Just Buy It: Why Nvidia RTX GPUs Are Worth the Money

[sfcampbell]

I've got a better idea: "No!"

TH has published some garbage content in the past... put this piece of shameless marketing and nonsensical hype sets a new low! Not inspiring confidence in your performance reviews when they finally do ship!! (Which, in this author's opinion, should be after you've already bought it...)

 

[alextheblue]

Man Nvidia's PR team had to work overtime to get this article out the door- I MEAN- Must. Buy. RTX. *zombie shuffle*

you won't be able to take advantage of key RTX features like real-time ray tracing and great 4K gaming performance until your next upgrade.

Well you sure as shiz won't be able to take advantage of both of those at the same time no matter what RTXXX you buy!

Did you push for people to buy VR headsets (and their stupid external tracking aids) when they were $1000 too?

 

[sfcampbell]

Avram,
I wouldn't recommend *ANYONE* to buy a GPU, no matter *what* GPU and from whatever vendor, until at least the reviews will be out. Sure, nVidia claims that the new RTX 2080 is 50-125% faster, compared to the 1080Ti.
That's great, but nVidia is a business company would like to push as much as it can it's GPU, while reviewers care about their integrity and real results.
So I suggest: Wait for the results, then decide if you want to purchase or not.

@HETZBH_ to add to your argument, the 2080 marketing gimmick was made against the 1080 -- not the flagship "Ti", and specifically at 4k. NVidia knows the 1080 has 29% less memory bandwidth than the 2080 (whereas the 1080ti has 8% more than the 2080). NVidia also knows 4k performance suffers exponentially from reduced memory bandwidth... so they would NEVER compare 2080 4k performance against the 1080ti, because the results would not reflect well on the 2080!

 

[volanjohn]

This is 100% payed article. 100%

 

[zackbacher]

LOL this is funny, seeing this terrible article than seeing all the response to it.

 

[wordwizardsb]

I really used to value this website for multiple reasons. This article just shows clearly that Tom's is going to the dogs. Editor-in-chief? I really hope, for the sake of the brand, that he remains the most editor-in-brief.
Also, just DO NOT buy it right now. It will make a lot more sense even a few months later.

 

[kuba.tracz]

Avram,go to the ER, you might be having a stroke.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

The last time Avram Piltch colored an article with this much purple prose:

Why Using an Ad Blocker Is Stealing (Op-Ed)

Every time you block an ad, what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth.

Joe Pishgar had to come to the rescue and do damage control:

In Defense of Defense: Why Ad Blockers Are Essential (Op-Ed)

The last few clarifications from Avram have been almost as cringe worthy as the original article.

 

[Hellbound]

I have to ask - Is this a joke?
There is so much wrong with this article, and it contradicts itself a lot.

"That's why, this week, so many users, including our own Derek Forrest, are advising shoppers to hold off on buying one of Nvidia's new RTX graphics cards.
However, what these price-panicked pundits don't understand is that there's value in being an early adopter."

--I find it interesting that Avram just dissed one of his employee.

"And there's a cost to either delaying your purchase or getting an older-generation product so you can save money."

--Are you trying to say there is a cost to waiting/saving money? Most of your readers are consumers. Waiting will save them money.

Ok, this has to be said.. I find odd that this site, a site that gets traffic because they review products so people can decide whether they should buy them or not, is literally telling us to not bother with this site and to just pre-order the product now. Don't wait for reviews, don't come here - JUST BUY NOW!! Are you trying to kill your business?

 

[jfowler451]

just buy it? how about you just quit your job. When your life flashes before your eyes, how long do you want to be being ripped apart for this terrible article.

 

[mlee 2500]

The last time Avram Piltch colored an article with this much purple prose:

Why Using an Ad Blocker Is Stealing (Op-Ed)

Every time you block an ad, what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth.

Joe Pishgar had to come to the rescue and do damage control:

In Defense of Defense: Why Ad Blockers Are Essential (Op-Ed)

The last few clarifications from Avram have been almost as cringe worthy as the original article.

Wow. Just wow. Thanks for sharing...what a tool.

 

[mlee 2500]

Again, thanks for the passionate discussion. Because I think there's been some misunderstanding about what I said (and meant), I made a few clarifications to the article copy.

