It's safe to say there are more than PSUs, CPU coolers, and external storage devices worth reviewing. Companies still produce and sell laptops, phones, *graphics adapters (integrated and discrete)* and so forth. Might be good for Ananadtech to nudge Future about getting permission to write those sorts of reviews or it really will be nailing the coffin closed on the "AT suddenly redirects to THG and no one is surprised" outcome lots of us are expecting - just a thought from a couple decades-long reader in light of what the front page looks like two days after yet another power supply review loiters at the top with little acknowledgement it was even posted.
I'm not sure it's due to Future or the lack of staff at AT. Ian was the latest to leave and he's now doing his own YT channel, so it seems he wants to continue to contribute to the tech news readers.
Future would have to invest in AT ad actually hire staff. It's pretty clear given that the writers are publishing on THG as well that this is a secondary interest at best and changes are afoot too. When a company only reviews samples its provided, it become beholden to them. There's something to be said about leveraging the budget a bit to buy things off the shelves when there isn't a much-hyped NDA deadline.
As for Ian - well it's best to leave that hot mess unmentioned.
I think it would be great to see more general tech and science topics reported on as well. Just a few paragraphs on the latest dark energy news, Google's Jpegli, etc.
Also, though I understand it might not be possible at present, YouTube would a good, and necessary, way to diversify. Many go first to videos for news these days.
The writing has been on the wall for a LONG time. Many of us called it when AT used the "california fire burned staff member house" excuse for why they could no longer do GPU reviews. They had "plans" to fix things, and apparently either that staff member never got a new house or AT just gave up.
When you cant review tech because your company relies on home setups to test things, that says a LOT. AT has been a minor tech site for years, and with the loss of actual technical breakdowns, has little reason to exist.
Within 5 years, if AT still exists, it will be just a content mill, "aggregating" reviews from other sites. Hell look at this comment section, straight out of 2001. They have no interest in maintaining the site.
If AT could get free from its rotten publisher, get funding and more staff, things can turn around. AT was doing all right, but Ian seems to have spirited away their high-profile connections.
Fine, let's open the Ian box. I think he was a good writer, but he also left many of us with the impression that he sold out to whomever it was that owned Killer NICs before Intel - Qualcomm IIRC - by selling the benefits of packet prioritization from from the assorted programs on the local machine to improve game performance. He 100% ignored the fact that once said packets leave the PC's local adapter, they are give no priority whatsoever through the dozens of traffic-agnostic routers and potentially thousands of miles of copper and optical fiber said data traverses to and from the game host. That prioritization ends at your ISP's hardware for a home user. He inexplicably foot-stomped those benefits without either a) understanding the most basic networking concepts and b) explaining why he was enamored and abusing the public-facing nature of his position at AT to spread what was at best a non-beneficial product. Given Killer's crappy software stack and Qualcomm's bad driver writing at the time along with garbo hardware, it was potentially a disservice to readers to end up with inferior networking hardware. The fact that he's gone off to chase that content creator gamble dream on YouTube is to *great* benefit of AT. Good riddance and despite the quality writing, no one needed that level of misdirection.
Should AT transition to video? Maybe, but with clear limitations on budget and the need for what are effectively small production studios to make the leap in a competitive manner, it's not positioned to play catch up and Future probably has no appetite for it anyhow. They're just milking the money cow until it's skeletal and moving on like locusts to the next thing. Sucks for the employees and for the readers, but that's reality when profit not passion drives a publisher.
I think you're being a bit too harsh on Ian. The Ethernet in your computer isn't really something users normally have control over. No mass shopping site that I know of even has a toggle for which Ethernet chipset the motherboard supports. It's important, but not really vital.
Worth noting is that he alone, of all tech reviewers, interviewed many of the developers of our chips. Granted, I think he could have asked better questions in some cases, but that's what we got from his skill set.
Additionally, Ian also developed some of the SW used to test CPUs for AT. I actually found his test code base, and it's revamped version, to be interesting benchmarks for how poorly written, vs. well written, code behaved on different CPUs and arch-es.
While Ian did interview many high-profile developers, and contributed a great deal to AT, I think his writing was obscure and too detailed. Anand, in contrast, made computers exciting: one was kept on the edge of one's seat as he took the reader through the innards of the CPU. He had an abstraction and made it accessible to the layman. And who can forget those memorable titles? It's Judgment Day, The Empire Strikes Back, AMD on the Counterattack, and if I remember rightly, the P4's heatsink was "Mount Everest." His words still linger on when I think of CPUs.
