tomshardware review online!

[Kruzin]

The review at Chip showed both sides of the story.
It was balanced. It showed the strong points of each card, not just the ones Parhelia did good in.
It has been said from day 1 that P was not going to win low res low detail benchmarks. And that is ALL that THG showed. So people who only see his review will only have that to go by. People who read the Chip review will see the whole picture.

1/2 the picture = BAD review
Whole picture = GOOD review

[Galvin]

I'm want to know what speed CPU's/ram these benchmarks were done on.

For example a P4 with Rdram will get much more frame rates than anything else with quake3.

If both these reviews were done on a P3 then the benchmarks are a joke, since p3 is so slow now compared to P4 2GHZ or even latest athlons. Rdram and DDR makes a difference in how well games perform. The last review I couldnt find the machine specs.

Quake3 does very nice, but it's an ancient game, my G400 that I had could do close to 60fps in quake3 at 800x600 in full detail.

Current system:
P4 2.0A, 1gig rdram
Geforce3

[Indiana]

And again: Have you even looked at the chip review? They did not omit the tests where the Parhelia loses. They simply list all the results and just put a bigger emphasis on the AA scores in the written text - with which you can of course agree or not.

The missing anisotropic filtering is a major weakness of the Chip review.

[az]

And it lacks depth all around - no further explanation of tests nor results, no projections on how it'll likely look in the future, etc.

I know this site doesn't cater to enthusiasts like us, but I get the impression that they know less about video cards than I do - and that's not much

AZ

[Electric Amish]

I finally had enough and went off on Anandtech...

amish

[Fenrir(AVA)]

I think it might be driver issues for the low benchmarks. Just look at how the Radeon 8500 has improved with better drivers? If they had the drivers they do today when it first came out, the Gf4 had no chance with the drivers they had. Let's just hope that is the main problem. I want this card to succed and not get crushed by every review site.

[DGhost]

man i just wanna flame [H]ardOCP right now... i have had enough of Kyles idiotic behavior and viewpoints...

the best reviews that come out of there are done by Steve and Brent. Kyle shows his ignorance in practically every post he makes.

no wonder Matrox didn't want to send him a card. After his Radeon 8500 review (and the fact that Brent had to re-review it to give it a fair review), i can't blaim them.

Kyle is an idiot. end of story.

about Toms Hardware... they have been biased for a long time, and have shown poor review methods many, many times (can anyone say their pentium 4 reviews? it took 5 of them to make up their minds. i think it was just to get more hits).

go figure.

[piaxVirus]

To me, it looks like Matrox is more worried about having stable drivers on release. Instead of optimizing them for the FPS whores.

[Electric Amish]

That CHIP review was way more well rounded than THG.

I'm impressed.

amish

[Joel]

Ok .. what did they do to make the GF shine ?

For one thing nVidia test the static screens in 3DMark2001 and figures them into the final scores.

Joel

[Greebe]

Joel once nV was busted by that fact they immediately released new drivers that fixed it. Like they already them ready just in case

[Kosh Naranek]

The difference between the splash screen version and the "normal" version drivers is below 100 3DMark points.

[Greebe]

Now it is with the new detonators... many were reporting in excess of 1000 point drops!

[m00!]

Originally posted by Greebe
Now it is with the new detonators... many were reporting in excess of 1000 point drops!

The new Gainward ones? All I've heard about is INCREASE from friends on IRC and people on other forums. Where do you see this trend?

[Cheesekeeper]

Although I hate the idea of having to claim that a site is biased when it posts a review we don't want to see, in this case I would have to agree. Over the last 12-24 months I have Tom's Harware go from a quality site with balanced reviews, to a site that stacks reviews in the favour of their sponsors. We knew that THG would be raking the Parhelia long before their review was released - this came as no surprise.

The second problem is that since all sites are used to judging cards based on frame-rates alone, the Parhelia already has a disadvantage, since it is not being evaluated on its own terms.

What would be nice to see would be a double-blind test where judges must determine which cards provide the best image and smoothest gameplay. Turn the damn frame-couters off, and have the judges decide which card provides the gameplay they would most like to be using. I saw one review (of geforce cards) done this way, and as far as I am concerned, this is the way it should be done.

The Geforce cards have already demonstrated that high frame rates do not always translate to smooth gameplay. I do not consider myself biased - my two main PCs are currently runnning on Geforce cards, and I like them. I play games to enjoy them - not to try to impress people with meaningless benchmark numbers.

My decision will be based entirely on which card will provide the gameplay I want to see. If the Parhelia performs like a grown-up G400, this will not be a hard decision.......