AnandTech Shuts Down, an Icon of Tech News and Reviews Rides into the Sunset

[Why_Me]

At least my visits at Anandtech were much more than all my clicks on youtubers or any sort of video review combined. The site was indeed in decline, but mostly for the last 2 years. When Alder Lake came out their review(s) and comparisons with AMD 5xxx and the previous generations still was an interesting deep dive.

He ripped Alder Lake before it was released and then this happened ...

 

[Scircura]

I'm more willing to sponsor/support TPU since it's not under the control of a publishing conglomerate (feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken). Once the founders of a site sell it off, there's nowhere but downhill for it to roll.

I want this here enclave of the "old web" to continue thriving which is why I help sustain it with monthly contributions. Anyone in this thread who'd be sad if TPU closed up shop, you should consider doing the same!

For me personally, Anandtech shutting down is bad news but bearable. But don't even joke about Blue's News closing, I don't know how I would handle that...

 

[chstamos]

Anandtech was definitely dying, for the past few years, I think it being closed is better than the site turning into some seo-spam zombie, like so many others.

Yeah, Techreport's fate has been worse than being turned into a porn site.

 

[Ravenas]

I really enjoyed the depth of the reviews offered... Took it off my favorites some time back (around the time Anand left), however, it will be missed.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

He ripped Alder Lake before it was released and then this happened ...

OTOH, Raptor Lake deserves to get ripped on hard! In fact, ban-hammered! Until we get more information out of the beyond-just-serious degradation problem with Raptor Lake.

Conveniently, Lunar Lake doesn't appear to be affected.

 

[cvaldes]

They always put out high quality content but did anyone else get a sinking feeling that their days were numbered when Ian Cutress left back in 2022?

That was my immediate reaction when Cutress announced his departure. I hoped that AnandTech would introduce someone of similar caliber to fill Cutress's shoes but after a couple of months of nothing the writing was on the wall. It was just a matter of time before AnandTech folded.

It was really his analyses plus some hardware reviews that enticed me to visit AnandTech. The review quality stayed high but I don't really need to read every single PSU review. I'm in the market for a new PSU like every five years or so; if I'm not actively shopping for a PSU I pretty much ignore those reviews.

This is a somber lesson for other tech media sites that the content mix is important. It's not realistic to expect every site to cover everything but clearly AnandTech did not publish enough of the content that makes sites viable in 2024.

Anyhow best wishes for the former staff. Hope they find something good.

 

[A&P211]

At least they will keep it open.Unlike notebook review forums that did not. Notebookreview forums shut down all the servers and lost over a decade of info. I still miss it

 

[cvaldes]

At least they will keep it open.Unlike notebook review forums that did not. Notebookreview forums shut down all the servers and lost over a decade of info. I still miss it

This is Yet Another Sad Reminder that content on the Internet isn't guaranteed to live forever. In a perfect world sites would be mothballed and continue to be accessible for eternity. But we don't live in a perfect world. In fact, it's much worse than that.

Nearly 40% of web pages from 10 years ago are no longer accessible

Maybe the internet doesn't last forever?

mashable.com

And this isn't specific to tech news sites. I have food recipe PDFs on my computer because I had the foresight to export a copy before some of those sites have shut down. If there's content you like make a copy or accept the very real possibility that someday it may be gone forever.

The Internet Wayback Machine does not capture everything. I've met Brewster Kahle. He's very thoughtful person but he can't do it all.

And there are sites that are still around whose content has drastically changed. You can visit Epicurious.com today, it still serves up pages from the same URL as the Nineties. But the goofy cooking trivia site content from 25 years ago is long gone, replaced by very slick content more appealing to advertisers in the 2020s.

Go visit gawker.com today. Ten years ago it was a heavily visited website.

Sites don't run by themselves for free forever. For better or worse, AnandTech is a holding of a large publishing company which can afford to keep the hardware and software running for now. But there is nothing that makes the publisher immune to market headwinds or poor financial decisions.

TPU isn't an exception, it is not immune to this. Let's hypothetically say that W1zzard ends up taking a different path someday perhaps unexpectedly. Many of us do -- sometimes not by plan. Who is going to pay the colocation bills? Replace failing hardware? Apply security patches to the operating system and web server software? Renew security certificates?

 

[Minus Infinity]

Will really miss the in-depth tech articles from Anandtech. Losing Dr Cuttress was a big blow and last 2-3 years the news has been a trickle. Often not visiting it for 2 weeks wouldn't really yiedl any new news or tech articles.

