations), RX560 uses full Polaris 11 core(1024), while RX460(896) does not(Tflops count is 2.6TFlops vs 2.2TFlops). But yeah they(RX560,GTX1050) are quite equal cards... if one not want card without pcie 6-pin connector, which RX560 always has(TDP 80W).



Some(if not most) of the RX 460's with 6 pin can unlock to 1024SP and some of the RX 560's use the same PCB's as the RX 460 versions like the Strix. As to whether the actual GPU's are different we will never know.


----------



## Duality92 (Jun 22, 2017)

I'll just leave this here and let you do your own conclusions.


----------



## Frick (Jun 22, 2017)

KainXS said:


> Some(if not most) of the RX 460's with 6 pin can unlock to 1024SP and some of the RX 560's use the same PCB's as the RX 460 versions like the Strix.



Ho hum, then those RX460's at €90 might be quite the deal...


----------



## KainXS (Jun 22, 2017)

Frick said:


> Ho hum, then those RX460's at €90 might be quite the deal...



If you could get a decent binned one and unlock then overclock it like der8auer did then definitely.


----------



## jabbadap (Jun 22, 2017)

KainXS said:


> Some(if not most) of the RX 460's with 6 pin can unlock to 1024SP and some of the RX 560's use the same PCB's as the RX 460 versions like the Strix. As to whether the actual GPU's are different we will never know.



While true and nice feature to have, I doubt he meant those unlocked versions when comparing performance uplift from RX460 to RX560.


----------



## 80-watt Hamster (Jun 22, 2017)

lZKoce said:


> Aaahh the vehement comment section....relentless, cruel. I can't believe people will give up TPU, because they posted one or two advertorials. The years of consisted community and news feed, reviews etc, doesn't matter? The fact that the landing page doesn't have a bazillion ads all over it as some other tech-related websites is also of no importance?



Nobody blinks when the screw-up screws up, but when you've been performing to a high standard, any mis-step stands out in a very stark fashion.  A move like this erodes trust considerably.

As an aside, why all the digs at Tom's?  Their format is atrocious, and those auto-play video ads need to die in a fire, but the content is typically solid.


----------



## bug (Jun 22, 2017)

80-watt Hamster said:


> Nobody blinks when the screw-up screws up, but when you've been performing to a high standard, any mis-step stands out in a very stark fashion.  A move like this erodes trust considerably.



It's just people being people.
I'm pretty sure with all the ad-blockers, TPU isn't rolling in money, so I'm not going to fault them for looking for additional sources.


----------



## DRDNA (Jun 22, 2017)

bug said:


> It's just people being people.
> I'm pretty sure with all the *ad-blockers*, TPU isn't rolling in money, so I'm not going to fault them for looking for additional sources.



Ahh well very good point! I just now  advised (turned off) Ublock to not activate on TPU! Now I'm helping to do my part..Thnx for the heads up!


----------



## unclesharkey (Jun 22, 2017)

Did any of you think that maybe....... just maybe, he is going to review these cards and is just posting this as a precursor to an actual review which reveals actual benchmarks?


----------



## the54thvoid (Jun 22, 2017)

None of this furore has anything to do with advertising.  We get press PR all the time in the 'news' thread.  It's *where* this has been placed.  This is an AMD marketing move - it's not even a real review. The review was done by the company buying (or acquiring) space on TPU.  To put a 'fake' review done by the actual company selling the product in the standard TPU review section, where w1z reviews the cards etc normally, is exceptionally misleading.
It is not a review - it's an advert.
But it's been posted into the much anticipated TPU review section.
That is the only problem with what has happened.  Advertising is fine but the review section is not for adverts.

But hey - as I've said it's not my site and w1z can do what he wants. But the really sad fact still stands, when you put a fake review advert (which is not independent) into your own sites review section, you compromise your integrity.  TPU has done exactly that.  Compromised its own integrity.

Just move it the news section FFS and get your soul back from Lisa Su.


----------



## qubit (Jun 22, 2017)

@the54thvoid I predict a riot when TPU do the same for NVIDIA.


----------



## Luka KLLP (Jun 22, 2017)

Did you just write esports with a capital "S"?


----------



## jabbadap (Jun 22, 2017)

bug said:


> It's just people being people.
> I'm pretty sure with all the ad-blockers, TPU isn't rolling in money, so I'm not going to fault them for looking for additional sources.



yeah that is really bugging me. Ads on tpu are not very intrusive and the site is pleasant without ad-blocker. Maybe people are just too lazy to disable ad-blocker and try on different sites.


----------



## Para_Franck (Jun 22, 2017)

In the review section? Really?


