How to avoid getting scammed by NVIDIA

[birdie]

And it's easy: pay attention only to raw performance figures, and dismiss everything that has DLSS in it. Why?

1. Not all games support it. Some will never support it.
2. DLSS 2 image upscaling is not perfect and can result in very unpleasant and annoying artifacts.
3. DLSS 2 itself is not free, it requires computations and adds a frame generation delay and at very high FPS it may actually result in ... lower FPS when you enable it.
4. DLSS 3 frame generation increases latency and becomes usable when your FPS is already way above 60fps or in relatively slow titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator.
5. Running without DLSS (except for DLDSR) results in a better and more stable image quality almost always.

The reason for this post is some highly misleading advertising materials floating around which could give you an impression that 4070 Ti is much faster than 3090 Ti. It's true so only when DLSS 3.0 frame generation is enabled (which is not supported by the GeForce 30 series) or in heavy RT titles such as Portal RTX. In classic raster titles 3090 Ti is faster, sometimes significantly so but reviews will go live any time soon.
DLSS is a nice feature to have but it shouldn't be used to base your decisions off.

 

[nguyen]

Could just say read reviews to avoid being scammed, no reviewer include DLSS number into their data

 

[Vayra86]

/thread

I applaud your guidance for the nitwits, but they don't read this, unfortunately, they barely even read, they want it presented in videos, because reading is effort. That is why they shall remain nitwits.

 

[kala]

Its a bit difficult to avoid being scammed at the moment if one needs a new video card. Nvidia are the new Scalpers in town.

When Nvidia released the 3060 ti FE £369, 3070 £469 and 3080 £649, they were still being reasonably sensible. Now price madness with the 40xx series, presumably because they thought they could. Apparently sales suggest otherwise.

 

[AusWolf]

While I don't disagree, my guidance is much simpler: Never believe any marketing material. Ever. Read reviews. Always. (but skip the conclusion as it's mostly based on personal opinion instead of facts these days)

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Is some or all reviews... marketing materials?

 

[AusWolf]

Is some or all reviews... marketing materials?

Soon we'll live in a world where everything is a marketing material... But that's why I skip the conclusion, and just look at the graphs.

 

[ARF]

It is very easy. Become a loyal AMD Radeon customer. All nvidia shenanigans fixed.

Soon we'll live in a world where everything is a marketing material... But that's why I skip the conclusion, and just look at the graphs.

Yes, and more independent reviewers to compare the graphs

 

[kiriakost]

Is some or all reviews... marketing materials?

What are your thoughts about NVIDIA and all the work that it did, so to attract Games software brands and developers, so them to engage and use DLSS ?
People there is a much larger picture, NVIDIA alone with out any alliance build with software brands, this it would be unable to promote DLSS.

Conclusion a: In focus they should be all Games software brands, which accepted to assist NVIDIA at the marketing and promotion of DLSS.
Conclusion b: Product reviews they are obligated to share the news as they come.
Conclusion c: Its our (consumers) obligation to observe and think more, when we do shopping.

 

[lightning70]

I was insulted by a rich baby Nvidia fan for writing comment like it on Video Card Z. Don't let the fans insult you.

 

[Hofnaerrchen]

And it's easy: pay attention only to raw performance figures, and dismiss everything that has DLSS in it. Why?

1. Not all games support it. Some will never support it.
2. DLSS 2 image upscaling is not perfect and can result in very unpleasant and annoying artifacts.
3. DLSS 2 itself is not free, it requires computations and adds a frame generation delay and at very high FPS it may actually result in ... lower FPS when you enable it.
4. DLSS 3 frame generation increases latency and becomes usable when your FPS is already way above 60fps or in relatively slow titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator.
5. Running without DLSS (except for DLDSR) results in a better and more stable image quality almost always.

The reason for this post is some highly misleading advertising materials floating around which could give you an impression that 4070 Ti is much faster than 3090 Ti. It's true so only when DLSS 3.0 frame generation is enabled (which is not supported by the GeForce 30 series) or in heavy RT titles such as Portal RTX. In classic raster titles 3090 Ti is faster, sometimes significantly so but reviews will go live any time soon.
DLSS is a nice feature to have but it shouldn't be used to base your decisions off.

While I would support your thinking behind your post - I neither do like nVIDIA's recent behavior - I think you did screw up the meaning of "scamming".

It's no fraud, not even misdirection, to take selected titles that will benefit from a new product's "enhanced" features. That's called marketing and all companies do it this way to some degree. In the computer market it's much easier because you will always find some heavily optimized titles or even some created purely for a specific brand. For this reason people should not rely purely/at all on company figures but on independet reviews, reviews from different sites and sources to form a strong opinion before making a purchasing decision.

A good example where a company DID cheated on it's customers was Volkswagen when they provided wrong numbers on exhaustion figures.

In the end I think nVIDIA did a great job on the latest generation. The 4000 series is a great piece of engineering. And you can't even blame them for being greedy. Every company wants to make profit. Someone - like me - might not like what nVIDIA is doing but as long people keep buying GPUs at inflated prices it's not the companies fault - it's the customers'.

 

[pavle]

All benchmarks are with the new Fake_Frames aka DLSS3 for nvidia now, so they can paint 3x the fps on their material; quite a jump if you believe them, but easily discarded when one reads up on all the aspects of said DLSS3 (you can even watch video reviews about it, they too inform us that it's fake and adds latency).