If y'all could save the doomsaying for the forums, I would appreciate it. I like to give you guys a great deal of leeway in this "straight out of 2001" comment section, but there's something to be said for not scaring off the readers.
On a side note, my door is always open if you want to talk shop.
Especially Arstechnica, which has reduced comments into an inane popularity contest with its voting + post hiding game. For a site that likes to use Latin, the staff clearly are unaware of the argumentum ad populum fallacy. Either that, or they prefer their comments section to be inane.
While I rarely look at Ars, comment systems today are clumsy, and the liking-disliking mechanism is a disease, probably first popularised by Facebook. From a clumsiness point of view, look at YouTube; I would have expected better design from Google.
Aw shucks, that's my fault. I started it and as longtime readers of AT, we want this site to be successful so I think we often get carried away while we wait in fear of things to come. I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say we hope that, no matter what the future holds, everyone ends up on their feet doing something they can enjoy that leverages their skills.
As for indenting, if the current comment system has enough indent levels to stop acknowledging them, its gotten too deep anyway. I personally couldn't care less if it can't cope with that or requires scrolling.
Blaming the comments for the drop off in traffic isn't going to help you or the site. Readers are not "scared" by criticism, they're leaving because you guys barely put out content these days, and what content does get made isnt to any higher standard than a myriad of other sites. Just compare Anandtech 10 years ago to today. Mentioning the GPU issue always seems to elicit negative reactions from staff, likely because there's a lot of truth to it.
On a side note, saying your door is always open if you want to "talk shop" in the same breath as you slamming the door on conversation because you think it looks bad is REALLY tone deaf.
I'll take you up on that. What exactly is holding AT back from being the most popular tech site on the Internet with the best scientific takes on all the HW that gets reviewed?
PS: I did try to PM you in the forum, but that function appears to not be implemented and I don't have an email for you.
@Ryan , Going to the "about" page, we find a link: http://www.anandtech.com/Author/85 for you. Clicking it we get a list of articles you authored, no info about you is present.
Maybe you could give me a hint as to where to find your author page?
Let's be honest, Ryan just stopped reviewing GPUs. It was not like they weren't getting sent, the reviews just didn't come out. After like a year of delayed reviews, there was a fire which destroyed whatever work was or was not done on those missing reviews. It's understandable why GPUs would no longer be sent by manufacturers or purchased by the publisher. It's not like E. Fylladitakis is in a position to change the present fate or future direction of Anandtech, he's nobly continuing to produce the kind of articles that he always has.
'Despite this conservative approach to fan speed, the thermal control circuitry manages to keep internal temperatures surprisingly low, even at full load. This indicates high energy conversion efficiency paired with a somewhat oversized cooling system, designed to be capable of achieving top performance at minimal noise levels.'
I can certainly vouch for the quality of FSP. My old computer had an AOpen PSU that was, I believe, made by them. It worked for a decade and still does, on the rare occasion I turn it on.
Running this PSU right now in my 4090 gaming rig with a 13900k (power limited to 200 watts) with a lower tier MSI gaming x trio - which never draws more than 450 watts. Waiting for evga to replace my 1200 watt T2
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
32 Comments
Back to Article
PeachNCream - Sunday, April 7, 2024 - link
It's safe to say there are more than PSUs, CPU coolers, and external storage devices worth reviewing. Companies still produce and sell laptops, phones, *graphics adapters (integrated and discrete)* and so forth. Might be good for Ananadtech to nudge Future about getting permission to write those sorts of reviews or it really will be nailing the coffin closed on the "AT suddenly redirects to THG and no one is surprised" outcome lots of us are expecting - just a thought from a couple decades-long reader in light of what the front page looks like two days after yet another power supply review loiters at the top with little acknowledgement it was even posted.ballsystemlord - Monday, April 8, 2024 - link
I'm not sure it's due to Future or the lack of staff at AT. Ian was the latest to leave and he's now doing his own YT channel, so it seems he wants to continue to contribute to the tech news readers.PeachNCream - Monday, April 8, 2024 - link
Future would have to invest in AT ad actually hire staff. It's pretty clear given that the writers are publishing on THG as well that this is a secondary interest at best and changes are afoot too. When a company only reviews samples its provided, it become beholden to them. There's something to be said about leveraging the budget a bit to buy things off the shelves when there isn't a much-hyped NDA deadline.As for Ian - well it's best to leave that hot mess unmentioned.
