OT: Website suggestion

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Capper

you completely miss my point....I have three test benches, and am working usually on 2-3 things at a time.......

I believe you are the one missing my point though.

Let's take a video card review as an example.
I'm looking to buy a video card so I find one in my price range and start looking for reviews.
I find some reviews and they score 20,000 in 3DMark06 and get over 100fps in Crysis at the resolution/settings I expect to play.
Now, what use is it to see you scored 20,000 3DMark06 or get 100fps in Crysis at a given resolution/settings if you need to have a quad core (which as someone somewhat money conscientious can't quite afford) to get anywhere close to that?
If you have anything more mainstream you get duped because 3DMark06 is somewhat CPU dependant and so is Crysis. After all, all games are more or less.
After reading those type of reviews that are largely flawed by the fact everything is top of the line, I can only think to myself "Alright, i'll be lucky if I get half of that". I hope for the best and click the Buy button...

All those values are fictive obviously, but hopefully you get my point when I say that tons of reviews and benchmarks just show you what you would get if everything in your system was top of the line, which indeed shows the true potential of 1 computer part (in this case a video card), but not how it would look in your system, which you didn't quite spend $2.5K on.

[PTRMAN]

Maybe its just me, but I can't see the humor in this either, Stormcrow.

[Capper]

Originally Posted by polobunny

I believe you are the one missing my point though.

Let's take a video card review as an example.
I'm looking to buy a video card so I find one in my price range and start looking for reviews.
I find some reviews and they score 20,000 in 3DMark06 and get over 100fps in Crysis at the resolution/settings I expect to play.
Now, what use is it to see you scored 20,000 3DMark06 or get 100fps in Crysis at a given resolution/settings if you need to have a quad core (which as someone somewhat money conscientious can't quite afford) to get anywhere close to that?
If you have anything more mainstream you get duped because 3DMark06 is somewhat CPU dependant and so is Crysis. After all, all games are more or less.
After reading those type of reviews that are largely flawed by the fact everything is top of the line, I can only think to myself "Alright, i'll be lucky if I get half of that". I hope for the best and click the Buy button...

All those values are fictive obviously, but hopefully you get my point when I say that tons of reviews and benchmarks just show you what you would get if everything in your system was top of the line, which indeed shows the true potential of 1 computer part (in this case a video card), but not how it would look in your system, which you didn't quite spend $2.5K on.

Read other reviews...

I don't know what else to say....you make a comment about having a second test bench, which had nothing to do with my original post....and obviously as you are the one who has to be argumentative with most everything we do, we just aren't satisfying your needs.

First and foremost, I've never had anyone criticize our reviews or testing methods. Second, We always recommend reading several reviews to get a good idea of a given products abilities.

[Quakindude]

Just so this is very clear. I was not criticizing anything when I started this thread. It was merely suggestion/thinking out loud.

[Capper]

No, and ideas are always welcome........but sometimes it seems some people want to reinvent the wheel, and get way to technical/complicated with things....and its always seems to come back to the same thing in the end.

Trust me, I've been doing this quite awhile, and I'm sure the staff will vouch for the fact that I am constantly tinkering with things and trying stuff to make the site and our content better.

[gvblake22]

Everyone has good points here. I agree that the idea of minimum framerates is very important, but obviously cannot be the sole measure of performance. Single numbers representing the lowest framerate a card hit at one period in time (like Paul mentioned) is not going to give you a very good representation, just as highest peak framerate wouldn't. I hate to bring this up, but the line charts that [H] have are probably the most inclusive as far as interpreting total performance across the board. With those charts, you can see where the dips and peaks are, as well as how long frames were rendered at a certain rate. The major problem (I think) is that most "canned" benchmarks don't always tell you what the min and max framerates are.

I think having a percentage of the demo that was rendered at X frames per second would be the easiest to comprehend. Something like, "the 8800GT was able to play Crysis with 32% of the demo benchmark being rendered below 20 frames per second while 16% of the demo was above 40 frames per second". Obviously those numbers were completely made up, but you get the idea of what I'm trying to say...

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Capper

First and foremost, I've never had anyone criticize our reviews or testing methods.

Which doesn't mean there's no criticism to be done/ameliorations to be brought.

Originally Posted by Capper

Second, We always recommend reading several reviews to get a good idea of a given products abilities.

No use if it's again a crazy test bench, when I want to know what I could expect with my current setup.

[Capper]

great, then start up Polobunny reviews....really its a tired conversation, and one we always seem to have.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Capper

great, then start up Polobunny reviews....really its a tired conversation, and one we always seem to have.

I don't remember having any conversation like this with you, or with anyone else for that matters.

As for PB reviews, I would, if I had time and funds. ;P

[Capper]

Every conversation turns into this.....and frankly it gets old.....90% of your posts are argumentative. With the fact that you know everything, and know better than anyone here....put your nuts out there and start doing some reviews....I'm sure with your knowledge all these companies would throw money at you, and you could retire from your current job and just put out 2-3 articles a week.