A response from a general at Tom's Hardware.....

T

The_Professional

New member
hey guys, remember my "ideas" on Tom's hardware a while back?

Well, I haven't had time to stir the kettle, I have had A LOT of response from that ONE post on Tom's forums. I haven't attempted to defend my statements, as I thought the initial post qualified to defend itself. I have had a lot of support from you guys here in the form of emails. And mad praise all across the net for attacking head on some irregularities in the site's integrity in testing and opinion making.
Anyway, the latest reply to my post came tonight. It was rather funny, and I thought it would be fun to share with you guys what this, *ahem* Tom happy person had to say. BTW, He does mention, how ATi is sponsoring this web site. Which, if it is, I want muh damn money!

Suggestions - Tom's Biased ass Subscribe
From: THGMAN 10:00 pm
To: AHPRPRO unread 16 of 18
78219.16 in reply to 78219.1

You have no idea what you are talking about. I know for a fact that Tom DOES NOT HAVE NVIDIA AS AN ADVERTISER. However, ATI DOES advertise. Look at the following URL http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/index.html
You fool! Look before you leap man because you just jumped off of a cliff!
If you have read other GREAT or CONFLICTING reports of ATI's recent products it is because ATI is spreading money all over the web at the moment and some puny ass websites with no morals will kiss up to their advertisers. Tom could care less about this and it is policy at Tom's Hardware to separate advertising and reviews. Just look at how Tom routinely slams his motherboards advertisers products! You do not know what you are talking about man. Tom's Hardware Guide is one of the fairest if not THE fairest Hardware Website on the net. Yes his emotions and OPINIONS leak out in his reviews and the ways that his German reviewers write are direct and to the point and sometimes blunt as hell, but they don't beat around the bush.
If you can find anywhere in that Radeon review that is a lie point it out now.

From: THGMAN 10:07 pm
To: AHPRPRO unread 17 of 18
78219.17 in reply to 78219.1

One more thing. That website rage3d.com looks like an ATi sponsored site. Most all of their articles are on ATI's products only. I only looked it over briefly, but I couldn't even find a review of the Geforce MX.

From: THGMAN 10:10 pm
To: PUTTS335 unread 18 of 18
78219.18 in reply to 78219.5

Nice way to put it. Tom is on a moral crusade at times and that causes him to go overboard at times in the way he reviews certain products. But he never lets advertising affect his judgement and by the way Nvidia doesn't even advertise.
By the way Tom didn't even do the review in question. It was someone named Uwe.
 
Amazing, indeed. The "review" of the 32SDR Radeon at tomshardware.com was one of the worst-written and biased pieces of garbage I have ever read. It is certainly on my top 10 list!

Just my $0.02 (IOW: BUMP! ;) )
 
I agree with otheipion on this one. Toms not really been unbiased in his past and its shown with his latest email. So what if he advertises ATi. He's only in it for the cash. The amazing thing is that ATi hasn't noticed Toms really bad review. If I were ATi I wouldn't be keeping my Ad around there when all he does is write up bogus articles.

Think about this. How many Geforce 2 articles has he written up. Now compare that to the articles he's written up about other cards. They greatly outwiegh them. Now I realize that since nVidia sells to third parties, that there are a lot more of their cards in existence as oppossed to Radeons. But still, most OEMs simply copy the reference board and perform exactly the same as all the other ones on the market. He even does articles on the D3 drivers and those for linux as well. He obviously is an nVidia enthusiast to say the least because its obvious that's where the bulk of his article/test time goes.

And I've seen it in other areas too, not just video cards. Its become extremely hard to trust him after he deletes posts and ignores emails. He used to respond to any email about questions about his articles. But the latest email I sent went unanswered. I'm sorry, its hard for me to trust him after that, just like its hard to trust ATi's drivers with their track record...
 
And one more thing. Even if the article was not written by Tom, he should have reviewed it for accuracy. But, of course, he continued and he posted it on the site anyway, so that must tell you something.

Even after the commotion this has caused, he still hasn't seemed to care.
 
Well i was on the Toms hardware site the other day and saw a good review of a chipset of Ati's that was going against intel's 815 chipset. They were praising the chipset and posted some pretty good numbers. His site also had high praise for the new usb tv tuner, which i can't wait to get.

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PIII 667 coppermine
Asus P3C-E MB
128 PC 800 RDRAM
Sound Blaster Live Xgamer
Radeon 32 DDR
Yamaha CDRW 8824
 
Ha - he couldn't find a GeForce MX review on Rage3D - whoa is that guy bright - I hope he searched for a long time too -
 
Curio, I laffed at that as well.
I guess we should review the MX. We could review like Tom does, but with ATi in mind. I can see it now.....

