Jonnyguru.com may be permanently dead

[Chrispy_]

I haven't seen any news about it but I couldn't access it today and a quick search shows a reddit thread saying it's been down for over a week.

I know Jonny left to work for Corsair years ago and OklahomaWolf wrote his last article a couple of years back but I certainly will miss the site so I'm just posting this to raise awareness and pour one out for jonnyguru.com, perhaps the definitive site for identifying good or bad PSUs back in the beige tower days when so many PSUs were garbage and specs were all lies.

RIP.

 

[Shou Miko]

I think I remember hearing that Johnny will keep the site online for as long as possible even when he works for Corsair.

Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Chrispy_]

@jonnyGURU can probably answer that

 

[qubit]

There was another thread about this ages ago and the site was down then. So yeah, I think it's down for good. Shame, it was a really good resource.

 

[W1zzard]

wayback machine should work?

 

[Bones]

He's very active over at LTT, if you have an account there just ask.
All I can say is as long as the link works and takes you to his site, use it.

 

[phill]

Its the place to go for a PSU review in my opinion There's just something about the way he writes and has a laugh doing it....

 

[xrror]

Its the place to go for a PSU review in my opinion There's just something about the way he writes and has a laugh doing it....

Most of the PSU articles were written by Oklahoma Wolf. He retired i think around November .. 2020? 19? Time flies.

And yea JonnyGuru.com and Wolf's articles really were the gold standard for PSU reviews. It's a huge loss - doubly so if the old articles are lost.

 

[Bill_Bright]

It does, however, it looks like someone might have some intention of keeping it from dying completely. But for what reason, no clue. Hopefully to bring it back to full life and usefulness as one of the two best review sites on the Interwebs. I note it was great when JG gave a PSU a great (or bad) review. It was even greater, and a decision clincher/no brainer, if TPU did too. No offense to W1zzard but it is always nice to have a second professional opinion.

But there is even a lot of confusion about the future of the domain name. I note Whois shows someone renewed the domain name registration last month for 1 year. And while it shows Jonny Guru is out of Alexandria, Va in the US, the registrar is Key-Systems GmbH. Note that GmbH is the German term for a limited liability company. But if you look even further, it shows the registrar's phone number has a country code of "64". 64 belongs to New Zealand!

None of that leads to any conclusions. It does not mean the site is coming back, or if someone just wants to hang on to the domain name for sentimental reasons, or if someone is going to turn it into a religious teachings and spiritual guidance in Hinduism site, lead by some inspirational "Guru" whose name is "Jonny".


Edit comment: Fixed a couple typos.

 

[dirtyferret]

I haven't seen any news about it but I couldn't access it today and a quick search shows a reddit thread saying it's been down for over a week.

I know Jonny left to work for Corsair years ago and OklahomaWolf wrote his last article a couple of years back but I certainly will miss the site so I'm just posting this to raise awareness and pour one out for jonnyguru.com, perhaps the definitive site for identifying good or bad PSUs back in the beige tower days when so many PSUs were garbage and specs were all lies.

RIP.

It went dead a while ago, we posted about it on and off

jonnyguru down?

He already quit that business and went to work for Corsair PSU R&D division, so dont expect him to review PSUs anymore, even if he did, he would maybe do that to promote Corsair PSUs with a huge bias because its his new employer now. He sold the site to Tony maybe a decade ago now? Its been a...

www.techpowerup.com

I think I remember hearing that Johnny will keep the site online for as long as possible even when he works for Corsair.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Jon sold it to Taz about a decade ago and Taz had health issues plus there is no money in the upkeep of the site, in fact it's a financial drain.

(posted by me back in February in the link above)

The site has been down for almost two weeks, hopefully everything is ok with Taz but sucks to lose a great community of knowledge.

via Jon, "Yeah... I hope Tony is ok. Haven't heard from him for a while. First his truck broke down (via Facebook) then the site went down. No word as to what's up now."

if someone is going to turn it into religious teachings and spiritual guidance in Hinduism site, lead by some inspirational "Guru" who's name is "Jonny"

now let's all meditate to Vishnu for our PSU fans to never stop, our rails to be within 2% ATX spec, and our efficiency to never dip below 87%

 

[Chrispy_]

No offense to W1zzard but it is always nice to have a second professional opinion.

With JG down and both Jonny and OklahomaWolf no longer writing PSU reviews, @crmaris does some of the best on the net. At least the best that show up in an english-language web search.

His reviews lack some of the entertainment of OklahomaWolf's off-topic interjections but the meat is there - full teardowns, analysis and rigorous testing that surpasses many if not all websites. PSU reviews aren't glamourous but they're an underapreciated necessity that helps keep PSU manufacturers honest. So long as reviews subject PSUs to demanding standards and find flaws that delivering a MVP, we will not see the turds that plauged the industry 20 years ago.