----------



## bug (Jun 22, 2017)

jabbadap said:


> yeah that is really bugging me. Ads on tpu are not very intrusive and the site is pleasant without ad-blocker. Maybe people are just too lazy to disable ad-blocker and try on different sites.


The ugly side is that advertisers won't run ads without also running JavaScript. And while I disable AdBlock for sites I visit often, I will not disable NoScript. I have NoScript configured to allow scripts from the site I'm visiting and a few other, hand picked sites, but I will not run arbitrary third party scripts.
Also, besides intrusiveness, a site can be really, really slow to load with ads when it has to contact over a dozen sites in order to do so.


----------



## mstenholm (Jun 22, 2017)

Still in the review section?


----------



## INSTG8R (Jun 22, 2017)

Now it's been posted on Facebook??!!!


----------



## Casecutter (Jun 22, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> I went there expecting a nice review - not even got that - one page of AMD is der greatest. Nope, silly move for this site.



Exactly... Bad... just bad!


----------



## kruk (Jun 22, 2017)

I was really disappointed that this wasn't an actual TPU review when I clicked on it. 



Dimi said:


> The 1050 Ti at 10 dollars more DEMOLISHES this overpriced piece of garbage that can't even compete with the much cheaper 1050 2gb.



Whoa, relax. Hardware Unboxed has proven RX 560 can compete very nicely with the 1050. Also, if you have limited budget "just X$ more" is not an option.



MrGenius said:


> WTF kind of BS is this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think you have to calm down a bit. Why do you take this chart so personal? There are people out there which play latest titles on medium or low settings because they *care about the story *and not about the eye candy. Both of these cards should run older games very well on highest settings and at 1080p. Also, does no one replay old games anymore? You don't need a Titan X to play Half-Life 2 for example, but it will run great on 1050/RX 560.


----------



## MrGenius (Jun 22, 2017)

kruk said:


> I think you have to calm down a bit. Why do you take this chart so personal?


False advertising is illegal in my country.



> False Advertising
> 
> false advertising n : the crime or tort of publishing, broadcasting, or otherwise publicly distributing an advertisement that contains an untrue, misleading, or deceptive representation or statement which was made knowingly or recklessly and with the intent to promote the sale of property, goods, or services to the public


http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/false-advertising.html



> *Truth In Advertising*
> 
> When consumers see or hear an advertisement, whether it’s *on the Internet*, radio or television, or anywhere else, *federal law says that ad must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence*. The Federal Trade Commission enforces these truth-in-advertising laws, and it applies the same standards no matter where an ad appears – in newspapers and magazines, *online*, in the mail, or on billboards or buses. The FTC looks especially closely at advertising claims that can affect consumers’ health or their pocketbooks – claims about food, over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements, alcohol, and tobacco and on conduct related to *high-tech products* and the Internet. The FTC also monitors and writes reports about ad industry practices regarding the marketing of alcohol and tobacco.
> 
> When the FTC finds a case of fraud perpetrated on consumers, the agency files actions in federal district court for immediate and permanent orders to stop scams; prevent fraudsters from perpetrating scams in the future; freeze their assets; and get compensation for victims.


https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/truth-advertising


----------



## kruk (Jun 22, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> False advertising is illegal in my country.
> 
> 
> http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/false-advertising.html
> ...



You are right! I have taken a closer look at the graph and the *labels and the settings in text don't match*. It looks like they took a 580 vs 1060 graph and slapped 560 vs 1050 numbers on it. My god, who prepares these marketing materials? 

Please, accept my apology!


----------



## Hillbilly (Jun 22, 2017)

Wow let's hope this is a one time event. Money screws up everything.


----------



## Xzibit (Jun 22, 2017)

INSTG8R said:


> Now it's been posted on Facebook??!!!



4 pages of ranting just lead them to post it in other media forms.

Well done guys *MISSION ACCOMPLISHED* 



Hillbilly said:


> Wow let's hope this is a one time event. *Money screws up everything*.



Especially if you don't have any then you can't provide a platform for people to express themselves on how you run your Techsite..


----------



## Cataclysm_ZA (Jun 22, 2017)

I'm OK with this. It is what it is, and what it is, is more money for more hardware. 

So long as its set out clearly how scores are achieved, and it's obvious that it's an advertorial, I don't mind seeing more of these.


----------



## MyTechAddiction (Jun 22, 2017)




----------



## Hillbilly (Jun 23, 2017)

Xzibit said:


> Especially if you don't have any then you can't provide a platform for people to express themselves on how you run your Techsite..



