Principled Technologies Deny Bias in Recent Intel vs. AMD Testing Controversy

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Principled Technologies has issued a statement about the testing methodology that they employed for the commissioned Intel report. First they address the accusations of bias by stating that they have worked for AMD, Intel, HP, Dell, etc in the past. Then they addressed issues such as not matching CPU coolers during testing, using Game Mode on AMD Ryzen, memory speeds and why they used 4 sticks, XMP usage, resolution, quality settings, motherboards used, etc. Interesting read for those interested in how they arrived at their conclusions.

For almost 16 years, we have tested products for our clients because they trust our integrity. We have worked not just for any one company but for dozens of the leading technology firms, including rivals such as Intel and AMD, Microsoft and Google, Dell and HP, and many others. Those clients trust PT in part because our integrity and our technical knowledge are beyond reproach. We work hard to be the best in both of those areas. We chose our company name to emphasize our commitments to both technology and our principles. Before going further, we thus must categorically deny any dishonesty in our work on this project for Intel or in any of our other projects.
 
This guy says he has been testing hardware longer that you (the interviewer) have been alive, fine, but is that is true, why doesn't he know basic details about CPU coolers, case air flow and thermal throttling and the impact of that on performance ? What has he been testing all this time ?
 
Well, this guy has balls for sure... sad that he didn't know anything. He should have brought his best employee to pass him some answers..
Anyway, pretty sure the fact that he couldn't answer anything is the key to say dumb things or get the cat out the bag.

GN did an amazing job and was patient, I would have gone nuts been told the same thing over and over lol.
 
I would be unapologetic ASF. People need to stop answering to others, apologizing. If anything, I would just say, Intel is faster, period. Even the long haired guy at Gamer's Nexus very grudgingly admitted over and over in an interview the day before that Intel is going to be faster. That they didn't have to test AMD in the weird ways they did.

Give me one of these 9900k's and I promise I could sell a gazillion of them for Intel using readily available PC parts off the shelf.

I personally think it will be possible to get 5.1 or 5.2GHz across all cores with the S-TIM in place and good cooling. I might even add 3 more fans to my Corsair H150i Pro for a push / pull config. Plenty of room in my Corsair Obsidian 500d Premium case which I absolutely love.
 
They should stop using labs that don't do gaming reviews because this guy was clearly missing some information about the testing methodology.

For a gaming facing review Intel should have had a known reviewer just do it
 
I made it till he said he would not be able to answer a bunch of the tech questions. As I posted in the other thread, the outrage over this eludes me. This is literally what the analysts have been doing for decades. Some do it well, others obviously do a bad job of it. Test this and make up look good, get paid. All companies do it. How do you think analyst groups make millions of dollars a year?
 
SixFootDuo said:
I would be unapologetic ASF. People need to stop answering to others, apologizing. If anything, I would just say, Intel is faster, period. Even the long haired guy at Gamer's Nexus very grudgingly admitted over and over in an interview the day before that Intel is going to be faster. That they didn't have to test AMD in the weird ways they did.
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And thats why you arent high up and public facing in a company... So in the face of the scientific method, you would just stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and just go your own way, because you know best? Jesus... Pride, its a funny thing at times... You can tell that dude didnt have a leg to stand on, he was just trying to smooth things over. It still stands they fucked up the testing hardcore. Absolutely the 9900k is gonna be faster...why they gotta lie then? Just so much BS out of the blue team as of late to mislead its users.

I hope folks enjoy the new chips, I love new hardware, but dont expect a huge gap like what youve seen here. Im interested to see the other side as well, not just games. At these prices the 2700X is where my money would be and upgrade the GPU, much better gaming performance gain staying at the same budget.
 
the choices we made they put AMD in a disadvantage and intel in a clear advantage, but they are all innocent choices made to keep a level plain field, i can't really get into technical stuff and tell you how many choices fit this description, my assistant here will look into it, but i can assure you that no matter what you think and as long as i keep repeating that we did what we did to keep a level plain field, then we are golden, even when you see a weird choice completely counter intuitive, keep in mind that we did it to keep a level plain field, that's all i can say, and also your camera makes me nervous.
...seriously all this political correctness is absurd, you don't need to acuse him, just be blant and lay it out to him, look dude the sheer number of weird choices you made that favors iIntel and cripples AMD, is weirdly high, so high in fact that it's hard to believe it's a product of incompetence and feels alot more targeted, care to comment ?
the same crap in politics and other stuff we see in the media, interviewer keep it so civil that the guy spends his time tap dancing around him and avoiding question with a universal answer broad enough to be a best selling fortune cookie.
 
