MSI and ASUS Send VGA Review Samples with Higher Clocks than Retail Cards

[bug]

Many congrats to TPU team for speaking out loud for this new episode of dishonesty by PC HW companies. And for some guys here who say that a few % is nothing, I beg to differ as they wouldn't go so far in cheating for nothing. They gained "nothing" and now losing much from press negativity. So stupid eh?

A few percent is really nothing in the real world. It's only when those few percent put your card a bit above competition in reviews that they matter.
The thing is, with dynamic clocks and everything, the profile really doesn't matter, unless it changes the target TDP.

Stupid way to use reputation.

 

[Aleend]

It would have been nice of you to say that the original article is from hardware.fr....

 

[Caring1]

It would have been nice of you to say that the original article is from hardware.fr....

Why, when this thread is about cards sent to and reviewed by TPU!

 

[natr0n]

If they go through this much trouble to fool reviewers, who is to say they are not also hand binning the review samples to do better in OC tests?

They do. When I had an msi 7870 hawk all the reviews had 1260 to 1400 on the core, but retails didn't hit anywhere in that region.

http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/cont...70_hawk_2gb_overclocked_video_card_review.png

lol unreal

 

[123abc]

Much respect to TPU. Much MUCH respect.

 

[medi01]

Cheating.
Lovely.

PS
Respect for TPU for bringing this up.

 

[Aegdju]

No credits to hardware-fr.com whom brought the issue first earlier today ?
At least videocardz.com did : http://videocardz.com/61121/asus-and-msi-accused-of-sending-modified-cards-to-the-press

You don't look bad for not being first, but you sure do when you don't mention the source or give credit when it's due.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I mean there is no need to blow things out of proportions. The app is a very small one, launches instantly and even auto-switches to the OC Mode if told so; comes with FRAPS style OSDs for a lot of functions, can auto run at start-up minimised; so really I see no big deal.

 

[truth teller]

sure, having an app to slightly increase clocks for newbies, so they can experience the placebo effect, is just fine
but sending reviewers a different card of the one being sold is indeed cheating. i hope they get their ass handed to them on emails (who the hell decided to do that? and why two companies at the same time? did nvidia suggested this to the companies? wth...)
also, nice to see btarunr getting into the middle of this, thanks, looking forward to what the companies have to say about this and the upcoming cards (if they even care enough)

 

[bug]

I mean there is no need to blow things out of proportions. The app is a very small one, launches instantly and even auto-switches to the OC Mode if told so; comes with FRAPS style OSDs for a lot of functions, can auto run at start-up minimised; so really I see no big deal.

That's what they said about mice, too. And then Razer went to require online registration.
And that doesn't even touch on the fact that none of these apps are available on Linux.

 

[Tatty_Two]

No credits to hardware-fr.com whom brought the issue first earlier today ?
At least videocardz.com did : http://videocardz.com/61121/asus-and-msi-accused-of-sending-modified-cards-to-the-press

You don't look bad for not being first, but you sure do when you don't mention the source or give credit when it's due.

You are assuming that their news story has been copied here as opposed to this site's reviewers recently getting the test cards and realising it themselves, you may be right of course.... I am not a reviewer but your link has been updated to comment on TPU's findings also which would indicate this isn't simply re-posting news stories?

 

[thebluebumblebee]

So, what is "stock" speed when the GPU has three speeds available to it out of the box? And, if you're the manufacturer, wouldn't you be disappointed if reviewers were only testing your GPU's at the slowest choice?

"without it you risk test default card "

I think the way they went about it was disappointing, but as long as the clocks used were one of the choices available to the user, then I don't see that any "cheating" was done.

This is not a mountain, this is a mole hill. Nothing like those Chinese GPU's on Ebay....

 

[Caring1]

It would have been nice of you to say that the original article is from hardware.fr....

No credits to hardware-fr.com whom brought the issue first earlier today ?
At least videocardz.com did : http://videocardz.com/61121/asus-and-msi-accused-of-sending-modified-cards-to-the-press

You don't look bad for not being first, but you sure do when you don't mention the source or give credit when it's due.

Are making up accounts just to say the same thing, or recruiting other idiots to do it?
I repeat, this has nothing to do with an article from some minor shitty site in France and has to do with the cards being reviewed by TPU.

 

[Gigabyte-Gaming]

Hi. What's going on here?

 

[thebluebumblebee]

Hi. What's going on here?

 

[xorbe]

That's bs tactics, but that difference is so small ...

 

[ermissao]

MSI and ASUS Sell to consumers VGA's that are slower than the samples they send to reviewers!

Nothing new, but it seems that no one cares about false advertising...

 

[btarunr]

It would have been nice of you to say that the original article is from hardware.fr....

We both investigated this. We and HWFR were in touch with each other when investigating this. It's just that their writeup came up first. Neither of us needs to credit the other.

 

[refillable]

This is very stupid... I can't imagine the number of people who asked themselves "should I get MSI or X running at the same retail speed?" and decided to get the MSI because it gets 1-2 fps better than competition. I don't see this being accidental at all, so I think this is very stupid to be honest. My card is an MSI brand (380X) and it's stupid that they use this kind of dirty tactics.

Anyways, why is VW known to do these stuff? I don't follow cars but I just don't get it.

 

[RejZoR]

There is also this:
https://rejzor.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/gpu-boosting-is-a-legal-cheating/

 

[Aegdju]

We both investigated this. We and HWFR were in touch with each other when investigating this. It's just that their writeup came up first. Neither of us needs to credit the other.

Good to know, my bad.
Sorry for jumping the gun.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Now also available in Thai http://www.zolkorn.com/news/msi-and-asus-send-vga-review-samples-with-higher-clocks/

 

[ZoneDymo]

Yeah good job but the 30Mhz or so differences there are probably negligible...

This, great job spotting it, great job reporting on it, but indeed ultimately its a small difference but still.
Could argue of its so small why go through with this practice in the first place right?

 

[RejZoR]

Today its "just" 30MHz, next time it'll be 150MHz... It's only right reviewers are critical. That's their job. Certainly nice to see TPU caring about consumers in the world where gaming and hardware industry is in absolute shit.

 

[Deeveo]

This is very stupid... I can't imagine the number of people who asked themselves "should I get MSI or X running at the same retail speed?" and decided to get the MSI because it gets 1-2 fps better than competition. I don't see this being accidental at all, so I think this is very stupid to be honest. My card is an MSI brand (380X) and it's stupid that they use this kind of dirty tactics.

Anyways, why is VW known to do these stuff? I don't follow cars but I just don't get it.

This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal ..