HardOCP review of Bloodrage

[BenchZowner]

I'm trying to believe that the comment posted above by W1zzard was a bad joke.

[Mescalamba]

doesn't foxconn have advertising money to get good reviews?

Foxconn actually doesn't care much about reviews, but more for sales.. so they probably have enough money, they just don't want to spend them on buying reviews.. as much as I know, except ASUS and nVidia, noone else is using this way to get better reviews.

[Mescalamba]

I'm trying to believe that the comment posted above by W1zzard was a bad joke.

Probably not. Its not that unusuall that companies buy reviews or reviewers.. Ppl just sometimes don't want to believe that.. I don't think that Foxconn either need or want to buy reviews.. especially not with Bloodrage, it would be same as eVGA buying reviews of "Classified".

[BenchZowner]

Probably not. Its not that unusuall that companies buy reviews or reviewers.. Ppl just sometimes don't want to believe that.. I don't think that Foxconn either need or want to buy reviews.. especially not with Bloodrage, it would be same as eVGA buying reviews of "Classified".

You do realize that if it wasn't a joke that just blows up TechpowerUp's reviews credibility ?

I can't believe what I'm reading here lately.
Yes, sites and as*holes that ask the manufacturer ( or the opposite ) for money to give them a good review exist, everybody "knows" about that, and there are several people/sites under suspicion of doing that.
But coming forward like a dumbf*ck is a long way home run of own goals

p.s. Mescalamba you always seem to be posting stuff like you know exactly what's going on ( especially with Foxconn ), unless what you say is true, please stop it.

p.s. I've been working with Asus, eVGA, Corsair, Foxconn, Abit, Gigabyte and other manufacturers, and not a single one ever tried to manipulate me in any way.
Same applies to other people that I know that run or work for hardware reviews/news/articles web sites & print media.

[Logos]

You do realize that if it wasn't a joke that just blows up TechpowerUp's reviews credibility ?

the post was not a joke. It didn't mean that Foxconn would actually pay some sites to get good reviews, nor did it mean that TPU was getting paid, it was just a useless sarcastic post ...sarcasm and joking are not the same

[Sailindawg]

I'm surprised this thread has gone on as long as it has. I read Hard all the time, but take what they present as THEIR opinion. Anand Tech does a much better job of presenting facts. Hard is ok, but will also present more opinion, but at least the editors tell you so. Hard reviews more mainstream equipment. Niche boards like the BOps, BR, DFI boards and other OC'er boards are usually not reviewed there. I read Hard's review and the reviewers simply did not like the board. It arrived broken and the rest is history. It was a fair and HONEST review. I have never owned a board, except my ABIT NF-7, that got stark raving reviews, or any reviews at all. My last 2 boards have been the BOPs and the DFI Expert. Both 2 very good OC'ing boards that take time to learn them to tweak the heck out of the boards. The Expert was accused of everything from killing cpu's to causing world hunger and global warming. But it was an excellent oc'ing platform for the Athlon 64. In the end, it's all about overclocking performance, ability to run stably 24/7 at higher/highest clocks, ability to run other hardware and good BIOS support that matter most to me.

[saaya]

Yeah I stabbed myself with the emblem too, got to be careful with it.

heh, fyi, asus boards use the very same metal stickers on their heatsinks, and foxconn wasnt the first to use them either... i tried the asus logo on their new am2+ board and it pinched my finger.

but thats not an excuse, i totally agree it sucks and i reported this a few times and thought it was solved (stronger glue)

doesn't foxconn have advertising money to get good reviews?

heheh, yeah thats what several people told me, H doing this on purpose to get attention in future

I'm not sure this was the right thing to say
I've followed the threads where guys like Saaya and others here spent quite a lot of time presenting the projects, trying as much as possible to take the user's comments into account, then presenting the boards with every possible detail...I'm not a Foxconn owner but I understand many XS users enjoy their BlackOps and Bloodrage...so I don't think Foxconn has to pay to get good reviews

I'm sure that if you are for sale, you just need to send Foxconn a mail

I'm trying to believe that the comment posted above by W1zzard was a bad joke.

i know michael for a long time, he definately didnt mean that foxconn buys reviews, tpu sells reviews or anything like that. he was joking that H probably wants to get some support... there have been a few sites in the past that were rumored to give bad reviews on purpose, to show manufacturers how much influence they have, to then get taken care of really well by those same manufacturers.

when a hardware site buys a retail board without ever asking for a review sample or even contacting the manufacturer to report issues and ask for statements and then posts a really negative review, its indeed hard to imagine what exactly their idea and motivation behind this was. The only benefits of bashing a manufacturer or his product is to either get attention from the manufacturer, readers or both.

i think they wanted to get attention from readers and felt they exposed an, in their opinion, flawed product.