How did it get this far without advertorials? I know this stuff requires money, but passing off an ad as a review is in direct opposition to independent reviews.


----------



## Xzibit (Jun 23, 2017)

Hillbilly said:


> How did it get this far without advertorials? I know this stuff requires money, but passing off an ad as a review is in direct opposition to independent reviews.



You can ask him.  He hasn't replied to anyone of the others so don't hold your breath or do your choice.  Hes not passing it off as an independent review.

Anyone who bothered reading it can see its clearly marked. Even before you click it in the front page section it was marked as such. The only issue I can see its placement in the top scroll banner but that's TPU decision to place it there. You can complain all you want doesn't mean they will change it.  Kind of speaks more to the people here though that are easy duped by a icon placement and there inability to differentiate.  Even going so far as to say damaging his credibility or the sites for their inability.


----------



## Hillbilly (Jun 23, 2017)

Xzibit said:


> You can ask him.  He hasn't replied to anyone of the others so don't hold your breath or do your choice.  Hes not passing it off as an independent review.
> 
> Anyone who bothered reading it can see its clearly marked. Even before you click it in the front page section it was marked as such. The only issue I can see its placement in the top scroll banner but that's TPU decision to place it there. You can complain all you want doesn't mean they will change it.  Kind of speaks more to the people here though that are easy duped by a icon placement and there inability to differentiate.  Even going so far as to say damaging his credibility or the sites for their inability.



Your right I'm dumb as hell. A rube if you will. I can't wait for more advertorials. Not having to buy hardware anymore, benchmarking it, and writing conclusions about it will greatly reduce costs among other things.


----------



## mac007 (Jun 23, 2017)

AMD tested it with an intel i7 6700k


----------



## JalleR (Jun 23, 2017)

Maybe TPU gets 1$ for each post and view from AMD ??????????? let´s make TPU some money  

I do like good cermercials btw ... but not the ones where they cut a hors shoes over with a scissor like this one...


----------



## RealNeil (Jun 23, 2017)

Say what you will about the 560 against the 1050 cards,................(yes, I understand that this is not a review) 
One fact about this latest generation of NVIDIA cards is that they're gimped and AMD is not.

It's the 800-pound Gorilla in the room. 

What do I mean? (All of NVIDIA'a lower cost cards don't do SLI and all of AMD's do Crossfire)

Now, I understand that Crossfire/SLI doesn't mean a damn thing to many enthusiasts out there, but it ~does~ to a lot of us. Sometimes the scaling is good, other times it isn't. When it's working right, I like it. I like it with my 1070s, my 980Ti cards, my RX480s, and my RX580s too. My four R9-290Xs do it right as well.
With the price of high-end GPUs soaring to new heights, many of us prefer to buy ~two~ lower-cost cards over a few months time and get the power of two GPUs working for us.
While one more powerful card may work better in games, that's harder to afford for some of us.

So to me, it doesn't matter that 1050 is faster than 560. It means squat because it doesn't beat a pair of 560s. (and that's the endgame for many of us)
NVIDIA Gimping SLI on some of their cards was completely stupid to do. This is foremost in my mind when I read these comparisons.

NVIDIA wins the "screw the little guy" award this time.


----------



## bug (Jun 23, 2017)

RealNeil said:


> Say what you will about the 560 against the 1050 cards,................(yes, I understand that this is not a review)
> One fact about this latest generation of NVIDIA cards is that they're gimped and AMD is not.
> 
> It's the 800-pound Gorilla in the room.
> ...


Who the hell runs low-end cards in SLI/Crossfire? If I were on a budget, that's would be the first feature I go cross from my motherboard anyway.

And although you talk a lot about "us" as if you're the group Nvidia supposedly screwed, your specs tell me otherwise.

And I've bolded some parts that I don't understand: if you know SLI/Crossfire is still hit or miss (emergent technology, it's only been with us for a decade or so), why would you go for two weaker cards?


----------



## Nihilus (Jun 23, 2017)

Warrgarbl said:


> EDIT: I really like how the result for Resident Evil shows 63 fps, yet AMD saw fit to stop the bar right at 60 fps... can't have a 1050 manage 60 fps+, huh?



Strangely, the Mass Effect 50 bar goes WAY too far.  Further than the Doom 57.


----------



## RealNeil (Jun 23, 2017)

bug said:


> Who the hell runs low-end cards in SLI/Crossfire? If I were on a budget, that's would be the first feature I go cross from my motherboard anyway.
> 
> And although you talk a lot about "us" as if you're the group Nvidia supposedly screwed, your specs tell me otherwise.
> 
> And I've bolded some parts that I don't understand: if you know SLI/Crossfire is still hit or miss (emergent technology, it's only been with us for a decade or so), why would you go for two weaker cards?