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Oh boy, first the Verge, now Principled Technologies. They were able to crush their credibility in one fail swoop. haha
 
psyclist said:
You can tell that dude didnt have a leg to stand on, he was just trying to smooth things over. It still stands they fucked up the testing hardcore. Absolutely the 9900k is gonna be faster...why they gotta lie then? Just so much BS out of the blue team as of late to mislead its users.
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I totally agree, but I don't know specifically if I'd say PT or Intel lied... They just, well just as you said, stated BS to mislead consumers.
But yea, the Co-Founder, I understood the logic behind him doing the interview, except he's clearly not the man to be doing it either. HOWEVER, clearly they weren't a competent company to be doing these tests, either, or more fairly that their employee(s) weren't. The whole 'logic' behind using the AMD Wraith on the 2700X was so painful... lol

That's also taking their and Intel's word for it on whether they were instructed to do these this way. If it was indeed PT's choice to do it this way, that definitively says that whomever devised those test configurations and conditions was not the person to do it. I don't know what Intel is generally like when it comes to reviews and whether they apply strong arm tactics on how the review and tests need to be conducted, so I can't speak to how likely it'd be for Intel to do that sort of thing.

It's as Kyle said, the numbers that get used in a launch event by a company are generally (I dare say always) going to only be cherry picked results to show their product in the best light. That's nature of the beast. I think where the issue comes from is that there was (in my opinion) a bit more transparency on the test systems than what people are generally used to seeing, and it in turn outlined why exactly the numbers that are used aren't reliable. What I've come to expect from the fine print is "CPU A, B, C were used, with X-amount of RAM, and Y Graphics card", and maybe what heatsink, but I dunno. So I'm surprised that what case used was mentioned.

I mean I applaud that they were so transparent, but it just illustrated the shady practices that go on in these situations. Coming off the heels of the whole nVidia GPP fiasco, I think part of why this is being made a big deal is that people are a bit sick of companies slinging so much bullshit, particularly when the companies are doing it all the while puffing their chests up and boast of their products superiority. In this case, if it's superior, it will damn well be evident to everyone even with a totally level playing field! This is just Intel trying to save face and still appear to have a dominating lead over AMD like during the tail end of Phenom II years and during the whole Bulldozer era.

It's as if winning the race just isn't good enough anymore unless you've also spun your rival into the wall.
 
Chebsy said:
This guy says he has been testing hardware longer that you (the interviewer) have been alive, fine, but is that is true, why doesn't he know basic details about CPU coolers, case air flow and thermal throttling and the impact of that on performance ? What has he been testing all this time ?
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Fleshlights, judging from his work.

I'm 55, been building PC's since I slaved to afford an 8088 DFI clone in about 1988; I've bought an upgraded PC every two years since then, until 2011.

There's not enough improvement since then to warrant an upgrade, but AMD is looking Great again.

My last AMD system was a Barton core 2500M pricessor, 25W at 1.8GHz, andit Easily overclocked to over 3GHz.

I've replaced the caps in that mobo twice; it's still running. It has PCI DataQ cards in it, and doesn't need any more power.

I still have my Socket-7 mobos, they have ISA slots with PCA3 cards in them, lol. (no one outside the nuclear instrumentation crowd even knows what those are anymore.)


Just because you've been doing something for a long time Does Not mean you're good at it, much as you can give someone the best education, but you can't make them smart.

I've worked with some of the dumbest people, every one of them had an advanced degree. :zdunno: A 1" thick piece of aluminum is Not going to hold 10 tons in a dynamic shear application, not matter how much the math tells you so. :)


This guys arguments are feeble at best; Intentions are hard to prove, but it was still a hatchet job, any way you look at it.
 
cageymaru said:
A few hour's ride from me. Now I wonder where Gamer's Nexus is located...
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Drop in with Beer/wine/JackD at the end of the day; I've never been thrown out of an office using that technique. :)

Research their likes first; that's so easy these days, lol.

I miss the days you could call the office Manager and Prank people, now everyone thinks you're Social Engineering their network.


I researched their inner email structure, and sent email to the head of Analog Devices, years ago, bitching about their product availability, but was pleasant enough to get a reply. :)

I met him years later, at a different job, and he remembered my name, lol. (AD made custom chips for us; and then it was LT who made them look bad: http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/6090fe.pdf.)