Foxconn actually doesn't care much about reviews, but more for sales.. so they probably have enough money, they just don't want to spend them on buying reviews.. as much as I know, except ASUS and nVidia, noone else is using this way to get better reviews.

well... there is a lot of dependance on manufacturers for media...
i have criticized this myself for a long time...
media depends on advertising income, and the major advertisers are... the very same manufacturers whos products they are reviewing. so even if there is no direct relationship between one and the other, there IS a relationship...
anandtech bashed gigabyte a while ago and they felt treated very unfair, as a result they pulled all their anandtech ads and until today refuse to advertize on anandtech afaik... imagine your writing articles for anandtech... dont tell me this wont at least come up in the back of your head the next time you work on a gigabyte review...

most media doesnt realize how important they are to push the industry forward, and that the manufacturers depend more on them, then they depend on the manufacturers...

Probably not. Its not that unusuall that companies buy reviews or reviewers.. Ppl just sometimes don't want to believe that.. I don't think that Foxconn either need or want to buy reviews.. especially not with Bloodrage, it would be same as eVGA buying reviews of "Classified".

well, i couldnt tell actually, but i highly doubt foxconn ever bought reviews... they have always rather struggled with reviews.
just look at companies who tend to have very good reviews even if their products are actually not that good and you can get an idea who MIGHT be manipulating media in one way or another...

AMDs cpu department for example is putting media under quite some pressure in europe from what i hear, nothing about buying reviews, but they impose quite strict rules of how a review has to be done, what other products the review can and can not compare the part to, when it can be published and when not... and if the reviewers dont meet the requirements, they wont get samples the next launch. unfortunately all media i know of follows those guidelines....

[BenchZowner]

Saaya just posted some of the reasons why I would never ever put any kind of ads on my site, and also disagree on how my review will be done and what I'm going to use for a comparison for the review.
Instructions from the product manufacturer about MY review ? Yeah right, stuff it ( anywhere you like it ).
One way or another I'll get the product, whether you like it or not

[saaya]

well unfortunately there arent that many independant sites like yours bill...
a propper review site should use retail hardware to begin with, but again thats something most media cant afford, and the media that can, refuses it for some reason...

[crash5s]

heh, fyi, asus boards use the very same metal stickers on their heatsinks, and foxconn wasnt the first to use them either... i tried the asus logo on their new am2+ board and it pinched my finger.

but thats not an excuse, i totally agree it sucks and i reported this a few times and thought it was solved (stronger glue)

The ROG metal sticker on my Striker Extreme was pasted on. After some use I went to all water blocks. When I tried to remove it there was some clear gunk that moved and stretched like mozerella cheese.

[Praz]

As I have written many times, truthful and accurate reviews at most sites (excluding sites such as Bill's) are balanced against advertisers and page hits. If an advertiser's product is dragged though the mud that money will go away fast. Even a less then favorable review usually paints a better picture then it really is. If there is no advertiser to worry about then a review that is bound to create controversy will guarantee page hits. Regardless what is said in the end advertiser supported sites #1 priority is to maximize profits.

[Mescalamba]

You do realize that if it wasn't a joke that just blows up TechpowerUp's reviews credibility ?

I can't believe what I'm reading here lately.
Yes, sites and as*holes that ask the manufacturer ( or the opposite ) for money to give them a good review exist, everybody "knows" about that, and there are several people/sites under suspicion of doing that.
But coming forward like a dumbf*ck is a long way home run of own goals

p.s. Mescalamba you always seem to be posting stuff like you know exactly what's going on ( especially with Foxconn ), unless what you say is true, please stop it.

p.s. I've been working with Asus, eVGA, Corsair, Foxconn, Abit, Gigabyte and other manufacturers, and not a single one ever tried to manipulate me in any way.
Same applies to other people that I know that run or work for hardware reviews/news/articles web sites & print media.

