Since all gpu's models perform the same, why review dozen of different models?

[Knight47]

Since they perform the same and people say just get the cheapest. Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

 

[alwayssts]

Since they perform the same and people say just get the cheapest. Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

Because they are likely the main driver of traffic to the website. They are likely not a waste of time/money, but actually a key generator of it.
Also, they provide an excellent reference point to the differences in general product quality across AIBs from a singlular pov, which is helpful.

I do not agree noise/heat is a non-issue these days; not everyone has a choice of placement. I agree on wearing headphones (and that's exactly what I do), but it is very much peoples' prerogative to not do that.

 

[AleXXX666]

Because they are likely the main driver of traffic to the website. They are likely not a waste of time/money, but actually a key generator of it.
Also, they provide an excellent reference point to the differences in general product quality across AIBs from a singlular pov, which is helpful.

I do not agree noise/heat is a non-issue these days; not everyone has a choice of placement. I agree on wearing headphones (and that's exactly what I do), but it is very much peoples' prerogative to not do that.

absolutely. f...k the headphones, I wanna play a game still hear what's on my back lol

 

[alwayssts]

absolutely. f...k the headphones, I wanna play a game still hear what's on my back lol

Fair-enough.

 

[Kwadratowicz]

Because they are made different, now I'm searching for gpu, 9070 xt, before that i was searching about 7800 xt (budget change) but the thermals between cards can be substantial, for example 9070 xt has different heat sinks, some have vapor chamber (XFX Mercury RX 9070XT OC Gaming Edition), some others don't (XFX Mercury RX 9070XT Gaming Edition), it's still 9070 XT.
With the launch manufacturers make some mistakes in claim, XFX was wrong with vapor chamber in non oc cards if i remember correctly. So best way is to look it up and see what is really inside that card.
And even with the same 9070 xt the temperatures can differ for around 10 degrees.

 

[Wirko]

What's more annoying is that the discussion also gets scattered into many threads. For example, the four reviews of the 9070 XT have 725, 114, 112 and 72 posts in comments. Unsurprisingly, most are about the 9070 XT in general, and few are specific to the brand and model in the review. My suggestion is to open a general discussion thread in the forums when a new model from NV/AMD/Intel is first reviewed, and put a link to that thread somewhere at the end of each review.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

most cards of a group 5060/70/80/90 or Amd cards will be surely withing 10-20% of each other irrelavent of what shinies they put on the cards, so a good review of each type 60/70/80/90 etc would be good enough imo

 

[JustBenching]

Since they perform the same and people say just get the cheapest. Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

Because

1)how would you know they perform identical if you don't test them

2) in terms of noise and temperatures thry do not perform identical

3) how is the average Joe supposed to know they perform identical. He Googles the model he found on offer and looks for reviews and he can't find one for his card based on your suggestion, now what?

4) it might expose parituclar issues a model might have

absolutely. f...k the headphones, I wanna play a game still hear what's on my back lol

Open back headphones.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Pretty hard to get FE cards in my neck of the woods. It's also nice to see how they can perform against each other with quietness, heat, power, quality of VRM's and varying prices.

 

[W1zzard]

same

https://imgur.com/eCSWffI

 

[Shihab]

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

I absolutely have to ask: Are you joking here?

 

[Onasi]

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

…because everyone is living in a suburban house that has attic and/or basement, right.

 

[Chomiq]

Since they perform the same and people say just get the cheapest. Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

I think you need to get out of the basement more.

 

[Pumper]

I'd be fine with the performance charts only showing the base model and something from the top of the line, while focusing on cooling performance and real world power draw to compare even more different models. I.e. as of right now, the Asus Prime is the cheapest variant of 5070 in Europe, but TPU does not have a review of one, so I don't know if it would end up being a jet engine in my PC.

 

[Vayra86]

absolutely. f...k the headphones, I wanna play a game still hear what's on my back lol

Not only that... but... its completely possible to have a rig you don't really notice while gaming. Always having cans on... I never understood that. It annoys the F out of me after 10 whole minutes already. Even outside. No matter what headset it is.

 

[Ruru]

As a PC hobbyist for over 20 years; no, they aren't the same.

Back in the day when practically every card's cooler sucked and we put an aftermarket coolers from then, even then the card mattered since some cards used higher spec'd VRAM or was known of using better binned cores. For modern cards, they may be the same on paper by their specs, but not in real-world usage.

 

[Frizz]

Since they perform the same and people say just get the cheapest. Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

People say get the cheapest (at the moment) because of how Ngreedia screwed the market over doing insane mark ups on pricing with no competitor in sight to stop them.

If things ever normalize and competition somehow comes back, the price difference between Bottom/Top tier AIB offerings will be insanely smaller. How the decision should look to consumers is whether you should fork out 10%-15% more to get better Manufacturer Warranty, better cooling, software, fancier RGB lights, white premium colors & a chance at a slightly better binned/clocked card.

Right now it's not even worth thinking about with markups exceeding 50% from MSRP, get what you can and closest to MSRP as possible.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

The people that say "just buy the cheap one" are often the same people always asking "why does my computer not run as well as i think it should?"