1. Clarified that this is an op-ed (which is why it was always labeled as "opinion") and not the advice of Tom's Hardware as a whole. This article was intended as the counterpoint to Derrek Forrest's article, giving the opposite advice. It goes without saying that people will make up their own minds.

Your response here reminds me of a certain major T.V. network that defends or excuses their lack of journalistic integrity by claiming that they're an "Entertainment" channel or program, and not real News. Of course that still doesn't excuse their misguided or abhorrent "opinions", does it?

And I'll even concede that Derek Forrest's article DESERVED a counterpoint, as it was pretty firmly rooted in the don't buy yet/wait camp.

But instead of sticking to the obvious rational arguments in your counterpoint ("NVIDIA has a track record of always delivering, so there's little risk" or "Avoid being a victim of supply shortages or price spikes", etc...), you instead decided to INSULT your readers, disregard Tom's Hardware's very raison d'etre (reviews, benchmarks, decisions rooted in metrics and dollar value relative to performance), flat out lie and mislead ("you can't do ray tracing without it" or suggest you can't play 4K without it), and worst of all, basically make your readers question their time spent on the site and the legitimacy of everything else they've read there.

After doing all that you're going to come back and say "Hey, it's just my Opinion"!?!!

I don't know which is worse; that you would try to pull that off, or that it might actually BE the opinion of Tom's Hardware editor-in-chief.

 

[psyyringe]

I'm kind of speechless. Tom's Hardware has been my go-to source for well-founded, well-reasoned tech articles for the past 15 years. When I read this article, it was _so far off_ from the things that I used to appreciate TH for, that I kept wondering how it could ever have passed the scrutinizing eye of the editor. And then I read that the author _is_ the editor-in-chief. I'm not joking when I say that this made me wonder if I should be looking for other sites to get my tech info from.

Seriously - has there been some change of personnel at TH? I have never seen an article this poor on the site before, and I always thought that the editorship of TH was pretty good. I can't imagine that the people whose hard work made me trust this site, would put out something as poor as this.

Mr. Piltch's only argument for immediately buying new expensive technology (that we still know nothing about except what the producer's marketing department _wants_ us to know), is that we spend some time of our life without that new tech. By that reasoning, people should always hop onto every new trend or marketing gimmick instead of waiting for independent tests or analysis. (This reasoning also implies that sites like TH are obsolete, because if _that_ is the way consumers should operate, then no one needs independent testing or analysis any more.)

Mr. Piltch's article ignores a lot of considerations that customers actually care about, and is factually incorrect on many others:

- He tells me that I could spend playing games in glorious RTX right now - how? Even if I _did_ buy one right now, the cards won't get delivered for an entire month. Even if I wait that month, only a couple of games actually support the new technology. Even if I do buy and play those games, there's no telling which performance I'd get.

- He blindly trusts that enough future games will support RTX to warrant paying a premium price for the hardware now. How does he know that? How many big developers have, so far, announced future projects that will use this technology? For all we currently know, this could be just a gimmick that fades out after a year due to lack of support.

- He blindly trusts that the future games that _do_ support RTX, will run well on the 20xx series. That seems surprisingly naive for a chief editor of a tech magazine. If experience tells me anything, it is that totally new features on graphics cards usually need 2-3 generations to get good. If developers start coding new games with RTX now, then by the time they get released, a new generation of graphics cards will already be out. To put it in other words: By the time when there will be enough RTX-supporting games to warrant the premium price of an RTX card, the 20xx series may be already obsolete and not even be able to run these games very well.

There is more in the article that I consider very disturbing, especially coming from an editor-in-chief whose job it should be to _prevent_ such articles from slipping through, but I'll stop now.

This article has, for me personally, damaged the reputation of TH considerably. Can someone recommend a good, competent, well-reasoned, well-edited tech site to rely upon?

 

[kyotokid]

...on one of the earlier pages I saw a comment about early adopters getting the "short end"when a new piece of hardware comes out compared to those who wait.

A case that bears this out was the original Quadro M6000. For 4,000$ less one could purchase the then new "Titan X" which had almost identical specs, including VRAM (12GB), and slightly better performance as well as higher resolution support. Some 3D artists were actually buying, multiple Titans and pocketing 1,000$'s in the process over the cost of a single M6000 Getting cores (up to over 12,000 with four) which increased render as well as display performance in the process.