Well, Im writing from my personal experience. For example nVidia (here in my country) gived very strictly orders how reviews of GTX 275 will be done and how not. Plus some review webs here were just "banned" from nVidia, so they didn't get any GTX 275. Plus those who could review them got very "interesting" samples of graphic cards (around +10-20% better than normal ones).

And when one of our more independent webs (less than yours, they got some sponsors tough..) simply bought GTX 275 from regular shop.. voilá.. no its not more powerful than HD 4890, its around same or less (it was compared without using DX10.1 which also makes ATi little bit better.. even if only in terms of AA and Aniso).

But those who got graphic cards from nVidia and followed their instructions say exact opposite (eg. GTX 275 around 10-20% better than HD 4890), interestin.. isnt it?

Not first time here.

I don't see why it should affect credibility of TechpowerUp's reviews.. it simply affects credibility of all big reviews sites. Noone can know unless he know someone of them personaly.

And about you and your web, well I don't know how much unique hits you have for month/week.. but if you would have well known and important web, you would know how much pressure can manufacturers create (ASUS is very good in that.. even in our tiny un-important country).

Tough ofc it can be only our tiny country, thats totally corrupted in every aspect.

About my Foxconn info.. well, have you seen any adds from Foxconn on any big site? I haven't (maybe I don't know right sites.. could be). Otherwise.. if I was sending some misinformations or something like that, Im pretty sure that Saaya would say something or stop me.

Btw. if you ask in my country (pop 10 milion ppl, yea small..) about Foxconn or Bloodrage.. all will just stare at you and say "What?" and "I don't know, never saw that." etc. And yes, we are in EU and we are in middle of Europe.. and its not only us.. except XS and review sites and similar webs/forums.. noone even know that Foxconn does this type of mobos.. or even does mobos at all. So thats to my conclusion about Foxconn not caring much about adds, marketing, reviews etc. and caring only about sales (cause I can't imagine much about what they care?).

DFi is kinda same here, but I guess its kinda similar except Taiwan and such.. at least its probably more known than Foxconn (I think).

But, if you ask ppl about ASUS, Gigabyte, OCZ etc.. everyone even total BFUs know what are you talking about. You see ads everywhere..

So my conclusion about Foxconn was just logical, nothin more..

[Mescalamba]

well, i couldnt tell actually, but i highly doubt foxconn ever bought reviews... they have always rather struggled with reviews.
just look at companies who tend to have very good reviews even if their products are actually not that good and you can get an idea who MIGHT be manipulating media in one way or another...

AMDs cpu department for example is putting media under quite some pressure in europe from what i hear, nothing about buying reviews, but they impose quite strict rules of how a review has to be done, what other products the review can and can not compare the part to, when it can be published and when not... and if the reviewers dont meet the requirements, they wont get samples the next launch. unfortunately all media i know of follows those guidelines....

Exactly my opinon.. yea and that second is little bit true here too.. Tough we have only one web sponsored by AMD and that one is quite small, so they don't put much effort in making reviews sound better than they actually are (but yes, sometimes I saw some little bit suspicious things compared to other reviews here).

One of our big webs is I think banned from AMD, so they simply get their HW from HW shops that sponsor them. I think its better way than get HW directly from manufacturer, cause HW shop simply want to sell everything.

Probably reason why AMD CPUs there don't get much good points..

[XmikeX]

I, for one, am glad that some reasonably-ancient sites like Anandtech are still (more or less) as interesting as ever.

Tom's Hardware - zzzZzZzZzzz soon after tom left/split/sold-out/forced-out/whatever-happened.

and HardOCP .. ? .. this got stale by 2002, i think

Sharkyextreme .. ? zzzZzZzZZzzz since forever

overclockers.com ? i miss the eternal 1999AD-HTML look it had

XmX

ps. whatever happened to jc's news/reviews ?

[Utnorris]

I, for one, am glad that some reasonably-ancient sites like Anandtech are still (more or less) as interesting as ever.