I'm on a retirement income that never increases. Sometimes I ~have~ to spend less to get the performance I want. I used a pair of 4GB GTX-760s for a while. My two RX480 8GB cards were bought second hand from someone who upgraded. The same is true for my 1070s and my 980Ti cards. All of them were heavily discounted.  In fact, most of my PC gear is second hand or bought as refurbished from Newegg.


----------



## the54thvoid (Jun 23, 2017)

Xzibit said:


> You can ask him.  He hasn't replied to anyone of the others so don't hold your breath or do your choice.  Hes not passing it off as an independent review.
> 
> Anyone who bothered reading it can see its clearly marked. Even before you click it in the front page section it was marked as such. *The only issue I can see its placement in the top scroll banner but that's TPU decision to place it there*. You can complain all you want doesn't mean they will change it.  Kind of speaks more to the people here though that are easy duped by a icon placement and there inability to differentiate.  Even going so far as to say damaging his credibility or the sites for their inability.



The bolded section.  It's that clear.  I say it damages credibility because it's true.  In the exact same way some of the previous editorials have stirred up a shit storm, so too, this does the same.  I'm not unintelligent and I'm not duped by things - I clicked the thing I saw in the review section before i even got to the main text of the web page, so if you didnt look down, you wouldn't have seen it.
I can differentiate and that top section is clearly for reviews.  This is not a review and therefore should not be there.  It says nothing about me being duped, it says nothing about me.  No problem at all about it's position in the main page where it says 'advertorial' (in fact - I only saw that after I read the 'review').

Personal attacks aren't necessary when you're making a sweeping judgement about people's naivety, especially when you yourself admit it *is* an issue that it's in the review banner.

What would your stance be if it was an Nvidia advertorial?


----------



## 5DVX0130 (Jun 23, 2017)

Redspeed93 said:


> "Advertorial by AMD"
> 
> I always took your site pretty seriously. Guess that's over...


The issue isn't that it is an advertorial.

The issue is that it doesn’t belong in the reviews section. It is also pretty much a click-bait article, since both the title and graphics don’t (in any way) indicate it is an advertorial. The only hint to it being that is the small tag in the news, and in the reviews section as the “author”. Seeing as there are so many user names it’s not hard to imagine someone would assume “Advertorial” is an user name. As for the news section, once new “news” cover that up, it’s just down to the reviews section. Thus, you have to click the article to see it’s not really a review, i.e. click-bait.


----------



## Xzibit (Jun 23, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> The bolded section.  It's that clear.  I say it damages credibility because it's true.  In the exact same way some of the previous editorials have stirred up a shit storm, so too, this does the same.  I'm not unintelligent and I'm not duped by things - I clicked the thing I saw in the review section before i even got to the main text of the web page, so if you didnt look down, you wouldn't have seen it.
> I can differentiate and that top section is clearly for reviews.  This is not a review and therefore should not be there.  It says nothing about me being duped, it says nothing about me.  No problem at all about it's position in the main page where it says 'advertorial' (in fact - I only saw that after I read the 'review').
> 
> Personal attacks aren't necessary when you're making a sweeping judgement about people's naivety, especially when you yourself admit it *is* an issue that it's in the review banner.
> ...



The same.  If there is errors point them out (that's been done) I don't feel the need or urge to chime in on every thread. Unless i see something strange or funny.

If you recall how many of those times have those editorials been addressed? very few if at all (The ones I participated I don't recall being address).  Unless its a blatant issue or miss by them they will fix it, if not it stays put.

I'm surprised a tracking ad banner campaign hasn't started yet given the reaction. Soon they'll want to track company ad time on the site.  X company review is BS because it spend so and so much ad time blah, blah, blah.


----------



## Maban (Jun 23, 2017)

I don't like this and would prefer not to see it alongside legitimate reviews. At the very least it should have its own section or just be part of the news feed.


----------



## dj-electric (Jun 24, 2017)

RealNeil said:


> It means squat because it doesn't beat a pair of 560s. (and that's the endgame for many of us)


since the dawn of multi GPU configs, coupling 2 low end cards in a setup was always proven to be one of the dumbest things a user can do.

If you have money for two 560s, buy a god damn 570.
No 2 card setup is long lasting. It has poor support, poor amount of resources for demanding games and after a while instead of staying with a valuable piece of hardware, you're left with junk that nobody is willing to buy.

so please, enough with the "but its gimped" argument. we're not 14. If the card performs well, is efficient and affordable that all that matters. nobody should care if it has X-amount of cores instead of Y-amount when looking from a pure performance and price perspective.