As you can see, while the MX is Okay at 16bit 3d acceleration, the Radeon kicks its ass.
(Radeon tested at 32bit 640x480 on a aocket A 900mhz while the MX tested at 16bit 1600x1200 on a slotA 550)

BTW, when am I gonna get my check from ATi?
 
Where to start.
Nvidia doesn't advertise, i remeber the GeForce advertisement with the wright brothers being on almost every site i went to. But the point is eeeecery company advertises, how else is the average comsumer gonna know.
Rage3D is a hardware review site that has a strong bias towards ATI. And VoodooExtremem is a hardware rreview site with strong bias towards 3DFx, right? Idiot!

God i love stupid people, makes my day fun.

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I don't suffer from INSANITY, I enjoy every MINUTE of it!!!!!!!!!!

T-Bird 900@1 Gig
A7V
256 PC-100
Radeon 64mb VIVO

"For death awaits you all in the form of big teeth like this!"
 
Hail fellow Radeon owners!

Although that Tom's fan may not be so bright, he does point out a fact that the SDR review was written by someone else in his staff, not Tom himself. Uwe Scheffel.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q4/001019/index.html

While Tom's personal full review of the Radeon DDR, he closes the review with:

"As I already said, I like the Radeon. I like it because I prefer intelligent technology to brute force. That's why I also prefer a Porsche 911 Turbo to a Dodge Viper." http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q3/000717/radeon256-33.html#conclusions

Another example is when his crew Van Smith slams AMD for business practice, he immediately speaks up his opinion about AMD and bluntly "disagrees" with Van. Guess what? Van Smith is still working for Tom.

That does point out something interesting. Tom has some guys working for him, and he doesn't agree with all of them. What does that say? Tom, as well as his crew, may personal opinions. And they make enough money to care about neither what the readers nor the advertises say. Tom himself is a doctor, and computer review started out as a hobby for him. If you think he is doing a free unbiased public service, ha.

Sometimes I read Tom's blurbs simply out of entertainment value of his sentiments.

Heck, I don't agree with him either on some issues.

But if we continue to bash Tom out of ignorance, we are just making a fool out of ourselves.

Afterall, I decided to buy my Radeon VIVO after reading Tom's review. Because if someone who previously slammed ATI can say good things about Radeon, it ought to be a good new product.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Seany:
Although that Tom's fan may not be so bright, he does point out a fact that the SDR review was written by someone else in his staff, not Tom himself. Uwe Scheffel.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q4/001019/index.html<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

TRUE! But guess what, Tom is the reviewing editor. He read the aritcle before having it published. I have read articles written by some of his staff that blew my mind about products that Tom doesn't like, and close to the end of the article, you can see where Tom has put his 2 cents in.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana">quote:</font><HR>Another example is when his crew Van Smith slams AMD for business practice, he immediately speaks up his opinion about AMD and bluntly "disagrees" with Van. Guess what? Van Smith is still working for Tom.

That does point out something interesting. Tom has some guys working for him, and he doesn't agree with all of them. What does that say? Tom, as well as his crew, may personal opinions. And they make enough money to care about neither what the readers nor the advertises say. Tom himself is a doctor, and computer review started out as a hobby for him. If you think he is doing a free unbiased public service, ha.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You hit the nail on the head! They do make a butt load of money. Where do you think it is coming from? Porn advertisements on the site? Nope. Take a harder look at what is being said in the articles. BUY ME. I could go on all day long about this. But you see what I'm getting at.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana">quote:</font><HR>But if we continue to bash Tom out of ignorance, we are just making a fool out of ourselves.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No one as bashed Tom, I was a religious Tom's reader in the past. I admire Tom, I don't admire his reviewing techniques. I like consistancy in reviews, consistant and fair.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana">quote:</font><HR>Afterall, I decided to buy my Radeon VIVO after reading Tom's review. Because if someone who previously slammed ATI can say good things about Radeon, it ought to be a good new product.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now does that sound consistant to you?
 
Professional:

To the last question, it sure doesn't sound consistent to me. Logically, the inconsistence comes from ATI's poor product from before to the great Radeon product now. I definitely appreciate this kind of inconsistency for the better, as long as ATI doesn't drop back to the way they were before.

As far as Tom is concerned, I think he is consistently emotionally driven, which may be a paradox. But I do see him praise something that he likes and slam something he dislikes. Hard to understand what exactly wins his favor, be it technology, or money, manufacture moral,... but he does consistently treats his reviewed product according to his liking.

For that reason, I wouldn't go to him for medical purposes if I live in UK.
 
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