GeoffreyA - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
I think it would be great to see more general tech and science topics reported on as well. Just a few paragraphs on the latest dark energy news, Google's Jpegli, etc.GeoffreyA - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Also, though I understand it might not be possible at present, YouTube would a good, and necessary, way to diversify. Many go first to videos for news these days.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
The writing has been on the wall for a LONG time. Many of us called it when AT used the "california fire burned staff member house" excuse for why they could no longer do GPU reviews. They had "plans" to fix things, and apparently either that staff member never got a new house or AT just gave up.When you cant review tech because your company relies on home setups to test things, that says a LOT. AT has been a minor tech site for years, and with the loss of actual technical breakdowns, has little reason to exist.
Within 5 years, if AT still exists, it will be just a content mill, "aggregating" reviews from other sites. Hell look at this comment section, straight out of 2001. They have no interest in maintaining the site.
GeoffreyA - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
If AT could get free from its rotten publisher, get funding and more staff, things can turn around. AT was doing all right, but Ian seems to have spirited away their high-profile connections.PeachNCream - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Fine, let's open the Ian box. I think he was a good writer, but he also left many of us with the impression that he sold out to whomever it was that owned Killer NICs before Intel - Qualcomm IIRC - by selling the benefits of packet prioritization from from the assorted programs on the local machine to improve game performance. He 100% ignored the fact that once said packets leave the PC's local adapter, they are give no priority whatsoever through the dozens of traffic-agnostic routers and potentially thousands of miles of copper and optical fiber said data traverses to and from the game host. That prioritization ends at your ISP's hardware for a home user. He inexplicably foot-stomped those benefits without either a) understanding the most basic networking concepts and b) explaining why he was enamored and abusing the public-facing nature of his position at AT to spread what was at best a non-beneficial product. Given Killer's crappy software stack and Qualcomm's bad driver writing at the time along with garbo hardware, it was potentially a disservice to readers to end up with inferior networking hardware. The fact that he's gone off to chase that content creator gamble dream on YouTube is to *great* benefit of AT. Good riddance and despite the quality writing, no one needed that level of misdirection.Should AT transition to video? Maybe, but with clear limitations on budget and the need for what are effectively small production studios to make the leap in a competitive manner, it's not positioned to play catch up and Future probably has no appetite for it anyhow. They're just milking the money cow until it's skeletal and moving on like locusts to the next thing. Sucks for the employees and for the readers, but that's reality when profit not passion drives a publisher.
ballsystemlord - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
I think you're being a bit too harsh on Ian. The Ethernet in your computer isn't really something users normally have control over. No mass shopping site that I know of even has a toggle for which Ethernet chipset the motherboard supports. It's important, but not really vital.Worth noting is that he alone, of all tech reviewers, interviewed many of the developers of our chips. Granted, I think he could have asked better questions in some cases, but that's what we got from his skill set.
Additionally, Ian also developed some of the SW used to test CPUs for AT. I actually found his test code base, and it's revamped version, to be interesting benchmarks for how poorly written, vs. well written, code behaved on different CPUs and arch-es.
GeoffreyA - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
While Ian did interview many high-profile developers, and contributed a great deal to AT, I think his writing was obscure and too detailed. Anand, in contrast, made computers exciting: one was kept on the edge of one's seat as he took the reader through the innards of the CPU. He had an abstraction and made it accessible to the layman. And who can forget those memorable titles? It's Judgment Day, The Empire Strikes Back, AMD on the Counterattack, and if I remember rightly, the P4's heatsink was "Mount Everest." His words still linger on when I think of CPUs.wrkingclass_hero - Tuesday, April 16, 2024 - link
Would his code be of the well written, or poorly written variety?GeoffreyA - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
I agree: it's no easy business producing videos, and is an investment in money and time.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
If y'all could save the doomsaying for the forums, I would appreciate it. I like to give you guys a great deal of leeway in this "straight out of 2001" comment section, but there's something to be said for not scaring off the readers.On a side note, my door is always open if you want to talk shop.