 

[windwhirl]

Since they perform the same

They don't.

just get the cheapest.

I have entire brands banned from me ever purchasing something from them. Funnily enough they tend to have the cheap stuff... And the shittiest if not non-existant support.

Noise/heat is a non issue these days,

Tell that to my cramped 40 m2 apartment.

just move the PC to the basement or attic,

By the way, a house with either a basement or an attic over here starts at some 400000 USD. A bit much. And renting one is also prohibitively expensive.

wear comfy headphones.

Some people don't like or straight up can't tolerate headphones for long.

What's more annoying is that the discussion also gets scattered into many threads. For example, the four reviews of the 9070 XT have 725, 114, 112 and 72 posts in comments. Unsurprisingly, most are about the 9070 XT in general, and few are specific to the brand and model in the review. My suggestion is to open a general discussion thread in the forums when a new model from NV/AMD/Intel is first reviewed, and put a link to that thread somewhere at the end of each review.

This I wouldn't mind tho. But how to work it out so that it doesn't end up being a worse solution, I'm not sure. I feel like it make the threads... noisier, to put it one way

 

[R-T-B]

I absolutely have to ask: Are you joking here?

It's an option certainly (I have done something similar using a data closet) but it can be a pricey one, so not for everyone for sure. Not even mentioning space concerns. I mean things like a remote 4k high refresh solution can be EXPENSIVE.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Some people have a strict preference in the manufacturer they buy from. Lots of people were EVGA fans and only bought from them, it was nice to see reviews on some of their available cards when things got released. Same goes for all other brands.

I was a big fan of Zotac for a while. Had a stellar GTX 570 and I was pleasantly surprised with the 980Ti AMP! Omega from them as well. However, they started having build issues the following series with the 10x0 cards and kind of kept going down. It was nice to see reviews on their stuff and hear about any issues so I could make an informed decision where I to buy another GPU from them or not. I'm not against buying from Zotac again, but I would like to be informed before I just drop money on a GPU.

Also, seeing a lot of reviews lets you see what these cards look like, sound like, how they handle temps and if there are any oddities that stand out (good or bad).

Not only that... but... its completely possible to have a rig you don't really notice while gaming. Always having cans on... I never understood that. It annoys the F out of me after 10 whole minutes already. Even outside. No matter what headset it is.

I love playing games with headphones off at home, but I can rarely do that because someone is always home and they don't want to hear what I'm listening to come out of the speakers. I can't stand things in my ears aside from eat plugs I wear at work when needed. Earbuds hurt my ears and constantly wearing headphones in a non-temperature controlled environment (like my home) can easily cause me to start sweating if it got too hot. I'm not for wearing headphones when it's hot and sweating all over them - gross.

 

[Sithaer]

I've learned it the hard way that simply buying the cheapest model is not exactly the wisest idea.
Personally I would rather pay the extra and get at least one of the mid level models than deal with a noisy GPU that can barely stay within its temperature limits w/o having its fans going at full blast.

I do use a headset all of the time 'luckily it doesn't bother me as long as its a comfy one' and yet I still hate noisy hardware. 'I don't live alone so I don't want to annoy anyone in the house with my gaming noise especially when I game at night so I've opted for headsets like ~15+ years ago..'

Tbh I would even prefer it if we had more models tested but I know it doesn't work that way so if I can't find the one on TPU that I'm interested in then I just check the review somewhere else cause I aint buying a GPU completely blindly ever again. 'that was a lesson learned in my younger days when I was new to this..'
O ye and FE is not available where I live unless I pick one up on the second hand market from whatever source/origin.

 

[Deleted member 187435]

Because

1)how would you know they perform identical if you don't test them

They all perform the same as near as makes no difference, put it that way. I think this must be the only site which reviews multiple versions like this. 1 or 2% either way due to slight factory OC variations, who cares. It's insignificant and irrelevant. If there did happen to be one card with a big variation then there would have to be something wrong with it - has this ever happened? Probably not.

What I would say is rather than wasting time reviewing ten versions of each GPU, do one but do it better - include minimum fps like everyone else does. Include those games which are very VRAM demanding so you don't draw wrong conclusions like 16GB cards are no quicker than 8GB ones.

 

[Konomi]

Since they perform the same and people say just get the cheapest. Wouldn't it be better idea to just review the FE cards and not waste time/money to review dozens of AIB cards?

Noise/heat is a non issue these days, just move the PC to the basement or attic, run fans at 100% 24/7. Or wear comfy headphones.

AIB solutions often have their own custom software suite for controlling fans, RGB etc - this absolutely needs testing and mentioning. But no, they don't all perform "the same", simply due to the fact that modern GPUs dynamically adjust clocks based on power and thermals.

 

[_roman_]

Noise/heat is a non issue these days

ofc - that is non issue so I sold without a reason the MSI radeon 6800 Z Trio because of the lack of hardware and software switch to always turn of rgb bar and the loud fans. Partly my fault to buy a card which was not in a test review.

the graphic card is the loudest noise maker except my studio monitors here.

Those tests are an important decission making.