One person I know who is a 3D content creator installed 3 Titans in her system and posted a video of working in Iray view mode (rather than lit wireframe or shaded) and there almost no refresh lag when rotating the camera (even at a fairly wide arc) or moving items in a scene about. This was a huge advantage as working in the richer Iray screen mode one had little need of performing numerous test renders to check lighting, shadows, reflection and composition. On my system (older generation GTX GPU) Iray screen mode was a slug taking upwards of a couple minutes to refresh a single display after a camera move.

Of course this didn't last long as Nvidia doubled the card's memory to 24 GB and then surprisingly kept the price the same.

 

[psyyringe]

Dear Mr. Piltch,

I appreciate that you are trying to engage the community and explain your reasoning. Unfortunately though, I believe that your replies keep making things worse, and I am surprised that someone in your position does not see this. Please let me explain.

1. Clarified that this is an op-ed

It was never a problem that this was an opinion piece, and not an analysis or a review. I don't have a problem with opinions. Reviews often contain opinions as well, and I often find those informative, no matter whether I agree with them or not. The problem with your article is (in my opinion) not that it is an opinion, but that it is the probably most badly argued, incoherent, self-defeating, anti-consumer opinion that I have ever seen on this site. And I'm saying this as someone who has previously trusted this site for 15 years, and who buys and supports nVidia products since the GeForce 2.

However, for those who pre-order things sight unseen (and there are many), I wouldn't wait based on an expectation of price dropping. For others, if the final results are even half as good as promised,this is worth the premium.

Don't you think that as editor-in-chief of a tech review site, your job is to promote critical thinking and informed decisions? Yes, there are people who buy things sight unseen, based purely on vague marketing promises. And you, as the editor-in-chief of a tech review site, _urge_ them to just go ahead? Instead of urging them to wait until we have independent reviews? I'm sorry, but ... if your position is that "many people" just do spend money without informing themselves first, and should therefore be encouraged to keep doing that, then I'm not sure if I would consider you fit for the position you are having.

* Nvidia RTX Cards appear to deliver a game-changing experience

Or they could be a marketing gimmick, or a cash grab that grows obsolete as soon as the next generation of cards appears, which may be as early as next year. We just don't know yet. If you personally have high hopes for this new technology, that's fine. But encouraging your readers to throw well-warranted skepticism overboard and "just buy" a product whose entire future viability is built on hope and the producer's marketing material, is not.

* If you were planning to buy a new video card this fall, don't get a 10-series. It will be outdated when you buy it. Get an RTX instead.

I find this very questionable given that a) the 1080Ti performs quite well at current games, b) very few games have announced to support RTX, c) RTX cannot become a new standard as long as consoles don't support it as well (and is therefore more likely to be implemented into games as an afterthought), and d) how quickly the next generation of cards may come around. I would rather expect that the _RTX_ cards, as first-generation cards of a new technology that don't really seem to have the processing power to leverage that new tech, will grow obsolete at the same time as the 10-series - when the next generation of cards appears.

* It's good to be an early adopter of new technology and that's part of what you're paying for.
As a tech enthusiast, I will always come out on the side of adopting new platforms and architectures, whether that favors Nvidia, AMD, Intel or whomever.

I'm ... it's hard for me to say that since I don't mean you any ill and don't want to insult you, but ... hm. I mean, I totally understand your love for new technology. I'm always curious and often optimistic for new tech as well. But in this case we have _so many_ crystal-clear warning signs - the lack of meaningful benchmarks, the marketing tricks, the long pre-order window, etc. - all this indicates that nVidia themselves aren't convinced of their product, and just try to ride the hype train for as long as they can. In this situation, if your love for new tech is _so unconditional_ that you see no problem to encourage your readers to ignore all those warning signs and spend a huge amount of money on a product that has never seen any independent testing ... I'm sorry, if that is the case, then I think you should definitely not be editor-in-chief of a tech review site. With that attitude, you could be an enthusiastic contributor with a focus on new tech - but as editor-in-chief, you also have to keep the consumers (your readers) in mind, and you cannot let enthusiasm cloud your judgment.

