Well, I'm pleased you're enjoying yourself, Pitbull!
Personally, I'm finding this exercise tedious.
To clarify what's been going on here: I've gone out and found the info, Pitbull. It didn't take me too long and provided me with a firm position from which to make my points. I read this review, I looked up the cards, I checked the prices, I crunched the numbers. This isn't my job at all, but I put in the effort because I think it's worthwhile.
What you've consistently done is to speculate while offering no tangible information beyond your own opinions and perceptions about what is easy and what is hard, what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. Absolutely anyone can do that, and opinions can vary wildly. I'd just like to know where your opinions come from. For all I know, you have shaken a magic 8 ball and taken your opinions from that. Is that the case? Take some time, go back and review what's been stated on both sides. You're right in thinking that I am getting frustrated. While I am trying to form persuasive arguments based upon a foundation of facts, backed up by a bit of effort and research, you are providing opinions. Disagreeing with your opinions, or anyone's opinions for that matter, is a pointless exercise especially on the internet. What I would like to do rather than address your opinions is to address the facts your opinions are based upon. If you could provide some facts that substantiate your opinions, that would be immensely helpful.
Incidentally, I have a Radeon 6850 card in my PC with an AMD Phenom II CPU. Before this, I had another Radeon card and an Intel CPU. I have no personal bias for nvidia or against AMD. I was pointing out a bias in the recommendations Tom makes due to a flaw in the methodology they use in analyzing a card's value. My statement with regards to AMD being the clear winner comes from reading the review, which states: "At $235, the new GeForce GTX 560 Ti is an impressive card, and from a price/performance perspective, it offers a very similar value proposition to the card it's replacing, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 470. But at this price, it is far too close to the more powerful Radeon HD 6950 1 GB." That quote is only true while you are comparing the reference cards. If you compare a 1gb Radeon 6950 to a 'middle of the pack' GTX 560ti (I'd go with the MSI Frozer II at the moment), the 560 consistently performs comparably or slightly better on benchmarks, (winning slightly more than it loses, given a range of applications / games) and it's cheaper. This helps to illustrate the difference between opinions, misconceptions and bias. Just going by your observation about my statements makes it sound like you never actually read the review we've been discussing. Not sure if that's the case, but, thought I'd let you know.
Here's an analogy for you that may help clear up your confusion: In school we all learned to divide. First we learn to divide whole numbers and leave the remainder separate. Then we learn to divide and account for fractions, to divide and use a decimal and to divide and round. Those are four different methods of dividing, they entail four methodologies, each with inherent difficulties and inaccuracies. If you take the equation 4/2 and apply these different methods you get the same answer: 4/2=2 But if you take the equation 5/2 and apply them you get four different answers which are 5/2=2 (dropped remainder), 5/2=2½ (account for fraction), 5/2=2.5 (account for decimal) and 5/2=3 (rounded up) respectively. What I am contending, to use that analogy, is that in writing his recommendations I believe the author is doing the equivalent of dividing and dropping the remainder because it's easiest, this gives the result 5/2=2. I contend that this method is inaccurate and have provided evidence to illustrate the inaccuracy, the problems this creates and recommend an alternative (see previous posts). To continue the analogy, it's like I'm suggesting they account for fractions or use decimals. You have exhaustively argued that accounting for fractions is too hard, or that dropping fractions is good enough, or that any alternative would be equally inaccurate and finally that if I don't like it I should go away. These are your opinion. They are unsupported. You have not provided any sort of evidence to substantiate your opinions. I disagree with your opinions and you with mine, and that's fine. My point remains though, and it is intended more for the author. I imagine he's quite capable of speaking for himself, and knows better than either of us exactly how much work is involved in the review, and how difficult changes would be.
A few points:
Pitbull: "As for me saying it's "an imperfect method of gauging the market", I was stating that sites can vary and the best selling card might not be the best for the money. "
-- The same fluctuations in price will occur with all cards, including the reference. We can discount price fluctuations as something which occurs with all cards. This leaves only the question of whether the reference or an alternative, such as the best selling card, is a better representation of a GPU's value. I establish why a reference card is a bad choice in certain situations in a previous post. Review it for details.