 

[dirtyferret]

crmaris does some of the best on the net. At least the best that show up in an english-language web search.

Yes but the real problem is ten years ago you had more than a half dozen sites doing good to great PSU reviews with two-three really dedicated to PSU reviews or it was one of their main hardware peaces to review . Now we have three sites? Same guy does it for two of them and none consider the PSU as one of their flagship review items. I also realize few people read PSU reviews compared to CPU, GPU, coolers & cases so I'm not knocking the business decision but as consumers the scarcity of quality PSU reviews across PC hardware web sites sucks.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yes but the real problem is ten years ago you had more than a half dozen sites doing good to great PSU reviews with two-three really dedicated to PSU reviews or it was one of their main hardware peaces to review . Now we have three sites? Same guy does it for two of them and none consider the PSU as one of their flagship review items. I also realize few people read PSU reviews compared to CPU, GPU, coolers & cases so I'm not knocking the business decision but as consumers the scarcity of quality PSU reviews across PC hardware web sites sucks.

That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.

In a market where you can name a dozen reputable PSU manufacturers and be almost certain that what they make will be fine, there's no real need for a site that's dedicated primarily to calling out fake specs, bluescreen generators, and fire hazards.

My fondness for jonnyguru.com is purely nostalgia, and the fact that we don't need as many PSU reviews now is a testament to the way the PSU industry has changed for the better, in part because of jonnyguru's work 20 years ago.

 

[Shrek]

I learned a lot from that site, and its fall drove me here... so now you know who to blame ;-)

 

[eidairaman1]

He's very active over at LTT, if you have an account there just ask.
All I can say is as long as the link works and takes you to his site, use it.

Linus is a shill.

That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.

In a market where you can name a dozen reputable PSU manufacturers and be almost certain that what they make will be fine, there's no real need for a site that's dedicated primarily to calling out fake specs, bluescreen generators, and fire hazards.

My fondness for jonnyguru.com is purely nostalgia, and the fact that we don't need as many PSU reviews now is a testament to the way the PSU industry has changed for the better, in part because of jonnyguru's work 20 years ago.

There are still plenty of subpar and crap units floating around

 

[Bones]

Linus is a shill.



There are still plenty of subpar and crap units floating around

I'm not going to argue that point.
It's just he's over there and active right now, I've noted he hasn't been here lately and only he can say why that is.

BTW good to see you back!

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

The place for PSU discussions today is LTT Forms PSU sections, jhonny guru is very active there

Also toms hardware has a healthy PSU form

 

[Frick]

That's partly because finding a decent PSU is dead easy these days with most vendors comfortably exceeding their rated specs and offering warranties that are 3-5x longer than they used to be.

Sure, if you buy the expensive stuff. Many people don't.

 

[Chrispy_]

Sure, if you buy the expensive stuff. Many people don't.

There are still plenty of subpar and crap units floating around

Absolutely true - the choice to buy garbage still exists because lots of it is still made, but if you want to buy a decent PSU you can do so very easily now. 20 years ago it really was a total crapshoot and other than brand reputation you had very little info to go on, which wasn't much use because companies like Sparkle, Fortron, Superflower, Enermax, and Antec all made products across a wide price spectrum with the low-cost stuff often being little better than the 'fake specification' garbage.

80Plus certification has probably helped with this the most because although it's impossible to truly judge a PSU's quality based on its 80Plus rating, you're unlikely to get a turd with a Gold rating or better - simply because it's damn near impossible to meet that standard with shonky no-name parts and a corner-cutting design. At worst today, you'll buy a cheap 80+ Bronze model that barely meets its spec and has subpar performance compared to the competition, but that's still adequate for most users and compared to the PSUs of 20 years ago, that cheap 80+ Bronze is light years ahead of the garbage we used to tolerate.

 

[Valantar]

I've essentially counted JG as dead ever since they tried to refresh the site and (from what I saw) never even managed to get articles listed in reverse chronological order after moving to the new setup. Navigating to a site to find reviews from the 2000s listed on the front page doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The search function was also borked IIRC. It's a damn shame, but it happens. From reading OW's writings on retiring from the site, I understand him completely - in-depth PSU testing like that sounds exhausting, especially if that's the only thing you do. Extremely repetitive, yet labor intensive, requiring a lot of attention to detail and manual labor despite the process each time being essentially the same. I assume from a writer's perspective writing up reviews also turns into .1% variations on the same theme over time. Not many people can live with working conditions like that without burning out.

