WITCH HUNT

Despite the fact that many of us are competitors, you’ll often find us journos working together to get to the bottom of hardware issues, news, and rumors. And it’s important we do, because not only do we learn by riffing off each other, but it also informs our content, and provides you with better-balanced coverage.

Lately, though, we’ve been seeing some journalists call out folks publicly over results they deem “fake” or “paid for,” because it gets a reaction from their audience. Instead of discussing it in private, they’re publicly shaming the journos in question. Don’t get me wrong, calling out fake BS is important, but calling out slight discrepancies in results that you disagree with, just to generate a reaction from your viewers—where do we begin?

Well, how about the variables involved i in benchmarking? From your y test bed to the benchmarks you y choose, the software versions of o those benchmarks, the BIOS configs, c and even the way you measure m the results, the number of o possible setups is ridiculous. Couple C that with the silicon lottery, l and you get the picture.

It’s obvious that you’re going to see different results from different reviewers. So, as a consumer, you need to be looking at multiple publications before you make a solid decision.