He said they completely reworked their email in response. :)
 
The other thing that was wrong with this test is that it was run at 1080p. Everyone knows that Ryzen CPU's are weaker than most intel CPU's at this resolution. The guy said all through the interview that he wanted to just represent the average gamer. The "average gamer" who buys the latest flagship Intel CPU is not going to play at 1080p. The test was clearly devised to show AMD CPU's in a bad light. Some will say that doing the test at 1080p removes the GPU bottleneck which is true, but it still isn't what the avarage gamer would use with the setup they were using.
 
psyclist said:
And thats why you arent high up and public facing in a company... So in the face of the scientific method, you would just stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and just go your own way, because you know best? Jesus... Pride, its a funny thing at times... You can tell that dude didnt have a leg to stand on, he was just trying to smooth things over. It still stands they fucked up the testing hardcore. Absolutely the 9900k is gonna be faster...why they gotta lie then? Just so much BS out of the blue team as of late to mislead its users.

I hope folks enjoy the new chips, I love new hardware, but dont expect a huge gap like what youve seen here. Im interested to see the other side as well, not just games. At these prices the 2700X is where my money would be and upgrade the GPU, much better gaming performance gain staying at the same budget.
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The older I get, the less explaining I give. So that's my mindset. I've learned you don't always have to answer someone and give them reasons or validation. The PC community is already well versed enough that a majority of people will be able to accurately read into those numbers. And they have. The boat corrected itself. I think this man, and the company he spoke for would have just been better off not attempting to provide any additional information.

Like Kyle said, companies do this. It's all around us. Companies use radio, television and print to constantly BS us every single minute of every hour, each and every day. It's a non-stop barrage.

Also, web sites like Gamer's Nexus, which I happen to really like and enjoy ( other than his constant snarkiness and obvious contempt ) is doing his best grandstanding for subs just like anyone else. It's all just one big dance that we all do that at the end of the day when you break it down, is all about really nothing. A few FPS here, a few FPS there.

Had there not been a response this would have blown over in a few days. If you know ahead of time people may not agree, then don't give them any momentum whatsoever.
 
While I can agree there were a lot of errors in their tests and methods, I don't agree with everything Steve from GN said either, he was picking on some minute things it started to get silly an he was loosing some credibility to the guy.
 
Is it rational for someone who deals in absolutes. That's what I got from this old guy who thinks this interview has been irrational?
 
Only thing I read a new cpu review for is to see the performance of the new cpu. Couldn't care less about their one time numbers for an amd part that has thousands of reviews, benchmarks, and comparisons already posted on the net. In my opinion, they did what they felt was a valid comparison. I don't agree with everyones testing methods, and am one of the people that don't skip straight to the benchmarks, but take pride in reading their interpretation of how a benchmarking session should be setup, regardless of how long and droning it may come across as (lets face it, most hardware reviewers aren't exactly turning their content into a rick and morty episode.

Not everyone enjoys the engineering behind parts, and just wants to see if they're gonna get the highest fps in given game, or a general xx% increase over their current hardware. Either way, you're only as good a consumer as you want to be. If you think that consumers are being taken advantage of because they don't research their buying decisions? With everything so general, unless there's a wanton deception taking place, it's all fair in marketing terms. That's a lot different than selling a 3.5gb videocard as a 4gb product.
 
Chebsy said:
The other thing that was wrong with this test is that it was run at 1080p. Everyone knows that Ryzen CPU's are weaker than most intel CPU's at this resolution. The guy said all through the interview that he wanted to just represent the average gamer. The "average gamer" who buys the latest flagship Intel CPU is not going to play at 1080p. The test was clearly devised to show AMD CPU's in a bad light. Some will say that doing the test at 1080p removes the GPU bottleneck which is true, but it still isn't what the avarage gamer would use with the setup they were using.
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You should run tests at both 1080p and higher- particularly, 1080p (or other low resolutions) will show the performance delta and show a representation of increasing GPU speed as would happen with a GPU upgrade on the platforms tested.

Higher-resolution tests will show performance for gameplay and when compared to the 1080 and lower results, will show if the performance delta holds.

Running just one set of tests or the other set alone would be incomplete.
 
LOL Poor PT. They will now be the laughing stock of all reviews. I do feel bad for them, but it looks like they don't know what they are doing AND wanted to get paid.

I mean Intel does deserve some blame for this IMO. It makes Intel look bad as well, specially when the reviews hit.
 
oldmanbal said:
In my opinion, they did what they felt was a valid comparison.
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I'm sure they did feel this way- and if I were to take the perspective of someone that knows jack and squat about CPU reviews with respect to gaming, I could see where they are coming from.