Thank goodness for silly things like low-end multi-GPU configs being gone, hopefully soon in the red camp as well. Let the devs invest their time and effort into more single-GPU optimized software.


----------



## RejZoR (Jun 24, 2017)

multi-GPU only makes sense when you're already reaching at top cards and there is nothing more to buy as single GPU for higher performance. Only way to achieve more is to pair 2 top of the line cards. For anything lower, single GPU is always a better option.


----------



## Vayra86 (Jun 24, 2017)

This is painful.

Don't do this again.


----------



## KLMR (Jun 24, 2017)

Whats the source of this image???






Because:


----------



## notb (Jun 24, 2017)

KLMR said:


> Whats the source of this image???


1) You've made an incorrect assumption that the vertical line (lets call it A) on the left is 0 - clearly it's not.
When you check the red bars (AMD), they're actually very coherent: 5px = 1fps.
That means A = 11fps.
2) NVIDIA bars don't have a common 0 or even scale. Here 57 < 50 < 63. It's a total mess.
Clearly bars don't match the labels, but which one is correct (if any?)
This is how it would look with no "zero shift" and using labels (values) and bars (length - assuming A=11fps).


----------



## Dimi (Jun 24, 2017)

notb said:


> 1) You've made an incorrect assumption that the vertical line (lets call it A) on the left is 0 - clearly it's not.
> When you check the red bars (AMD), they're actually very coherent: 5px = 1fps.
> That means A = 11fps.
> 2) NVIDIA bars don't have a common 0 or even scale. Here 57 < 50 < 63. It's a total mess.
> ...



63 should go PAST the 60 FPS line, are you blind? This is false advertising at its finest.

The vertical line is 60 FPS. Not 0.


----------



## notb (Jun 24, 2017)

Dimi said:


> 63 should go PAST the 60 FPS line, are you blind? This is false advertising at its finest.
> 
> The vertical line is 60 FPS. Not 0.



I meant the left one (which @KLMR treated as 0).
And 63 fps is not past 60 fps line because, as I've pointed out, a theoretical "60fps" point calculated using AMD bars should not be used for NVIDIA bars. They have different scales and base points (each GTX bar exists in its own world). This whole visualization is a mess.

If you look at the graphs I've provided, the first one (that assumes the numbers are correct, not the bars) looks actually a lot better for AMD. So if they manipulated the graph on purpose to improve RX560 appearance, they didn't do it very well...


----------



## renz496 (Jun 25, 2017)

RealNeil said:


> Say what you will about the 560 against the 1050 cards,................(yes, I understand that this is not a review)
> One fact about this latest generation of NVIDIA cards is that they're gimped and AMD is not.
> 
> It's the 800-pound Gorilla in the room.
> ...



i can understand the disappointment about x60 card having no SLI support but low end card? seriously? 1050ti for example cost around 140-150. two of them will net 280-300. the GTX 1060 can be had much cheaper than that with guaranteed 60% performance lead over a single 1050ti. the card can probably scale well but then again how many games will be able to take advantage of the second card?


----------



## RejZoR (Jun 25, 2017)

The mass Effect one is especially weird. NVIDIA's from 53 to 60fps line is like 2mm, but for AMD, from 60fps line to 70 is like 15mm distance. Makes zero sense.


----------



## semitope (Jun 26, 2017)

people freaking out over nothing. they are so open about what this is and people still complaining. How about when sites use information from companies and don't even tell you where its coming from?



RejZoR said:


> The mass Effect one is especially weird. NVIDIA's from 53 to 60fps line is like 2mm, but for AMD, from 60fps line to 70 is like 15mm distance. Makes zero sense.



the whole chart is messed up. someone sucks really bad at charts. its not even in AMDs favor because their lead is scaled badly. when they have 16 fps lead it looks like a smaller gap than 11 fps. its all kinds of messed up. additionally the labeling for the y axis is wrong based on the disclaimer that shows the actual settings used. mass effect is not high, its low. someone was high making that. Not necessarily trying to be dishonest.


----------



## Primey_ (Jun 26, 2017)

"Advertorial by AMD"

Time to stop visiting and trusting techpowerup.


----------



## EarthDog (Jun 26, 2017)

Not received well....

This is how I found out about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/6jgv5i/psa_read_very_carefully_who_is_posting_video_card/

Spreading like wildfire...


