AMD Radeon RX 560 vs. GTX 1050

[semantics]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Maybe it was done on purpose to prove something?

 

[W1zzard]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

in the right corner actually made me miss it entirely

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

 

[EarthDog]

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]

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"

<SNIP>

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

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

 

[KLMR]

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]

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]

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]

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

Common sense

 

[bug]

Common sense

Ballsy to apply common sense to marketing material...

 

[scout62]

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]

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.

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]

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