That being said, I'm very much looking forward to GamersNexus starting PSU reviews in the near future. From what they've shown off so far they've got a proper test lab set up and qualified personnell, and, crucially IMO, are focusing early on on investigating terrible quality units from mainstream brands. There's a ... I want to say Gigabyte? model that they're running a long-term, large-scale test on to see why it seems to like blowing up. With their also announced in-depth fan testing (using five figure cost industrial measurement equipment, not some cheapo anamometer setup) coming along some time in the not too distant future, GN seems to be growing into a go-to source for quality in-depth component reviews. Let's hope TPU can keep up

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Yeah, it was dead for months already, I think unreachable since Feb/Mar.

 

[Chrispy_]

I've essentially counted JG as dead ever since they tried to refresh the site and (from what I saw) never even managed to get articles listed in reverse chronological order after moving to the new setup. Navigating to a site to find reviews from the 2000s listed on the front page doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The search function was also borked IIRC. It's a damn shame, but it happens. From reading OW's writings on retiring from the site, I understand him completely - in-depth PSU testing like that sounds exhausting, especially if that's the only thing you do. Extremely repetitive, yet labor intensive, requiring a lot of attention to detail and manual labor despite the process each time being essentially the same. I assume from a writer's perspective writing up reviews also turns into .1% variations on the same theme over time. Not many people can live with working conditions like that without burning out.

That being said, I'm very much looking forward to GamersNexus starting PSU reviews in the near future. From what they've shown off so far they've got a proper test lab set up and qualified personnell, and, crucially IMO, are focusing early on on investigating terrible quality units from mainstream brands. There's a ... I want to say Gigabyte? model that they're running a long-term, large-scale test on to see why it seems to like blowing up. With their also announced in-depth fan testing (using five figure cost industrial measurement equipment, not some cheapo anamometer setup) coming along some time in the not too distant future, GN seems to be growing into a go-to source for quality in-depth component reviews. Let's hope TPU can keep up

I've been really impressed by GN over the last year. Steve's doing wonders in holding cheats/scammers in the industry to account and the Gigabyte PSU in question is going to be an interesting piece in addition to what they've already done on it. Expect content/quality to drop off for a while as they concentrate on relocating to the new premises though.

 

[dirtyferret]

I've been really impressed by GN over the last year.

if Steve was in the music industry instead of the PC hardware review industry and knew what he was talking about he would be...

 

[eidairaman1]

Absolutely true - the choice to buy garbage still exists because lots of it is still made, but if you want to buy a decent PSU you can do so very easily now. 20 years ago it really was a total crapshoot and other than brand reputation you had very little info to go on, which wasn't much use because companies like Sparkle, Fortron, Superflower, Enermax, and Antec all made products across a wide price spectrum with the low-cost stuff often being little better than the 'fake specification' garbage.

80Plus certification has probably helped with this the most because although it's impossible to truly judge a PSU's quality based on its 80Plus rating, you're unlikely to get a turd with a Gold rating or better - simply because it's damn near impossible to meet that standard with shonky no-name parts and a corner-cutting design. At worst today, you'll buy a cheap 80+ Bronze model that barely meets its spec and has subpar performance compared to the competition, but that's still adequate for most users and compared to the PSUs of 20 years ago, that cheap 80+ Bronze is light years ahead of the garbage we used to tolerate.

Don't forget CWT, Corsair, Coolermaster, OCZ. Coolmax, Raidmax.

Do the research.

 

[Valantar]

I've been really impressed by GN over the last year. Steve's doing wonders in holding cheats/scammers in the industry to account and the Gigabyte PSU in question is going to be an interesting piece in addition to what they've already done on it. Expect content/quality to drop off for a while as they concentrate on relocating to the new premises though.

Yeah, no doubt the content will be simpler and more straightforward for a while. But IMO it's all good - their simple and straightforward stuff is still head and shoulders above the rest of tech youtube in terms of quality of analysis and perspective, let alone the technical side of things. I also appreciate how straightforward they are being about stuff taking time - there aren't many media outlets that have the guts to say "hey, so half a year ago we ordered a $40 000 fan testing rig thanks to all of you buying our mod mats and merch, and it's just been delivered. We need to learn to use it and develop a testing protocol, so you might see the first reviews in 6-12 months." That kind of rigor, attention to detail, transparency and straightforwardness is exactly what is lifting them to their current position. At this point, I would honestly put them about on par with AnandTech - not in the in-depth tecnhnical analysis of architectures and the like, as nobody can match AT there, but they are head and shoulders above AT in many respects, while churning out reviews at a much higher rate. If GN and TechTechPotato (Ian Cuttress) start doing collaborations on hardware launches and architectural deep-dives, that would be an unbeatable team.

if Steve was in the music industry instead of the PC hardware review industry and knew what he was talking about he would be...

Oooooohhh. I just pictured GN Steve with Weird Al's lyrical skills. That would be epic. I mean ....