----------



## r9 (Jun 26, 2017)

It would have made so much more sense if they paid TPU just to do a review of that scenario.
Provable the results would not have been far off, without anybody hurting their credibility and reputation.
Me personally can't say I'm happy with all of this.
But lets be honest here nobody got fulled by this.
And I think we all need to give TPU a break.
Everybody that thinks that this is good enough reason to leave TPU don't let the door hit you on the way out.


----------



## EarthDog (Jun 26, 2017)

The curious part to me is this is an advertorial... but in the reviews section. Reviews are, by nature supposed to be impartial. Clearly, since this was written by amd, its not impartial. An editorial has no busniess being in a review section either. Put it in editorials or, if this is going to be a thing moving forward, make it its own section.

I dont mind these either, but lets call a spade a spade...which this is not an unbiased review, but a paid advertisement.


----------



## semitope (Jun 26, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> The curious part to me is this is an advertorial... but in the reviews section. Reviews are, by nature supposed to be impartial. Clearly, since this was written by amd, its not impartial. An editorial has no busniess being in a review section either. Put it in editorials or, if this is going to be a thing moving forward, make it its own section.
> 
> I dont mind these either, but lets call a spade a spade...which this is not an unbiased review, but a paid advertisement.



TPU puts interviews in the reviews section and product launch info there. 

there's an editorial section?


----------



## EarthDog (Jun 26, 2017)

Not sure, but there should be if they are going to post advertorials. While I am 100% certain it wasn't intended to mislead, we can see it being there lends itself for misinterpretation.


----------



## Jadawin (Jun 26, 2017)

I'm extremely disappointed. I have written Advertorials myself - and they have always been clearly marked in a way that can't be overlooked. Also none of them have been in the form of a review, which by itself is ridiculous. A review, written by the company that pays for the advertorial and marked only by the authors name and smallprint? This is intentionally misleading.


----------



## semantics (Jun 27, 2017)

This is what happens when a marketing dept person opens indesign/photoshop to make their graphs eyeballing it because excel is for finance people.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jun 27, 2017)

bug said:


> Who the hell runs low-end cards in SLI/Crossfire?


Where have you been? That was always it's biggest draw, in that someone without a lot to spend could get two cheap low or mid-end cards and get high end performance for less than the price of one high end card.


----------



## bug (Jun 27, 2017)

rtwjunkie said:


> Where have you been? That was always it's biggest draw, in that someone without a lot to spend could get two cheap low or mid-end cards and get high end performance for less than the price of one high end card.


That was never its biggest draw, that was the marketing pitch. That's not what I asked.
I asked who actually uses such a setup. Because it's not actually cheaper than a faster card and it comes with all the SLI/Crossfire issues a single card doesn't have. It also won't actually reach the performance of the faster card because lower-end card come with less VRAM and SLI/Crossfire doesn't double the performance once you add a second card.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jun 27, 2017)

bug said:


> That was never its biggest draw, that was the marketing pitch. That's not what I asked.
> I asked who actually uses such a setup. Because it's not actually cheaper than a faster card and it comes with all the SLI/Crossfire issues a single card doesn't have. It also won't actually reach the performance of the faster card because lower-end card come with less VRAM and SLI/Crossfire doesn't double the performance once you add a second card.


I never said it was the marketing pitch. Indeed, neither AMD nor Nvidia ever really marketed their dual card setups very well.

What I referred to is there really were, up until recently, many people that did do SLI or Crossfire. You say it's not faster than a faster single card, yet that is exactly what happens.  I'm quite sure you've missed the many people over the years on here who give us their numbers, and they almost always beat or equal that generation's high end card.  Your VRAM example only rears its head in larger resolutions.  For most it isn't an issue.

The last time I had an SLI setup, I had 2 GTX 460's that combined, cost less than my GTX 580, yet performed nearly equally.  So yeah, there is and always was a reason to do that, and it was for bragging rights and less spent income.


----------



## bug (Jun 27, 2017)

rtwjunkie said:


> I never said it was the marketing pitch. Indeed, neither AMD nor Nvidia ever really marketed their dual card setups very well.
> 
> What I referred to is there really were, up until recently, many people that did do SLI or Crossfire. You say it's not faster than a faster single card, yet that is exactly what happens.  I'm quite sure you've missed the many people over the years on here who give us their numbers, and they almost always beat or equal that generation's high end card.  Your VRAM example only rears its head in larger resolutions.  For most it isn't an issue.
> 
> The last time I had an SLI setup, I had 2 GTX 460's that combined, cost less than my GTX 580, yet performed nearly equally.  So yeah, there is and always was a reason to do that, and it was for bragging rights and less spent income.


