Friday, April 2nd 2010
Gotcha!
April's Fool!
Guess we really got you guys this time. I will not be leaving the site, nor will there by any of the announced changes. It was all an elaborate April's Fools Joke that we played on you.
Read on for the details...
As most of you remember, NVIDIA's Fermi launch was at midnight my local time, so I posted the review after countless hours of work, watched how our traffic spiked quickly and went to bed smiling and reliefed that everything went well. After I woke up I grabbed my notebook to check if the site might be crashed or something - no everything was fine, I started reading the comments and was shocked to see all the drama about Catalyst 9.12 being used. While I was aware that 9.12 weren't the latest drivers, I was pretty sure that the performance gains were not significant enough to retest all ATI cards and instead not have something like the Metro & Heaven tests (time is limited). After sifting through hundreds of posts all stating the same I did feel quite some anger towards the userbase in general: I was pissed. But as countless people stated in the comments for the "I am going away thread" the comments are just a tiny subset of what people think; happy people don't post comments.
Still with some anger I made my first posts in the comment thread: I think I'm done, I'm quitting and a couple more ... after a while I went away from the PC and started thinking a bit about it. "Let's just prove those idiots wrong". So I started benchmarking the 5870 on 10.3 and posted the results several hours later. As expected the difference was only 2%.
As we moved closer to April 1st I thought "hey, why not use those posts to create an epic April's Fools Joke", talked to my good buddy btarunr about it and he also thought it might be worthwile doing. Bta was the only person to know, not even the TPU staff knew. So the post was made and the story unfolded...
While I had originally planned to come clean some time next week, I realized it would be cruel to let you guys suffer that long.
Thank you all for your amazing comments. I had no idea how appreciated my work is. I am also sorry if you were hurt by it - I didn't mean it. Thanks again guys! and again, don't worry, nothing big will change here. Feel free to express your anger toward me in the comments, the mods are instructed to give you even more leeway as usually.
Guess we really got you guys this time. I will not be leaving the site, nor will there by any of the announced changes. It was all an elaborate April's Fools Joke that we played on you.
Read on for the details...
As most of you remember, NVIDIA's Fermi launch was at midnight my local time, so I posted the review after countless hours of work, watched how our traffic spiked quickly and went to bed smiling and reliefed that everything went well. After I woke up I grabbed my notebook to check if the site might be crashed or something - no everything was fine, I started reading the comments and was shocked to see all the drama about Catalyst 9.12 being used. While I was aware that 9.12 weren't the latest drivers, I was pretty sure that the performance gains were not significant enough to retest all ATI cards and instead not have something like the Metro & Heaven tests (time is limited). After sifting through hundreds of posts all stating the same I did feel quite some anger towards the userbase in general: I was pissed. But as countless people stated in the comments for the "I am going away thread" the comments are just a tiny subset of what people think; happy people don't post comments.
Still with some anger I made my first posts in the comment thread: I think I'm done, I'm quitting and a couple more ... after a while I went away from the PC and started thinking a bit about it. "Let's just prove those idiots wrong". So I started benchmarking the 5870 on 10.3 and posted the results several hours later. As expected the difference was only 2%.
As we moved closer to April 1st I thought "hey, why not use those posts to create an epic April's Fools Joke", talked to my good buddy btarunr about it and he also thought it might be worthwile doing. Bta was the only person to know, not even the TPU staff knew. So the post was made and the story unfolded...
While I had originally planned to come clean some time next week, I realized it would be cruel to let you guys suffer that long.
Thank you all for your amazing comments. I had no idea how appreciated my work is. I am also sorry if you were hurt by it - I didn't mean it. Thanks again guys! and again, don't worry, nothing big will change here. Feel free to express your anger toward me in the comments, the mods are instructed to give you even more leeway as usually.
407 Comments on Gotcha!
.....but funny!:laugh:
Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh W1z is staying!!!!!!!!!! I'm a sucka, I fell for it:o NOW we can celebrate!:toast::toast::rockout::respect::):laugh::cool::toast::roll::D:respect::toast::rockout::toast::cool::D:toast::toast::respect::pimp:
FUUUUUUUUUUUU
I'm really surprised the staff was not in on it. Epic!!
prepare your torch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:
do you have any last wishes :pimp:
ÜBERLOLS W1ZZARD, YOU ARE RIGHT AND THE FANBOYSIE NOT AND THAT IS OOOOH SO GOOD
OMG, this is like i could be angry, but im so happy now i cant express anger
Don't scare me like that.
There's nothing to say that hasn't been said about the situation itself, but when I think of all the things W1zz has done and contributed, I got really freaked.
I mean come on, think of all the software the man has worked on that most everyone either uses or has used and what it's done for you. Think about if we were deprived of future iterations from that mind, or he went somewhere and it became proprietary. That would suck.
Also, I also love W1zz's reviews. I always use them for reference when looking at prices or theorizing. You simply cannot beat the awesome percentage comparison graphs, and I was worried I would never see them again. Also, I love the explanations on things that some lack, like I, for one, didn't realize the the ROP/bus-width interaction on ATi's architecture until I read, and saw, W1zz's awesome "disabled" diagram. +1 for stuff like that.
So, yeah, while I personally believe that you should've tested with the latest drivers, because 2% is 2%, I'm VERY glad you didn't take the crazies to heart and get overly upset and go prima donna. I'm also grateful you listened and updated the review. That's class.
So anyway, as I sit here in shock...not unlike the feeling after just getting in a car accident, I can't quite laugh. Likely I will later. In that case, cheers mate. :toast:
Glad this ruse gives people a chance to show we appreciate you, and also a chance for for you to vent and laugh at the whole intarweb. You likely deserve it.
In short: Thank you. FUCK YOU, but thank you. :respect: