First off I haven't posted here to validate the scores, as I can't, but I'll describe how this came into effect and what happened afterwards. I'll just post it here once, so read it all before you blurt out further questions, as the number of 15-year old testosterone driven ******s has to be at a minimum here hence I have no problem with disclosing more detailed info without someone constantly reading between the lines and weighing every if and when.
In 2004 I was invited by ATI to a private ATI AIB briefing and asked to do a speech about how we journalists would like to work with the AIBs and ATI. The speech I gave was in my usual no holds barred fashion, which was what Chris Hook wanted, and obviously meant I did not sugarcoat anything, but just gave them my views on how we'd like to work with ATI and the AIBs.
After the speech I was directly approached by a number of AIBs that very happy that I'd been so frank and open and I befriended a few of them. After that event I kept in touch with these people and we often talked about all sorts of issues. One of the things that often came up is that they're (sometimes) not happy, frustrated is a better word perhaps, with how ATI handles PR and can understand my frustration when ATI decides to no include me in the sample pool for whatever reason. They also said that getting me a sample early would get them in trouble with ATI, as they have pretty strict guidelines about who talks to the press and who doesn't.
As a fyi, the reason they liked working with me in the first place is that I don't bull***, I tell things how I see them, whether that's in the best interest of the company I'm talking about or not. Many (and I say this with caution) other journos usually don't have such a direct approach, as they fear a decline in advertising, get their articles edited by an editor that dumbs things down, or simply don't dare to speak their mind. You can call me an arrogant p***k for writing this, and maybe I am, that's just how I do things. I'm obviously not 100% right all the time, but I usually do get the discussion started, which is what I'm after, and if I did have it all wrong I?ll be the first to admit it.
So this time around, the upcoming R520 launch, I contacted ATI about three weeks ago and asked whether I was getting a sample prior to the launch and/or was invited to the launch party on Ibiza. ATI PR, came back with 'We?re sorry you did not make the cut', so obviously I asked why, and who did. They made it very clear that press who have a willingness to work with them across every roadmap will get priority. Or rather because I have been criticizing ATI in a few articles and refused to write about other ATI products that I frankly didn?t find interesting enough at that point, they'd rather not work with me. The press that did get invited apparently has written no such articles and basically was very open and willing to publish anything ATI offered.
I then got in touch with one of the AIBs and told them what happened, they were frankly shocked to hear of another ATI PR ?fiasco? as they called it and offered to help me. As I outlined above they could not send me a sample, but were willing to run a set of benchmarks on a pre-production R520 clocked at XT and Pro speeds. They did not want to tell me what board revision or what driver was used, but they did say that the scores I?ve been given are close to what the final product will be capable off. So how did I get these scores? Simple really, as is outlined in the article (the majority of people are lazy these days, they don?t care to read anymore). I gave them the exact specs of the system we?ve previously used to test the GeForce 7800GT, GTX and X850 XT (again outlined in the article), hence the scores for these cards are from a previous article, they did NOT run them. All they did is set the game settings as per my instructions (4x AA, 8x AF for example) copy the timedemos I sent them to the game folder and ran the timedemo scripts for these games, no more, no less.
That, in a nutshell is the story behind all this. And as mentioned in the introduction of the article the scores are provided AS-IS, I have no way to verify them. And before you start talking about integrity and credibility and all that, keep in mind that I served these scores with a disclaimer and am just providing a piece of the puzzle. These scores could be 100% accurate or completely off, but sources close to ATI, other than the AIB that ran the benches told me they?re close. But the AIB also mentioned that final clocks could still change, hence the scores could go either way. And obviously ATI is not going to say ?Good job Sander, thanks for getting the word out?, they will always say they?re false, regardless whether they are or aren?t.
Did I have an axe to grind with ATI? Well to certain extent yes, would I then knowingly publish false information? I sure wouldn?t, this is not a smear campaign. But when ATI wrote back and I quote ?Once again, you can write what you like? I just wanted to point out to them that there?s other ways for me to get samples, or scores and would then simple go ahead and post them ahead of any launch date. So am I a whining kid that didn?t get his ice-cream? Perhaps, the bigger issue is that they apparently cut off press that is not afraid to give them a hard time over products that have issues. If that makes me a whining kid, I?d rather be that than not inform my readers of these issues, even if that gets me s***listed with ATI. To be honest I know many journalists are in the same boat as I am, I have gotten plenty of emails in my inbox, also from prominent websites, not just the smaller ones, these past few days that all have a similar story.
If there?s anymore questions after this huge post I?d be happy to answer them, and I guess someone still has to eat his hat, I?d love to see pictures of that as well.
Regards,
Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com