I mean, Nvidia doesn't owe anyone anything. Getting pre-launch hardware is a courtesy. This is why it is a relationship and a balancing act. They could easily make what Nvidia wants, highlight their selling points and then add or do separately their own video. However, they don't want to do any compromises and take this relationship for granted. It reminds me of internet culture and 'us poor gamers against big corporations' which we hate, but treat like they are part of our family, of us, of our clan. They are also act in completely one sided way of doing what is best for their channel in tapping the outrage and ripping those companies apart over anything, but don't want to do what their partners want.
Hardware Unboxed isn't the biggest offender in my eyes. Their conclusions are mostly fine. However, they do tell very questionable things. Like 16 GB is what we should get. 12 GB being the bare minimum for an entry level card. They then cherry pick results from wrong resolutions. They went from being tech reviewers to content creators. Content to entertain masses, because drama and outrage sells a lot better to public than dry and factual data. Merely stating that product is 'okay' doesn't sell nor is interesting to their audience. I really loved how they went tin foil hats and claimed that Nvidia is purposefully scalping those GPUs and AMD is going to save them. Then they got used by AMD as chills to promote their products. Then AMD just raised prices of their products to where they are no better than Nvidia products. In the end, it is Nvidia products which went down to their MSRP the fastest at least in my region.
As for RTX 4060/5060. Those cards always brought the best value for budget, low end gaming. Most people have 1080p and they don't play latest AAA titles. It is more than enough. Those cards provide the best performance per euro by far usually. Like I said before, it is really non issue and I support Nvidia's stance on it. Casual buyers just want what is cheapest and can run their old games. Enthusiast will be able to choose and pay for better performing parts.
I'm also little perplexed how these people don't understand concept of inflation. Since Pascal era there was tons of inflation. Microchips exploded in costs. However, gamers never adjusted their expectation of what they should receive for 300 dollars. Guys, at least inflation adjust your expectations. GTX 1060 6GB costing 250 dollars now is almost 350 dollars! I feel like I'm seeing how people get old and out of touch. Like an old man yelling at the cloud. They lived in good times. Got used to it and never since wanted to adjust their expectations. Getting stuck in the past reminiscing with rose goggles at how things used to be.
A company sending out a product for a fair assessment isn't an owed thing or any sort of entitlement, it's how the review process has always worked with tech products, and now that Nvidia isn't even trying and knows their cards at the low end are garbage they suddenly want to break the relationship with every tech reviewer for not being a paid sellout.
I take it you haven't seen any of the coverage discussing on what Nvidia is trying to do with unbiased reviews, the tech press can't maintain their impartiality and take the money from the leather jacket man, Nvidia only wants videos where the presenter talks about DLSS And MFG 4X, while comparing the card to a 2060 and a 3060, both cards which lack MFG 4X. But it is baffling to think anyone would seriously accept a review from someone essentially being a marketing arm for a multi-trillion dollar company.
HUB isn't my favorite tech channel, I don't like their video thumbnails, and they are rather biased towards Nvidia with directing more harsh criticism towards AMD, only the Nvidia fans think they're shilling for AMD. By the way, Nvidia has been purposely limiting supply since the 30 series, it isn't some tin foil hat conspiracy, they did it for crypto, now they're artificially limiting supply to keep the demand higher than the supply.
I have yet to see anyone point out how their testing isn't factual, but the whining about using the "wrong" resolutions is ironically cherry picking, while defending to gatekeep people on a budget to be stuck on 1080p medium and low for years now, because Nvidia has refused to be the market leader pushing forward with 10-12GB cards on the midrange segment, since if Intel can sell a 12GB card with a $250 MSRP, then Nvidia with their 70% margins sure can. And the 3060 12GB sold at a reasonable price, but Nvidia probably regrets selling a midrange card with sufficient VRAM, it definitely makes the 4060 8GB and 5060 8GB look silly as those cards run out of VRAM well before they run out of GPU rendering power.
The 4060 and 5060 sell well enough because they're cheapest option in a green box, the average gamer will always buy the cheapest cards that the influencers are selling, even though the tech press said the 4060 wasn't enough of an uplift over the 3060, and a waste of sand compared to the 3060 12GB. And now the 5060 is just another 4060Ti, pointless like all of the 50 series have been below the 5090.
As for the inflation excuses, crypto also happened right after the Pascal generation, every company seen they can charge more for the same product, and now with AI things have gotten even worse, throw in some buzzwords to inflate the price. Also while prioritizing AI, gamers get the scraps, being told to run upscaling and frame gen to get a higher frame rate.
Calling someone old because they aren't celebrating how shit the market has become is an interesting take, then again it feels like people are worshiping the leather jacket while refusing to accept that a company stagnating the market to pay console prices for a graphics card could ever possibly be greedy.