Tom's Hardware - zzzZzZzZzzz soon after tom left/split/sold-out/forced-out/whatever-happened.

and HardOCP .. ? .. this got stale by 2002, i think

Sharkyextreme .. ? zzzZzZzZZzzz since forever

overclockers.com ? i miss the eternal 1999AD-HTML look it had

XmX

ps. whatever happened to jc's news/reviews ?

I remember when Sharky was the place to go for reviews. I wonder what happened to them.

[Arkangyl]

Didn't Sharky get involved with CPU magazine? I do Anand, Bit-Tech, Xbitlabs, and ExtremeTech these days, and the forums, gotta love the forums

I read through the HardOCP Bloodrage Review, whilst it was definitely NOT from an enthusiasts point of view (due to lack of troubleshooting on their part), it might be a slightly accurate assessment for the masses.

I'm a big fan of my Bloodrage, however it has definitely taken a bit of work to get it up to speed (and I desperately need to do a BIOS update, damned work has been getting in the way of my fun!). I recall dealing with the DDR3-1600 issue (that it didn't want to work), but it's something you google, find the answer to, fix, and move on from. At least that's how it works for us. HardOCP / Kyle certainly aren't doing things the same way as Anandtech / Ananad and his SSD saga (the constant communication with OCZ about the Vertex that seems to have lead to a better product). That said, there are many users out there who will go, buy a motherboard and never troubleshoot the system or update the BIOS (shocking, I know) and for them the HardOCP review is somewhat of a fair assessment.

That said, ing about a problem never solved one.

[Bo_Fox]

I just do not appreciate how Kyle said that contacting Foxconn's support department was a futile experience, which is a "half-truth" as he never came here to the OFFICIAL support forums to ask you, Saaya, for solving issues with 1600MHz DDR3 and SAS. There isnt a single owner of the board that would not have googled for it and found out about the official support (and the board is geared towards enthusiasts who should already know better). Even Foxconn has BIOS downloads available directly on their website, while Dan over at HardOCP admitted that they were using a bios revision that was over 60 days old before they finally posted their review online. I therefore give their review a failing score of 60.

[W1zzard]

I'm trying to believe that the comment posted above by W1zzard was a bad joke.

i didnt mean to imply that you can buy good reviews on tpu.

it is however a reality that some sites do accept advertising money in return for favours of all kind.

[RattleSnake]

March 8th, 2009:
Jd gets his BloodRage, along with 1600MHz Corsair Dominator. Assembles the system, updates the BIOS, tries to get the memory to be clocked at 1600MHz up from the stock 1066MHz, but fails! He consults the motherboard box, finds the link to the XS forums. He Visits forums, finds out about Saaya, writes him a PM and calls it quit for the day.

March 9th, 2009:
Jd turns on the system. Logs onto googletalk, and discovers an email from XS forums. Saaya has replied! Boy that was quick, he wonders. He follows Saaya's instructions regarding BIOS settings. Reboots. And guess what! It works without any hiccups with RAM now @ 1650MHz 7-8-7-16: 1T (stock 8-8-8-24: 2T). Wow that was easy!!! He spends sometime tweaking and has his system stable @ 174MHz BCLK WITHOUT any additional vCORE.

Conclusion:
Jd loves his BloodRage! Thanks Saaya!

Today:
Jd wonders why couldn't the folks over @ [H] do the same?

[DizzyMan]

The guys at HardOCP only prove 1 thing. That is that they are either not as much of an expert as they say they are, or they just don't like Foxconn.

I read the discussion and it seems the reviewers feel like they are some kind of white knights. The only ones who dare say CUDA is crap (hmmm, i seem to remember some other reviews... Anandtech springs to mind...) and the only ones who really say how it is...

They even suggest Foxconn has payed other reviewers... Man, that will have been expensive. There are soooooo many reviews and not all of them are superpositive, but slandering a board should be done in the discussion about the review, not in the review.

They are now defending their statements so hard... but just refuse to retry the board. Shows how professional they are. But hey, why do we care people... There are noobs who do not like the Blood Rage, some for good reasons and some because they were having a bad day and couldn't get anything done...