But it's excruciatingly clear that either through ignorance or malice, they produced results that are alien to someone that has even a rudimentary grasp of CPU performance in gaming.
 
this video really bothers me, they just nit pick everything to death. "why you put a cooler on the intel one when it doesnt come with one?" i mean of course they are gonna put a cooler on it. if amd didnt send one with theirs they would have put something on it too... i mean come on. it just feels like they are out to get this dude for every little thing cuz they didnt like the results.
 
Nauseous said:
this video really bothers me, they just nit pick everything to death. "why you put a cooler on the intel one when it doesnt come with one?" i mean of course they are gonna put a cooler on it. if amd didnt send one with theirs they would have put something on it too... i mean come on. it just feels like they are out to get this dude for every little thing cuz they didnt like the results.
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Well when you are professional review site, and you are reviewing a new system....Well you need to review with that is Retail from both companies. That is how you would be honest. I mean why wouldn't you do that?
 
Nauseous said:
this video really bothers me, they just nit pick everything to death. "why you put a cooler on the intel one when it doesnt come with one?" i mean of course they are gonna put a cooler on it. if amd didnt send one with theirs they would have put something on it too... i mean come on. it just feels like they are out to get this dude for every little thing cuz they didnt like the results.
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Exactly this. I like Gamer's Nexus and the other review websites out there. But I cannot stand all the grandstanding BS they do. This shit really does not matter. I will sum it all up for you guys. Basically, this. Millions of man hours and billions of dollars are spent on ... a few FPS here ... a few FPS there. It really is that simple. Now, if you're smart enough and you pay enough attention, do your due diligence all of this PC business becomes like a second language. You live and breath it. it guides you and you just automagically know BS when you see and smell it.

I hope for a vast majority of you on these forums you were able to cut thru all the BS and save your time for something else more worth while.
 
ghostwich said:
You're mentioned a bit in the beginning of the video:
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Yeah, well I lead the entire canned benchmarks suck and are lying to you movement for quite a while, alone, for the the entire industry. Tom did not like that either. From the thread about the video...


This all rings some bells.

Optimizing or Cheating Radeon 8500 Drivers - 2001

Benchmarking Wrong - 2003

Benchmarking Future - 2003

[H]ard|OCP 11/13/03 Editorial - 2003

Cheating the Cheaters - 2004

Editorial: How Far We Have Come - 2005

Benchmarking the Benchmarks - 2008
 
They should’ve had The Verge do the testing. Would’ve been more accurate.
 
Phantom-Console.jpg


2560px-Lapboard_Samples_-_White_002.JPG
 
Nauseous said:
this video really bothers me, they just nit pick everything to death. "why you put a cooler on the intel one when it doesnt come with one?" i mean of course they are gonna put a cooler on it. if amd didnt send one with theirs they would have put something on it too... i mean come on. it just feels like they are out to get this dude for every little thing cuz they didnt like the results.
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Then pick something comparable, im not exactly sure what matches up a Hyper 212 perhaps? Not one of the best coolers available against a box cooler ... Or just test both with the same cooler, and let the CPU's do the talking, not the cooling solutions... again they handicapped at too many spots to just plead ignorance I believe, and are now getting called on it. I do love when we can hold these companies accountable and not just let them post this BS and have everyone swallow it.

Im really interested to see the real results, Intel wins of course! but im guessing by a much smaller margin. Competition is great, cheating...not so much. Looking forward to the review Kyle!
 
Nauseous said:
this video really bothers me, they just nit pick everything to death. "why you put a cooler on the intel one when it doesnt come with one?" i mean of course they are gonna put a cooler on it. if amd didnt send one with theirs they would have put something on it too... i mean come on. it just feels like they are out to get this dude for every little thing cuz they didnt like the results.
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How is that nit picking? They're using one of the best freaking air coolers on the market vs a stock cooler. If the "logic" behind them using the Wrath cooler was that it came in the box then that logic should be equally applied across the board. Either that or follow actual testing procedures and use the same cooler across the board. Steve picked on it because it was incredibly stupid and that one thing on its own, even without the myriad of other faults, entirely invalidates every single test.
 
I think Steve tried too hard to put on the kid gloves for this. I like that he did his best to remain professional and unaggressive when the guy said "we've been doing this longer than you've been alive" -- that kind of condescending shit has no place in there when the guy can't answer most technical questions. I understand that both parties were unprepared and it was a completely off script interview, to which I again applaud Steve. The guy had balls to take an interview just like that, but in my opinion they came off way worse and their credibility is shattered.

I've not owned an AMD product since Athlon XP, but Intel and this company really did a number to turn me off from making my next build intel based.
 
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