Pitbull: "The amount of work he'd have to throw into the dozens of extra cards he'd have to take into consideration is not worth the effort."
-- This is your opinion. No basis for this opinion has been offered, ergo it is speculation. The author may agree with you, but then again they might not. You shouldn't speak for him. The link I provided in a previous post shows that Tom's Hardware has the information for 5 OCed versions of that specific exacmple readily available, making it a relatively simple matter to incorporate more accurate information about the 'middle of the road' gtx 560ti card. As luck would have it, one of the cards reviewed in that article IS the most popular model for sale on newegg, going by the number of reviews it has. So, at least in the case of the gtx 560ti, Tom's Hardware has everything they need to make more accurate recommendations that account for OCed cards.
Pitbull: "You use the 560ti as an example, one that proves MY point, actually. You say there's 5 OC'd models of this one alone. That's not including reference or low power, or water cooled, etc. 24 in total I believe you stated. You say I'm ignoring things, but,"
-- Ignoring things or completely missing them. Go back and read my posts again, you'll find that this has been addressed. In establishing my point, I looked at all 24 versions of the 560ti for sale on newegg. Reference models accounted for roughly 13% of sales, going by the number of reviews. If you don't understand why looking at 13% of cards and discounting 87% of them is a poor method for determining the value of a GPU, that is a problem with your grasp of sampling and statistics and resolving that problem is beyond the scope of this discussion.
Pitbull: "how would you compare these cards and which one to include?"
-- Again, go back and review earlier posts. This has been addressed in detail. The gist of it is; There's no perfect or ideal way to account for OCed cards but any attempt to account for them is better than no attempt at all.
Pitbull: "Basically, once again, the simple fact of the matter is that if you don't like how he does these, don't use them."
-- We appear to have a fundamentally different understanding of what the word 'fact' means.
Pitbull: "I really do hope you're not taking this personal, Drax, cuz it's kinda coming across that way. Especially when you say my comments are "unsupported opinion and speculation" when comparing to your comments which are nothing more than ideas."
-- I am not upset, nor taking this personally, though I do find myself regretting having engaged in the discussion to this degree. I should know better than to argue on the internet. Now that I'm in it though, I feel a certain obligation to see it through. Frankly, this discussion is beginning to remind me of trying to teach calculus. No matter how many ways I find to explain and clarify a concept, there will be people who don't get it. Hopefully this time I've expressed my points in such a way that further discussion won't be needed. My statement that your points are unsupported opinion is, as far as I can tell, accurate. It wasn't meant as an insult and you should not take it personally. I'm accustomed to expressing criticisms in clear language. In this case I mean to point out the difference between conclusions supported by evidence and unsubstantiated opinion. This concept is critical in any expository writing and something generally covered in school when we really start learning how to compose essays. I have tried to base all of my points upon evidence of some sort. You have provided none.
I'll note again that it's speculation on my part to say that Tom's doesn't account for variant (overclocked) cards. Maybe they do and it's just not apparent in the review. If that's the case, I can go back to being a passive reader until I have something else to contribute. If it's not the case, I'd really like to have the matter addressed. At the very least, a note should be added to the first page to clarify that the article doesn't take any OCed cards in to account in making its recommendations, and readers should bear this in mind, especially in cases where OCed versions of a GPU are more prevalent than cards at reference speeds. Of course, making an effort to account for OCed cards, at least in general, would be preferred.
Finally, I also really value and appreciate the service Tom's Hardware provides and I've been reading their articles and reviews for years without ever having posted a single comment. I never felt any need to. It's good stuff and useful and has helped me a lot over the years. I like this review too, but I believe could be better. I see problems with it I would prefer were corrected, or at least addressed. Providing constructive criticism is actually a good thing and in general, we'd all be better off if it was better received. In situations like this one, pointing out a perceived flaw is better than choosing to ignore it.
And on the bright side, the website software decided to let me register at last.