GeoffreyA - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Apologies, Ryan.Except for when the indenting stops at a certain depth, I think the "2001" comment system is excellent. The so-called modern ones are a mess.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
'The so-called modern ones are a mess.'Especially Arstechnica, which has reduced comments into an inane popularity contest with its voting + post hiding game. For a site that likes to use Latin, the staff clearly are unaware of the argumentum ad populum fallacy. Either that, or they prefer their comments section to be inane.
GeoffreyA - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
While I rarely look at Ars, comment systems today are clumsy, and the liking-disliking mechanism is a disease, probably first popularised by Facebook. From a clumsiness point of view, look at YouTube; I would have expected better design from Google.Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 11, 2024 - link
Slashdot had that like/dislike + hiding nonsense a very long time ago. Its comment system suffered accordingly.GeoffreyA - Friday, April 12, 2024 - link
I didn't know that. Well, I suppose most concepts have their inception in one place and popularity in another.PeachNCream - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Aw shucks, that's my fault. I started it and as longtime readers of AT, we want this site to be successful so I think we often get carried away while we wait in fear of things to come. I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say we hope that, no matter what the future holds, everyone ends up on their feet doing something they can enjoy that leverages their skills.As for indenting, if the current comment system has enough indent levels to stop acknowledging them, its gotten too deep anyway. I personally couldn't care less if it can't cope with that or requires scrolling.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Blaming the comments for the drop off in traffic isn't going to help you or the site. Readers are not "scared" by criticism, they're leaving because you guys barely put out content these days, and what content does get made isnt to any higher standard than a myriad of other sites. Just compare Anandtech 10 years ago to today. Mentioning the GPU issue always seems to elicit negative reactions from staff, likely because there's a lot of truth to it.On a side note, saying your door is always open if you want to "talk shop" in the same breath as you slamming the door on conversation because you think it looks bad is REALLY tone deaf.
ballsystemlord - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
I'll take you up on that. What exactly is holding AT back from being the most popular tech site on the Internet with the best scientific takes on all the HW that gets reviewed?PS: I did try to PM you in the forum, but that function appears to not be implemented and I don't have an email for you.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
My email address is listed on my author page.ballsystemlord - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
@Ryan , Going to the "about" page, we find a link: http://www.anandtech.com/Author/85 for you. Clicking it we get a list of articles you authored, no info about you is present.Maybe you could give me a hint as to where to find your author page?
Ryan Smith - Thursday, April 11, 2024 - link
The link on my author page is titled "Email Ryan Smith"ballsystemlord - Friday, April 12, 2024 - link
I found it and sent an email.ballsystemlord - Tuesday, April 16, 2024 - link
Not to be a pest, but maybe you could respond to my email? Or did you not receive it? It's been 5 days.GeoffreyA - Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - link
Agreed. I think we all want to see AT back at the top, where it belongs. Threadbare, lesser sites are doing so well.ballsystemlord - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
The comment section isn't what draws views. The content is. Or so I would think.wrkingclass_hero - Tuesday, April 16, 2024 - link
Let's be honest, Ryan just stopped reviewing GPUs. It was not like they weren't getting sent, the reviews just didn't come out. After like a year of delayed reviews, there was a fire which destroyed whatever work was or was not done on those missing reviews. It's understandable why GPUs would no longer be sent by manufacturers or purchased by the publisher.It's not like E. Fylladitakis is in a position to change the present fate or future direction of Anandtech, he's nobly continuing to produce the kind of articles that he always has.
Oxford Guy - Monday, April 8, 2024 - link
'Despite this conservative approach to fan speed, the thermal control circuitry manages to keep internal temperatures surprisingly low, even at full load. This indicates high energy conversion efficiency paired with a somewhat oversized cooling system, designed to be capable of achieving top performance at minimal noise levels.'In other words, correct PSU design.
GeoffreyA - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Thanks for the well-written review, E. F.I can certainly vouch for the quality of FSP. My old computer had an AOpen PSU that was, I believe, made by them. It worked for a decade and still does, on the rare occasion I turn it on.
Pneumothorax - Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - link
Running this PSU right now in my 4090 gaming rig witha 13900k (power limited to 200 watts) with a lower tier MSI gaming x trio - which never draws more than 450 watts. Waiting for evga to replace my 1200 watt T2