Let's see.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_960_SLI/23.html - 960 in SLI not faster than a 970
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7750_7770_CrossFire/22.html - 7750 and 7770 in Crossfire not faster than 7950 (or 5970)

Ok, some combos may beat better cards (there are reviews on TPU attesting to that), but they're still not worth the headaches imho.

Just for kicks, I went on and read everyone's specs in this thread. In 6 pages I have only found RealNeil crossfiring 480s and DRDNA crossfiring 4870s (is that mid-range?). That's how popular pairing non high-end cards is on a tech site.


----------



## Duality92 (Jun 27, 2017)

Maybe it was done on purpose to prove something?


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 28, 2017)

Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that we updated the advertorial:

Played hardball with the PR agency to get an updated chart with proper bar lengths and typos fixed
Title image shows "Sponsored"
Page title changed to "Sponsored content by AMD"
Let me give you a bit of insight into what happened and why.

During Computex a PR agency that's close to AMD emailed us, asking whether we would be open to doing a sponsored article RX 560 vs GTX 1050. Initially I thought this would be a proper review, conducted by me, with my own hardware, publishing my own conclusions. However, the agency claimed that time was of the essence and that content could be provided to us. I had a trip to Austin, TX for EPYC launch coming up after Computex, so doing my own testing would take at least several weeks, which is why we opted for the provided content.

The sole reason why this advertorial was posted in the reviews section is because that is the only way we can generate a preview link. Our news section, which now seems the more appropriate area, after reading your feedback, can only publicly post immediately, without any chance of preview or time scheduling control. Historically we had an articles and reviews section, but in recent years the separation between article and review became non-existant, so lots of different non-review content was posted in the reviews section, like interviews, system building guides, architecture analysis, tradeshow coverage, booth babes and more. I now lean towards posting sponsored content in the news stream, which is why I hammered out a big interface upgrade to the news section in the last two days, to add the proper capabilities.

I couldn't have imagined that some readers would think this single-page post was a proper review, conducted by us, even with the chart deliberately not made in our style (I had a version of that first), and with the big full-size, bold, "Advertorial by AMD" notice right at the start. If you did think it was a review, I'm very sorry for that, we never intented to deceive you, and we will try to make it more clear in the future. I am proud of you guys for spotting the issues in the chart (that I missed), and would like to thank you for the time you took to write the feedback. Sometimes I do wonder if these days visitors just come for their quick technology fix and then head off to watch more cat pics, apparently not so.

Some people theorized that we posted the article just to secure a Vega sample, which is not the case. As mentioned before, the advertorial came through a PR agency, with the numbers and chart provided by AMD, so I doubt the people who decide sampling are even aware of this whole thing. We also agreed on a fixed sum of money, so misleading anyone to click the article will not increase our revenue. I'm first and foremost a tech-guy, looking to play with hardware, and not a business person, maximizing profits. However, I'm always trying to learn and explore the business ways. Also, well before this was even posted, I had decided that all of the money will be going back to the community through a new sort of contest project I'm working on, so stay tuned for that.

Some people mentioned the dire financial situation of tech-media websites. Let me assure you that we are not bleeding money and that the site is on solid footing financially. We are doing very well in both traffic and advertising, and as you all see every day, I'm working really hard to keep our ads clean and simple, without any JavaScript, tracking cookies, autoplay videos, sound or similar junk. I can vouch for the impartiality of me and my team; we have closely worked with vendors before and are proud to be independent and fair in our reviews, and that's not gonna change. The numbers are always there for you to check anyway (and now I know that you do).

Still have questions? Post here, I'll answer everything.


----------



## bug (Jun 28, 2017)

I never suspected foul play on your side and I was right. Thanks for acting on comments.

Edit: Of course, the graph still shows other settings than what's described in the "test environment specifications" section. I think this single article managed to erase a lot of goodwill AMD generated with their Polaris and Ryzen releases. But hey, it's their choice.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 28, 2017)

bug said:


> he graph still shows other setting than what's described in the "test environment specifications" section


Bah .. on it .. requesting yet another updated chart version


----------



## agent00skid (Jun 28, 2017)

W1zzard said:


> Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that we updated the advertorial:
> 
> Played hardball with the PR agency to get an updated chart with proper bar lengths and typos fixed
> Title image shows "Sponsored"
> ...




The page title still seems to say "Introduction". The dropdown at the bottom does show "Sponsored content by AMD" though.

Also while there is the "Advertorial by AMD" message at the top, the fact that it's up in the right corner actually made me miss it entirely, so I didn't see anything about it being an ad until I looked at the disclaimer at the bottom.