 

[Vya Domus]

I have nothing against frame interpolation, as a matter of fact I wanted to see this implemented for a long time, obviously games running it have no place in any performance charts other than by themselves. Sadly I was hoping it wouldn't be Nvidia the first ones to get their claws onto this one, it can probably be done better and it can also definitely be done as a hardware agnostic feature.

 

[pavle]

I have nothing against frame interpolation, as a matter of fact I wanted to see this implemented for a long time, obviously games running it have no place in any performance charts other than by themselves. Sadly I was hoping it wouldn't be Nvidia the first ones to get their claws onto this one, it can probably be done better and it can also definitely be done as a hardware agnostic feature.

AMD will most probably follow the trend with their FSR 3.0. Maybe they'll get things right.

 

[Vya Domus]

AMD will most probably follow the trend with their FSR 3.0. Maybe they'll get things right.

This time around they have the hardware ready so I hope they can get FSR 3.0 out as soon as possible. Though it wouldn't surprise me if the Nvidia promotion and marketing machine isn't going to force developers to stick with their implantations exclusively once again.

 

[Dristun]

When does the review embargo lift, anyone knows?

 

[nguyen]

at 2pm UTC I believe

 

[TumbleGeorge]

What are your thoughts about NVIDIA and all the work that it did, so to attract Games software brands and developers, so them to engage and use DLSS ?
People there is a much larger picture, NVIDIA alone with out any alliance build with software brands, this it would be unable to promote DLSS.

Conclusion a: In focus they should be all Games software brands, which accepted to assist NVIDIA at the marketing and promotion of DLSS.
Conclusion b: Product reviews they are obligated to share the news as they come.
Conclusion c: Its our (consumers) obligation to observe and think more, when we do shopping.

No, I don't mean a certain corporation. In most cases, everyone who sends hardware to reviewers also sends a set of strict guidelines on how to test the new product to make it stand out against both its predecessors and competitors' products. At least that's how I imagine it. I could be wrong, although this is exactly a secret and unknown topic. I have some vague recollection of a review of a new generation of hardware using a new version of the drivers, and the old generation was patched with older drivers. I completely forgot what hardware it was tested on and where. If someone remembers, can give an example.

 

[AusWolf]

No, I don't mean a certain corporation. In most cases, everyone who sends hardware to reviewers also sends a set of strict guidelines on how to test the new product to make it stand out against both its predecessors and competitors' products. At least that's how I imagine it. I could be wrong, although this is exactly a secret and unknown topic. I have some vague recollection of a review of a new generation of hardware using a new version of the drivers, and the old generation was patched with older drivers. I completely forgot what hardware it was tested on and where. If someone remembers, can give an example.

I remember LG (or was it MSi?) trying to force Hardware Unboxed to test a monitor using their strict guidelines - which HU refused and posted a video on the matter. It was quite entertaining for a talking-head kind.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

I remember LG (or was it MSi?) trying to force Hardware Unboxed to test a monitor using their strict guidelines - which HU refused and posted a video on the matter. It was quite entertaining for a talking-head kind.

Hmm, I guess it was more about video cards after all. I'd guess at the time of the Ampere vs. Turing generation? But is it possible that it was also a question of such opposition of the AMD generations with rDNA1 against rDNA2? It was probably about reference cards, not custom AiB models, where the guidelines come from the company that created the GPU architecture and reference graphics card design. I really don't remember.

 

[Veseleil]

I remember LG (or was it MSi?) trying to force Hardware Unboxed to test a monitor using their strict guidelines - which HU refused and posted a video on the matter. It was quite entertaining for a talking-head kind.

Nvidia also refused to send review samples because HU at that time was focused on rasterization figures only. If I remember correctly.

 

[john_]

How to avoid getting scammed by NVIDIA​

Yeah, sorry, too late. Nvidia will sell ALL of those and at higher prices than MSRP. They have 90% of the market, tech press to support them, the online non stop posters to support them, better RT performance than AMD, better cards than Intel, DLSS 2.0 and 3.0 to win any benchmark that they could be losing in raster. DLSS 2.0 is accepted today, DLSS 3.0 is said to be getting a new version, soon it will also be an accepted way to increase framerates. It's too late.

If AMD was more succesful, or was getting more love in the GPU market as it was getting those last years in the CPU market thanks to Ryzen, things could be different. Maybe they would have focused more on GPUs and they would be offering better stuff today. But all those last years, even when AMD was beating in benchmarks and price Nvidia, tech press and consumers where happy to attack them and support Nvidia. Polaris had excellent products for the budget, people where buying Nvidia stuff. RDNA1 was very competitive, people where giving money to buy overpriced RTX cards. RX 6000 was very close to Nvidia's offerings, but pandemic really messed up the market. When pandemic ended and AMD was throwing RX 6000 prices off the cliff, people kept paying for Nvidia cards. And things haven't changed. The whole story with the 12pin cable ended up as a user responsibility. Now with 7900XTX overheating problems, tech press is making a party over product recalling.

It's too late. AMD will concentrate on finding a way to fix the AM5 problem, keep selling RX 6000 cards and probably delay any other RX 7000 models they have in mind. Nvidia will sell everything it builds, at any price it wants and that's a fact, with or without DLSS 3.0 to sugarcoat it.

 

[Kapone33]

Nvidia also refused to send review samples because HU at that time was focused on rasterization figures only. If I remember correctly.

Yes that is true. It was because Steve took a vacation after posting that video and Nvidia went nuts!

 

[bogmali]

Closing up shop as this thread serves no purpose