Finally, I'm also very surprised that you apparently cannot see how trying to "fix", "explain", or defend the article is making things worse. Frankly, I believe that this piece was so poorly written and so badly argued that it is simply unsalvageable. But what's even worse, by keeping it up (despite the huge problems that it still has, even with your partial "fixes"), you are giving all competitors of Tom's Hardware an extremely easy target to present themselves as a _responsible_ tech review site, by pointing out the extremely obvious flaws of an article that is still published on the once-venerable Tom's Hardware. I've seen here in the comments that one such site has already posted a video about it, and you can bet that others will follow.

To repeat: After making the serious mistake of publishing this piece in the first place, and undermining your readers' trust in your site's reliability and integrity, you are now continuing to do even more damage by leaving it up and giving every single competitor the easiest target they could wish for. And once again, it is astonishing that you, as the editor-in-chief, do not see how much damage you are doing to your own site.

I hope for you that you find a good way out of this, but this will probably become even harder the longer it goes on.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

1. Clarified that this is an op-ed (which is why it was always labeled as "opinion") and not the advice of Tom's Hardware as a whole. This article was intended as the counterpoint to Derrek Forrest's article, giving the opposite advice. It goes without saying that people will make up their own minds.

Yes, this in indeed an op-ed piece. A very badly written op-ed piece that comes off throwing out all conventional wisdom, insults your staff and readers, and is making TH the laughingstock of the.community.

2. Clarified (graphs 2 + 3) my view that it is always best to wait for reviews before buying a product. However, for those who pre-order things sight unseen (and there are many), I wouldn't wait based on an expectation of price dropping. For others, if the final results are even half as good as promised,this is worth the premium.

Saying this AFTER the fact and after some time has passed just leads people to believe you're doing damage control and trying to backpedal all at the same time.

Here's the TLDR;

* Nvidia RTX Cards appear to deliver a game-changing experience
* If you were planning to buy a new video card this fall, don't get a 10-series. It will be outdated when you buy it. Get an RTX instead.

Again... you haven't changed your perceived view: buy it without knowing what it can and can't honestly do... unless of course, as EiC you are sitting on the benchmark results that is still under NDA and you can't share even a little about it.... Of course this comes closer to the concept of Insider Trading.... which of course is very illegal.

* It's good to be an early adopter of new technology and that's part of what you're paying for.

You totally blow off the costs of early adopter just for bragging rights. the potential of better performance may or may not really exist... unless you have information not available to the rest of us due to NDA. You also have driver hiccups that will take time to iron out. Meanwhile until those hiccups ARE ironed out, the early adopter is faced with frustration or disabling effected features.

*If you can't afford the upgrade or weren't planning to buy a video card anyway, maybe this isn't for you right now.

That isn't what you said before. You, sir, are backpedaling because you have been called on the carpet by your readers.

As a tech enthusiast, I will always come out on the side of adopting new platforms and architectures, whether that favors Nvidia, AMD, Intel or whomever.

As an enthusiast, adoption is important, yes... adoption before its truly ready is suicide for a technology though. Failure to reasure us that it can still handle the old stuff with ease NVidia has told us NOTHING about regular performance. It decided to focus exclusively on the new tech. No assurances that with regular raster images that the RTX series will perform at its worst, equal to the current generation.

 

[biglouiehotstuff]

Is this a troll article? It has to be. If it isn't Avram Piltch just threw Derek Forrest under the bus for the article he just did https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wait-to-buy-nvidia-geforce-rtx-gpus,37673.html.

 

[J_E_D_70]

BFV supports it. That’s reason enough as your game that doesn’t is irrelevant.

 

[canadianvice]

Also, it's an op-ed.... you know the point of those is to contest an opinion on a controversial issue?

It's not controversial. Don't buy until you see real world data, and always check what's on the horizons before making an immediate buying decision.

Your opinion isn't worth articulating because it's not a worthwhile opinion. This isn't arguing well in contravention of established wisdom, and it's just plain bad advice. This is a single side issue that doesn't need a devil's advocate.


If you want to know how journalism works and how to do it properly, try looking at a site like Ars. They frequently have opposed op-eds, and they're all of a very high quality on an issue where one could legitimately argue either side.