----------



## bug (Jun 28, 2017)

agent00skid said:


> The page title still seems to say "Introduction". The dropdown at the bottom does show "Sponsored content by AMD" though.
> 
> Also while there is the "Advertorial by AMD" message at the top, the fact that it's up in the right corner actually made me miss it entirely, so I didn't see anything about it being an ad until I looked at the disclaimer at the bottom.


Let it rest. By now _other sites_ know what this is about. And I think there have been enough suggestions about how to handle such articles going forward.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 28, 2017)

agent00skid said:


> in the right corner actually made me miss it entirely


alright .. i removed the headline and moved that text to the left. better?


----------



## EarthDog (Jun 28, 2017)

Thanks for changing things. 

Its a shame something like this is on here when its not needed for revenue, but, should be painfully obvious moving forward what it actually is.


----------



## 80-watt Hamster (Jun 28, 2017)

W1zzard said:


> Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that we updated the advertorial:
> 
> Played hardball with the PR agency to get an updated chart with proper bar lengths and typos fixed
> Title image shows "Sponsored"
> ...



Thanks for the update and background, W1z; greatly appreciated.  Hopefully the other curmudgeons (amongst whom I count myself) will be assuaged as well.


----------



## KLMR (Jun 29, 2017)

I've been reading you for years, almost daily. I really try to keep my opinion for myself but this time I got forced to register in the forums and write about it.
Charts in general are tools to describe information, and thus they have rules to make any reader able to do the proper interpretation.
That bar chart was beyond (I don't know why people accept it...) "acceptable tweaking". More if we consider its the main graphic support of the entire "article".

Its author's name: the AMD PR responsible, should be published next to any Adver-whatever, as your name appears when you publish an article.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 29, 2017)

Got tired of waiting for the agency to provide another round of fixed charts from AMD and fixed the details settings descriptions myself in Photoshop.


----------



## bug (Jun 29, 2017)

W1zzard said:


> Got tired of waiting for the agency to provide another round of fixed charts from AMD and fixed the details settings descriptions myself in Photoshop.


How do you know it was the chart that was wrong?


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 29, 2017)

bug said:


> How do you know it was the chart that was wrong?


Common sense


----------



## bug (Jun 29, 2017)

W1zzard said:


> Common sense


Ballsy to apply common sense to marketing material...


----------



## scout62 (Jul 1, 2017)

The original graph looked like someone took a chart for different cards (maybe 580/1060 considering ultra) and just changed the numbers at the top and on each bar without adjusting the lengths. Sucks you had to take a lot of heat over 10 minutes of work saved by some unknown PR firm person. AMD has done some funky stuff before but I can't believe the chart came from them like that.


----------



## Vayra86 (Jul 1, 2017)

bug said:


> Let's see.
> 
> https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_960_SLI/23.html - 960 in SLI not faster than a 970
> https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7750_7770_CrossFire/22.html - 7750 and 7770 in Crossfire not faster than 7950 (or 5970)
> ...



Its about the way you invest in your PC.

Enthusiasts with experience, and generally above puberty in age, make more sensible decisions, they look and think ahead of time and consider what would be the best purchase. Note: generally. Exceptions exist or may even be common depending on where you live and who you know.

Younger people want something and want it today. They buy 'half their GPU' today, and when they get money again, they buy the other half. THAT is the rationale behind SLI/Crossfire with midrange GPUs. In addition, if you look purely at the financial aspect: you get higher average performance numbers for a very slight discount (about 5-10% more perf/dollar) when compared to buying a single GPU with twice the performance. It allows you to get high end performance by doubling the beneficial perf/dollar ratio of midrange cards. That bit of math however only really flies when cards are just released. As time progresses and high end 'premium' gets removed, it becomes less profitable.

Of course, with a bit of experience, you know this is an illusion, because midrange card setups always fall off faster as time progresses, due to tighter VRAM specs and the overhead / scaling differences of multiple cards. And there is the issue of frame pacing and the wildly fluctuating FPS whenever games push more heavily on that VRAM. Any SLI setup (Crossfire suffers a bit less from this, because beefier bus widths) will fall off faster than you can really enjoy your GTX x60 SLI setup.

I've been there. 2x GTX 660 in SLI was a better perf/dollar ratio than getting the high end card that matched it at the time, but it suffered heavily from the tight bus.


@Wizzard thanks for clarifying, faith in TPU restored for me.


----------



## OneMoar (Jul 6, 2017)

advertorials are a giant mine field
no thank you

chill is the worst bit of pr spin put on a existing technology in recent memory I thank you never to mention it


----------