Good job HardOCP, you showed that your reviews are based on your emotions and not on a professional assesment of the product. And you showed you are very hardheaded... (oooooh wait, both are not good things... :P)

[Mescalamba]

March 8th, 2009:
Jd gets his BloodRage, along with 1600MHz Corsair Dominator. Assembles the system, updates the BIOS, tries to get the memory to be clocked at 1600MHz up from the stock 1066MHz, but fails! He consults the motherboard box, finds the link to the XS forums. He Visits forums, finds out about Saaya, writes him a PM and calls it quit for the day.

March 9th, 2009:
Jd turns on the system. Logs onto googletalk, and discovers an email from XS forums. Saaya has replied! Boy that was quick, he wonders. He follows Saaya's instructions regarding BIOS settings. Reboots. And guess what! It works without any hiccups with RAM now @ 1650MHz 7-8-7-16: 1T (stock 8-8-8-24: 2T). Wow that was easy!!! He spends sometime tweaking and has his system stable @ 174MHz BCLK WITHOUT any additional vCORE.

Conclusion:
Jd loves his BloodRage! Thanks Saaya!

Today:
Jd wonders why couldn't the folks over @ [H] do the same?

My toughts, exactly.

Btw. I run 175 BCLK i7 920 without adding vCore too. Seems like highest 24/7 without adding voltage freq. Kinda nice.. when you think that its higher freq than highest stock i7. And one need so little effort to do it..

[Blacklash]

They seem to like the Flamingblade:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/news.h...VzaWFzdCwsLDE=

For 210usd, it looks like a darn solid mobo.

[saaya]

tweaktown reviewed FB and couldnt get over 150bclock...
they didnt blame the board, but still made it sound like its a bad clocker... then again, you dont expect good ocs from tweaktown...
still not very nice, again i dont get why they didnt contact me or foxconn...
cameron from tweaktown lives in taipei, i couldve even come over and helped him set it all up in person if hed have asked...
its not like im too busy nowadays

EDIT: god i hate viddler, its always slow and buggy for me...
haha, he got better ocing results on it than on BR? mmhhh im starting to think his problems might be psu related...
bloodrage and classified and other beefy boards pull LOTs of amps during system start, and there are many psus, even beefy ones, that cant handle it all that well... FB pulls a lot less amps, obviously, with only a conventional 6 phase pwm...

fyi, in our lab we maxed out FB at 21x200 while BR did 21x220, and with ln2 our best 965 that did 5.2 on BR only did 4.8 on FB
so if you wanna run ln2, def get the BR, and if you are on a tight budget, get the BR gti... i dont think theres any x58 board at that price coming even close to the raw pwm power BR gti offers, plus all the ocing options...

FB is for air and water, though d0 chips might be slightly limited on water and air.
the price shouldnt be 210 us$ btw, it should be 180$!

[Bo_Fox]

tweaktown reviewed FB and couldnt get over 150bclock...
they didnt blame the board, but still made it sound like its a bad clocker... then again, you dont expect good ocs from tweaktown...
still not very nice, again i dont get why they didnt contact me or foxconn...
cameron from tweaktown lives in taipei, i couldve even come over and helped him set it all up in person if hed have asked...
its not like im too busy nowadays

EDIT: god i hate viddler, its always slow and buggy for me...
haha, he got better ocing results on it than on BR? mmhhh im starting to think his problems might be psu related...
bloodrage and classified and other beefy boards pull LOTs of amps during system start, and there are many psus, even beefy ones, that cant handle it all that well... FB pulls a lot less amps, obviously, with only a conventional 6 phase pwm...

fyi, in our lab we maxed out FB at 21x200 while BR did 21x220, and with ln2 our best 965 that did 5.2 on BR only did 4.8 on FB
so if you wanna run ln2, def get the BR, and if you are on a tight budget, get the BR gti... i dont think theres any x58 board at that price coming even close to the raw pwm power BR gti offers, plus all the ocing options...

FB is for air and water, though d0 chips might be slightly limited on water and air.
the price shouldnt be 210 us$ btw, it should be 180$!

Thanks Saaya, interesting!

[Mescalamba]

150 FSB? Lol.. Maybe exceptionaly crappy CPU? Mine done 175 without any tweaks.. little bit harder to get 220, but I did.. and Im pretty sure its not max, but cooling is limiting me.

Btw. I have only Seasonic 500W S12 .. which is kinda old.. only 17A or 16A on 12V rail.. how it come, that mine PSU can and they couldn't or.. are Seasonics really that good?