 

[loki1944]

I absolutely disagree, just looking at the 1080Ti, Nvidia is asking almost double the price that the 1080Ti was at launch. It's absolutely disgusting. I really hope AMD can respond to this, because it's clear Nvidia is in full exploitation mode. Maybe next series will launch at $3,000 eh?

 

[the nerd 389]

This is not something I would expect from a well regarded review site. The comments on your colleague seem to be quite unprofessional compared to the other content on the site.

Opinion pieces are fine, but keep direct jabs at your coworkers out of it. These are things I would expect on a forum, but not a well moderated one. I certainly expect better from a professional writer/editor.

Regarding the rest of the content, it is a valid opinion. The points made in the article are valid. So are the points in the article by Derek. I have a firm understanding of both sides, and I agree with Derek's conclusion. Your assertion that those with opposing opinions do not understand your views is fundamentally flawed, as is your assertion that those who would prefer to wait for reviews are "price panicked pundits."

Personally, I haven't given the price a second thought. I probably won't until the reviews are out. The cards will either be worth it or they won't, and it really is as simple as that.

If you publish other material in this vein, it would probably work better as a single pro/con piece covering both viewpoints from neutral ground. What I see here is unbecoming of a Tom's writer, regardless of whether or not the opinion is valid.

 

[ingtar33]

This is not something I would expect from a well regarded review site.

Regarding the rest of the content, it is a valid opinion. The points made in the article are valid..

You mean when he said "there's a cost to either delaying your purchase or getting an older-generation product so you can save money," you know that cost to saving money?


how about this winner, "Unless you plan to upgrade your GPU every year, you're going to be stuck with technology that looks much more outdated in 2019 and 2020 than it does in 2018. Yes, there are only 11 announced games that support ray tracing and only 16 that support DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), but there will be a lot more in the months and years ahead. Do you want to put yourself behind the curve?" -Unless you plan to- implying it's stupid to upgrade annually, then he follows it up with arguing you SHOULD want to upgrade annually, then he states that not upgrading now will make it impossible to take advantage of features which aren't available now, but will be in the future... you know, when you should upgrade again. Explain how this makes any sense? This man is supposed to be the Editor in Chief, and this statement is confused and incomprehensible making me doubt English is his native language. (It might not be, either way, this "argument" is so confused I think it's highly unlikely he's qualified to be a writer much less an editor).

Do you think this is a good argument too? "This week, Nvidia showed a demo of Battlefield V where you can see a muzzle flash from another part of the world reflected in a soldier's eyes and the fire from an explosion reflected off of the glossy finish of a car. That's what you'd see if you were actually there and participating in the fight. And you'd also see the world in high resolution, not just 1080p." First of all the human eye can't see in 4k. I think the best argument I've seen about the human eye is if you were to break it down into cones and rods, the eye can see about 2k or so, but that's not really accurate, because the mind patches up what you're seeing, and of course what you actually see clearly is in a narrow field of vision... Now the human eye is ABLE to experience a 4k display just fine, you just need to keep it far enough away from your face to do so. But this false claim that "real life is high definition" is so stupid I'm not going to waste anymore time with it. I think the hilarious part about his comment is if you watch the video he's talking about the explosion itself is so poor resolution and rendered it's CLIPPING through objects and clearly far worse looking then everything else in the scene. Sure ray tracing (such as it is, and what NVIDIA is offering isn't REALLY ray tracing, though it's a nice tech) is a nice tech, but rendering an explosion in a mirror finished car in a warzone is a WASTE of GPU resources. Why? Because when you're in a multiplayer shooter, the last thing you're going to do is even NOTICE this reflection.

But I digress. This article is clearly incomprehensible and nonsensical. we have the EIC of a review site telling it's readers to stop reading THG and just buy the NVIDIA stuff now before it sells out for xmas, unreviewed, because you need to win internet manhood measuring contests to prove your an early adaptor for a tech that really isn't even in use right now.

Bravo THG. I'll take your advice and no longer read your hardware reviews. If there is one thing this Editorial proves, it's that you certainly are beholden to your sponsors $$ far too much to be expected to be impartial. As this whole article reads like an nvidia press release and damage control after the earlier editorial suggesting not to preorder. I hope at least the nvidia rep let you write your own article.

