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MSI and ASUS Accused of Sending Reviewers Overpowered Graphics Cards (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the intent-to-deceive dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: TechPowerUp discovered that the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X card they were sent for review was running at faster GPU and memory clock speeds than the retail version. This was because the review card was set to operate in the OC (overclocking) mode out of the box, whereas the retail card runs in the more regular Gaming mode out of the box. This may result in an unobservant reviewer accidentally misrepresenting the OC performance numbers as the stock results from the card, lending MSI's product an unearned helping hand. The site found this was a recurring pattern with MSI stretching back for years. Fellow Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS, in spite of having better global name recognition and reputation, has also show itself guilty of preprogramming review cards with an extra overclocking boost. Needless to say, the only goal of such actions is to deceive -- both the consumer and the reviewer -- though perhaps some companies have felt compelled to follow suit after the trend was identified among competitors. The Verge notes that TechPowerUp revealed its finding on Thursday of last week, and has not received any official response from either MSI or ASUS. They did update their story to note that MSI addressed the matter, in a comment provided to HardOCP Editor-in-Chief Kyle Bennett, back in 2014.

13 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Shills, Shills Everywhere... by negRo_slim · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've seen this endlessly excused on sites like reddit by people claiming that it just saves the reviewers time since we'd all go into the drivers and overclock them anyways and other variations of that. I don't buy that one bit personally.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    1. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by msauve · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Shouldn't some blame be placed on the review sites, for not purchasing cards at retail? That's SOP for reviewing products in many industries.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A lot of times this is a whole non-issue, and not for the shill reasons you'd expect. They come out saying right at the start that these are "review samples" and those have almost always have a different bios flashed on to them then the run of the mill retail cards, especially since those review samples are selected cards that have a more stable and higher base clock rate in the first place and have already been used internally for testing. If a site doesn't want a "review sample" they only have to tell the company that's sending them the hardware they would prefer to have retail boxed copies of hardware.

      That of course means the reviewer will have to wait for a retail version to become available to them in most cases instead of getting their review sample a few weeks early. I'll bet you already know what the site will want anyway, they'll still want that review sample so they can get people in the door and looking at their site.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Shouldn't some blame be placed on the review sites, for not purchasing cards at retail

      I think the public would be better served by that.
      But where is the money going to come from to purchase all these cards at retail?

      Many of the review sites are not exactly raking in many dollars, or their current source of revenue might actually be sponsorship dollars from the very companies whose products they are reviewing (Which seems even worse to me than getting review samples).

      I agree they should disclose if review samples were given by the manufacturer...... They are subject to possible cheating.

    4. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But where is the money going to come from to purchase all these cards at retail?

      Consumer Reports seems to have the model figured out... They've been discreetly buying the stuff they test — including cars — for decades now. And then selling their reviews to paid subscribers...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    5. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've seen this endlessly excused on sites like reddit by people claiming that it just saves the reviewers time since we'd all go into the drivers and overclock them anyways and other variations of that. I don't buy that one bit personally.

      Video card reviewer here.

      No, we do not appreciate this. We want to test the out of the box, retail performance of a card. This means I have to go to the manufacturer and chase down a clean BIOS, because due to how GPU clocking mechanisms work, factory overclocks may have altered the voltage table and/or maximum boost clock differently from how the base clock has been modified. Shipping these cards with the OC BIOS makes things harder for us, not easier.

      Truthfully, we don't even want to test these OC modes. They're generally a sub-2% overclock. Due to the aforementioned complexities in how GPU clocking works (high loads can be throttled by power or temperature), 2% is within the margin of error anyhow. So all it does is create more testing work for a trivial gain. When we actually want to test overclocking, we go in and manually overclock, which for most cards is going to net a much larger performance increase than these baked-in OC modes.

      Instead manufacturers screw with the BIOSes in a misguided effort to end up at the top of the performance charts, beating their competitor by 0.1%. When in reality, everyone would just be better off if they made the OC mode the default mode to begin with.

    6. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Shouldn't some blame be placed on the people that rely on other people's advice/research instead of doing their own?

      What? So I am supposed to buy all the cards, and test them myself, so I can decide which one to buy?

    7. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They've been discreetly buying the stuff they test — including cars — for decades now.

      I like consumer reports, but they concentrate on products that appeal to the masses, not highly-technical products like computer video cards that the average consumer is not interested in.
      It's amazing what you can do, when you have 7 million subscribers, each paying $30 a year, isn't it?

      The market for consumer computer hardware component reviews, does not have this kind of reach, however.

      Think there might be a lot more consumers looking for reviews on products in the $100 billion+ per Year market for Cars, Versus the $50 mllion+ per Year market for video cards?

      It has not always been like that, but In fact.... I would dare say that discrete video cards are becoming a niche market for hobbyists. There's no way 7 million people are going to subscribe to a publication that reviews computer components; not going to happen.
      That is going to be one hell of an expensive subscription (which people will therefore not buy), Or, it's going to by necessity wind up subsidized by manufacturers anyways.....

      I'm sure there's no way they could get that, if they weren't concentrating on things of interest to their subscribers. Also, the fact they are buying Cars means that's money they aren't spending on other types of products for review....
      A heck of a large amount of money, also, by the way: cars are expensive.
      Video cards have a small market and are expensive enough that a significant commitment is necessary.

      Also, I see Consumer reports would more likely be reviewing something such as Smartphones that would bring in interest by subscribers and potential subscribers.

    8. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by sexconker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      These cards are specifically built and marketed for overclocking. There are profiles on the cards, and the OC profile is on all retail units, it's simply not the default. Why they made it the default for reviewers or not the default for retail I don't know. But it really isn't an issue. All the cards will reach those clocks.

    9. Re:Shills, Shills Everywhere... by Hylandr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't feed the professional Russian trolls seeding discord.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  2. Only for bad reviewers by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A good reviewer should buy things anonymously for their review, lest they tempt the producer to send them a higher quality product. Of course, it's harder to buy things anonymously when you want the producer to gift it to you. This has been obvious for a long time.

    And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    1. Re:Only for bad reviewers by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a catch-22 though, and video game reviewers have the same issue.

      If you get a review copy, you don't just get it FREE- you get it EARLY. That means you can write a story before someone who has to wait for the product to ship. Since most of the hype occurs before the launch (obviously- if you are super into product X and it is out, you go and buy it and are happy), this means that most of the readers about product X will want to read about it before it launches, be it a video game or a video card.

      This gives the companies a lot more power over the "journalist" (if you can call a product reviewer that at all, lol) than you might see elsewhere.

      Real reviews are done by places like Consumer Reports. They do blind purchases, don't accept advertisements, and they do their reviews based on objective things decided ahead of time. This isn't nearly as glamorous as luxury items like games, video cards, etc.

  3. Maybe you should RTFA? by Kartu · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not "sites like reddit" claiming it.
    It started with techpowerup article, mentioning exactly what was wrong: cards running at higher frequencies than normal retail versions: Here is it:

    MSI and ASUS have been sending us review samples for their graphics cards with higher clock speeds out of the box, than what consumers get out of the box. The cards TechPowerUp has been receiving run at a higher software-defined clock speed profile than what consumers get out of the box. Consumers have access to the higher clock speed profile, too, but only if they install a custom app by the companies, and enable that profile. This, we feel, is not 100% representative of retail cards, and is questionable tactics by the two companies. This BIOS tweaking could also open the door to more elaborate changes like a quieter fan profile or different power management.

    http://www.techpowerup.com/for...