You cannot really the information found in a 15-20 page technical article in even a 1hour YT video.

The whole world is being dumbed down. Anandtech is much like the once huge photo review site dpreview that was closed down then resurrected but now posts a tiny fraction of the articles it used to, especially in-depth tech stories.

 

[Marsil]

The problem with youtube I've yet to find anything on there that matches the technical detail of a prime anandtech article.

I used to get my tech info solely from web sites because I used to think of Youtube as an entertainment only platform.
But tech channels started to appear on youtube, nowadays there are thousand and thousands of them, not all
of them are good but many are really good tech channels, and they're getting better and better, Don't expect the same
experience as browsing a tech website though.

For a starter check this list: 100 Technology YouTubers in 2024

There are many other good tech channels not in this list.

 

[cvaldes]

Will really miss the in-depth tech articles from Anandtech. Losing Dr Cuttress was a big blow and last 2-3 years the news has been a trickle. Often not visiting it for 2 weeks wouldn't really yiedl any new news or tech articles.

I just deleted the AnandTech bookmark that has been in various web browser bookmark files for the past 25+ years. Over the past couple of years I've visited AnandTech and noticed the slowdown in new headline quantity. Sometimes a PSU review might pop up but like I wrote earlier I ignore those unless I am actively trying to buy a PSU (maybe once every ~5-6 years).

I'm seeing this in other sites. I scan the headlines from a number of videogame sites and there are 4-5 under one publisher that basically only put out 1-2 articles per week (not including gaming guides).

And there are longstanding news sites that still don't spell check the content of their articles or their headlines. Since trust is earned, how do you think readers should feel?

AnandTech was professional to the end but the lack of enough compelling content was obvious after Cutress's exit. The best and brightest tend to be the ones to leave first (and not just in the tech industry) since they have the best opportunities elsewhere. I was very skeptical of AnandTech's future when he left.

 

[Gooigi's Ex]

I’m actually that AnandTech is shutting down. I’ve been going to that website for 15 years as it was my go to website for tech news along with others. I didn’t know what was going on until I read about it.

Tis a shame

 

[john_]

Techspot aka AMD Unboxed. That and his accent is like listening to nails across a chalkboard.

Techspot aka AMD Unboxed as you call it, is Nvidia Unboxed at least 12-16 months now. Haven't you got the memo?
They are literally attacking AMD for every single excuse they can find or invent, while finding excuses to not do the same with Intel and of course they will NEVER EVER do that with Nvidia.

The last example in a long list of examples by now, that they have changed camps, is their latest article about MI300X
AMD admits its Instinct MI300X AI accelerator still can't quite beat Nvidia's H100 Hopper | TechSpot
Most of the press if not the whole press used a positive title like "MI300X is competitive with H100".
They are the only site I have seen to use a negative title, more so a title that is closer to a troll post from an Nvidia fanboy than a title of a news article.

This is what someone would NEVER EVER expected from Anandtech, even after Anand and Cutress left and that's why Anandtech eventually is going away. Because in my opinion sites today either need a huge user base to sustain them, or corporate money. Anandtech was always in the back of the mind of users in the last 20+ years, even after Anandtech stopped being a site where someone would find frequent new high quality articles. We might have limited our visits to the site or even forgotten it for (short) periods of time, but we where always hopping to see new top quality articles there from new authors.
Tom's Hardware that is mentioned in a number of posts, is the opposite example of Anandtech. In my opinion, an opinion that stands for over 20 years, Tom's was always in bed with the big money and that's why it survived. That's why it will keep surviving as a tech site. That's why it was bought. On the other hand, I think Anandtech was bought from the same publication, because of it's integrity and good name, not it's user traffic. And it was expected that Anandtech will fade away from the day that publication bought it. Everyone was saying back then that "They will shut it down and keep Tom's" or "Oh no, they will make Anandtech biased as Tom's". It's probably surprising it lasted that much.

 

[S73fan]

It is symptomatic of where things are going, interest in PCs is decreasing at the expense of smartphones and laptops, and soon the very basis of PCs - x86 will be replaced by ARM or other technology and PCs will disappear, so it is normal for similar sites in the future to disappear.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Bennett? If so, it was around their golden era. Quite a character that one.

Anandtech was going strong even after Anand left, they still had a few talented people working there. Since Ian left, however, the place has been a bit dark.

Nevertheless throughout the years there were some crazy talented people working there. I remember reading a phone review during the early years of android and I think it was Brian Klug who went into such depth that I kept thinking "why are these guys not killing it in the industry?" and soon enough he got hired by Apple. It used to surprise me that whatever they reviewed back then it was pretty much as deep a dive you'd get of that product.