 

[Reynod]

OK ... after reading all of this and contributing a bit of humour myself I would like to clarify a few things:

1. Avram wrote this as an opinion piece ... based on the NVidia pre-release information ... and yeah ... he is pretty excited about it. There is also another opinion piece on the front page with the opposite view ...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3770297/shouldnt-buy-nvidias-rtx-series-graphics-cards.html?_ga=2.195019181.1082617506.1535097593-445536338.1528029130

2. NVidia don't pay any of us at Purch / Anantech / Toms Guide / Laptop mags / Toms Harware / etc etc ...

3. Avram wrote the piece based on his own opinion ... and he is entitled to have one ... just like the other guy.

4. There is no need to personally abuse each other.

5. None of the mods get paid or get free products ... so don't abuse us either.

6. The mods like anyone else are entitled to their own opinions ... I happen to like AMD Graphics cards ... maybe I like the torture of crappy drivers for my RX480 ... but that's just me. I have a GTX1060 and it installed and runs so smoothly It makes me even angrier ... lol.

 

[Myrmidonas]

OK ... after reading all of this and contributing a bit of humour myself I would like to clarify a few things:

1. Avram wrote this as an opinion piece ... based on the NVidia pre-release information ... and yeah ... he is pretty excited about it. There is also another opinion piece on the front page with the opposite view ...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3770297/shouldnt-buy-nvidias-rtx-series-graphics-cards.html?_ga=2.195019181.1082617506.1535097593-445536338.1528029130

2. NVidia don't pay any of us at Purch / Anantech / Toms Guide / Laptop mags / Toms Harware / etc etc ...

3. Avram wrote the piece based on his own opinion ... and he is entitled to have one ... just like the other guy.

4. There is no need to personally abuse each other.

5. None of the mods get paid or get free products ... so don't abuse us either.

6. The mods like anyone else are entitled to their own opinions ... I happen to like AMD Graphics cards ... maybe I like the torture of crappy drivers for my RX480 ... but that's just me. I have a GTX1060 and it installed and runs so smoothly It makes me even angrier ... lol.

He is entitled to have an opinion all right. So do we. I didn't see nowhere in the original article that what he writes it is his personal opinion and should be taken as such. Usually this statement goes along with the title. But what he did was to update it on 25/8, forced by the tons of negative comments. You call this professionalism? I do not.

Now I have to point that not all of your readers are fools. Do you want to lose those? Fine with me.

Those lacking arguments tent to rant or abuse other peoples opinions, the rest of us understand this as well. But is one thing to express your opinion as an individual like the readers and another thing to express it by writing an article.


Thank you.

 

[psyyringe]

Avram wrote the piece based on his own opinion ... and he is entitled to have one ... just like the other guy.

Yes, he most definitely is. That said - if the editor-in-chief of a tech review site publishes an opinion that is so badly argued, in parts incoherent and self-defeating, and ultimately anti-consumer in nature. then it shouldn't come as a surprise when that article reflects badly on the site. Imho.

NVidia don't pay any of us at Purch / Anantech / Toms Guide / Laptop mags / Toms Harware / etc etc ...

I consider myself a fairly rational person who isn't very susceptible to conspiracy theories. As such, I have dismissed the many "nVidia paid for this" accusations in this thread - until I read Mr. Piltch's reply yesterday. That really got me thinking.

Despite the fact that this article has many flaws, is causing damage to the site's reputation, and should be easy to remove due to just being an op-ed, the site's editor-in-chief (whose job it would be to protect the site from damage caused by poorly written articles) seems determined to keep it up. I can only see two possible reasons for that: Either Mr. Piltch's pride is getting in the way of protecting the site, or he is indeed under _some_ form of pressure and therefore cannot retract the article. (If the article does not reflect Mr. Piltch's actual opinion, but rather one that he felt forced to present, then this would also explain the woefully bad argumention in the article.) Again - I'm not saying that this is the case, but Mr. Pitch's incomprehensible arguments and reactions make this seem increasingly likely to me. I have two questions, if you don't mind:

1. Does nVidia supply Tom's Hardware (or the related sites that you mentioned) with review products at no (or reduced) cost?
2. Is Tom's Hardware (or the related sites that you mentioned) receiving advertising money from nVidia, or has been earlier this year?