Ask GN 75: X370 vs. X470 Tests, Balancing Criticism vs. Samples

Ask GN 75 is an excellent episode. We had great questions for this one, including discussion on X370 vs. X470 benchmarking for Ryzen 2000 series CPUs (e.g. R7 2700X, R5 2600X), which we’ll get in to more detail with in the near future. As noted in the episode, we’re technically not under embargo for the Ryzen 2 CPUs, but we’re planning to hold our review until embargo lift out of respect for AMD’s decision to stop giving special treatment to some media, for this round. That said, we still talk a bit about X370 vs. X470 benchmarking in the Ask GN episode.

The other excellent topic pertained to receiving review samples and balancing hardware criticism – basically behind-the-scenes politics. Find the episode below:

Timestamps:

01:06 - X370 vs. X470 on Ryzen 2 testing?

04:47 - TJCCBR47: “Ask GN: How to balance criticism and not leaving manufactures mad? You lost CoolerMaster samples, HardOCP lost Nvidia samples and Guru3D lost Intel samples, do you think its fair not receiving samples or its some kind of censorship?”

13:45 - RepsUp100: “Why doesn't AMD sell GPUs directly on their site like NVIDIA does?”

15:33 - Terence Gelo: “Hey Steve, is there a cost difference to manufacturers between FreeSync and GSync at a hardware or software integration level? I see FreeSync integrated into a lot more products, and products with GSync seem to be more expensive. I'm wondering why NVidia is trying to widen their market share with consumers, but they're not as successful as AMD when it comes to providing incentives through third party accessories (monitors). Maybe I am missing core concepts, but it almost seems like Gsync is being phased out.”

18:06 – Mandragoras: “What I'd love to hear from you is explain how is it possible that consoles with their weak processors and weak GPUs can achieve such amazing results. According to what I read on the internet, I would expect an FX 8120 to be better than Xbox One S or PS4's processor and their GPUs to have similar performance to a GTX 650 Ti or a GTX 660 Ti accordingly. So despite the console games being watered down and optimized, why is it impossible for equal or slightly better PC components to handle games the same? What consoles lack is advanced graphic settings which basically gives the player the possibility to optimize the game themselves but that can either result in equal framerate with a lot worse detail or equal detail but unplayable framerate. Using these components on a PC today will give unsatisfactory results in the majority of AAA games.”

23:37 - Jonas Petkevičius: “What do you think about Geforce Now (cloud based gaming)? P.S. I fyou want to do test I can give my account”

25:58 – inversion: “@Steve Burke #askgn-questions pardon for the not so serious question but any April Fools plans in mind?”

26:07 - 2ndLastJedi: “Why dont we see VR benchmarks? How does CPU effect VR performance? Is i5 6600k enough for VR or is an 7700k goung to be much better?”

28:03 - x041: “#askgn-questions @Steve Burke First, love the shelf in the background, looks great. Will you be testing/reviewing the der8auer Skylake-X Direct Die Frame?”

28:31 - M Emlay: “What's wrong with the wood backdrop. Shelves? Trying to keep up with Jayz display?”

Host: Steve Burke
Video: Andrew Coleman