They will be missed.

Yes, him. Yeah, he was "special" to say the least.
I worked at PCW in the UK at the time.

They were going strong for a few years and then the content started to drop off and they did less and less content until they were bought up the first time, then things went up a bit and then seemed to falter again. Future's takeover didn't really change things much and it seems like Future put all the money on Tom's. Got to say that I'm glad I never ended up working for Future, as they've killed off so many publications.

No doubt that they used to fill a niche of the market no-one else can replace today, but as mentioned, long form content just isn't it any more, sadly enough.

 

[64K]

It is symptomatic of where things are going, interest in PCs is decreasing at the expense of smartphones and laptops, and soon the very basis of PCs - x86 will be replaced by ARM or other technology and PCs will disappear, so it is normal for similar sites in the future to disappear.

I don't fully agree with that. The mobile side of things is increasing more but PCs whether desktop or laptop are increasing. I have been hearing about the imminent demise of PC gaming off and on for 20 years but it's not dying. For example, I recall a member on the PCGamer forums back in 2012 that worked in management for Intel saying that within 5 years there would be no CPUs being made that would be good for gaming. Well, here it is 12 years later and look at all of the CPUs that are great for gaming.

 

[ARF]

It is symptomatic of where things are going, interest in PCs is decreasing at the expense of smartphones and laptops, and soon the very basis of PCs - x86 will be replaced by ARM or other technology and PCs will disappear, so it is normal for similar sites in the future to disappear.

It is not the interest in PCs declining, it is the PC industry itself in a crisis, Moore's law is dead, hence AMD no longer releases yearly generations, but it takes at least 2 years, sometimes they hold onto some crap products, warm them every 48 months, and forget about what actually the users demand/need.
TSMC no longer offers process improvements. AMD sits on 7 nm when the latest and greatest is 2 nm. AMD used to be the process node pioneer just a decade ago.
Examples: RX 480 relabeled as RX 580/RX 590 and offered for 6 or 7 years, RX 6600 to RX 7600 side grade, RX 5500 to RX 6500 side grade. Same for nvidia with its miserable 5% performance uplifts...
There is no interest in the smartphones, they will never replace the desktop systems.

 

[burnitdwn]

Been an Anandtech fan since the K6 review. It changed when Anand sold it to the same marketing company that had bought Toms Hardware Guide, but, was indeed still strong for several years after that. Anyhow, their forums are still up, but, I fear they are going to stop working at some point, I suspect other castaways will navigate here as well...

 

[Frick]

Calling for w1z to do a review database similar to their Bench stuff!

But yeah not surprising in the least. I basically stopped reading after Cutress left, he had insights others didn't.

You can add Tom Magee of the Register and CMDR Taco of Ars Technica as far as changes to the site when they left.

Slashdot, not Ars.

 

[Jism]

For quite some years it was impossible to even retrieve a password reset link. The reason behind it is that the backend of their website was so outdated; i mean if you still rely on sending unauthenticated emails your not going to get lots of (new) registrations. Anandtech was always that one website that just went deeper into the topics or subjects; esp in the 90's or 2000's one of the best websites for tech out there.

But YT kids today don't know how those days where - and people seem to enjoy 10 minute fabrication of watching video's with only one topic. It's so boring.

 

[ZoneDymo]

kinda related, yall knew Fudzilla is still up? I only found recently and was shocked....

 

[ARF]

kinda related, yall knew Fudzilla is still up? I only found recently and was shocked....

If that is ok and wccftech, then everything is alright. The trolls community will be fine

 

[Parn]

We have lost many Tech report, Hardocp.

lol I don't include PcPer in that list.

PCPer used to be known as amdmb back in 2001 (the same owner). If you include that, it's as old as many other well known tech sites.

 

[Wirko]

wccftech

If you have the mental discipline to ignore the comments, or block wccftech.disqus.com in one way or another, it suddenly becomes half as bad, and twice as good.

But if you take one more step and block the entire disqus.com, the entire Internet becomes a better place.

 

[Carlyle2020hs]

If you have the mental discipline to ignore the comments, or block wccftech.disqus.com in one way or another, it suddenly becomes half as bad, and twice as good.

But if you take one more step and block the entire disqus.com, the entire Internet becomes a better place.

I´ve stopped seeing their comment section alltogether.

And i can happily confirm, that i gradually get my hope in humanity back