Let’s break the whole thing down chronologically before someone gets upset again about supposedly suppressed content: I already made it clear last week that there is no right to samples – but there is also no right to publication and free advertising for a product. And I abide by that. Except that in this case I procured the so-called samples myself, out of my own interest and with the honest intention of publishing a complete, independent test in time for the official embargo. A mistake with an announcement, as it turned out today.
Because yes, I had an NDA for June 5 at 15:00 CEST. Correctly confirmed, mentally checked off, project completed. The perfidious detail: The actual launch date was selectively brought forward and only communicated to a small circle of initiated testers who had agreed to the “AMD-led reviews”. Quote verbatim. The rest had to make do with a one-liner politely asking for confirmation of the June 5 cut-off date – no reference to an earlier date, no clarification, no context. Anyone who didn’t get the date on the short wire was out.
You will receive further information and the drivers for the cards directly from AMD.
We would ask you to confirm the embargo period by Thursday, June 5 at 14:00 BST/15:00 CEST by e-mail.
I had kept this afternoon free to record a video for the article. Canceled. Instead, the other player pinged me me at around 3:30 p.m. and kindly asked why I wasn’t online yet. Ironic, if you remember the drama surrounding the RTX 5060, where they were juggling driver versions and release windows like a circus performer on ecstasy. So while NVIDIA is playing the software lottery, AMD is now taking the NDA hide-and-seek game to a whole new level. The learning curve is steep, but unfortunately bent the wrong way in both directions.
So I quickly go into panic mode, check everything again, can’t find any changes, so I publish to be on the safe side, because it could have been a communication error after all. Less than 15 minutes later, I get a call from AMD asking me to take my review offline immediately. Which I did, grudgingly and against my convictions. Five days of work, over 44,000 words, 111,000 characters, 16 pages – for an article that was released for the trash because I wasn’t part of the inner circle. Content for the garbage can. Thanks for nothing.
And I even had MSRP cards in the lab, ready for testing. But that would have been just as pointless. AMD had explicitly made it clear that only “lead tested” cards and reviews would be admitted to the early embargo. Anything else? Quasi illegal – even if you procured the material yourself, as I did. So you learn quickly, just the wrong thing.
And then there’s this MSRP farce. 310 euros net (369 euros gross) sounds good, looks great in a press release, but is completely unrealistic in business terms. I know the partners’ calculations, I know the FOBs. Not only do these prices not cover costs, they certainly also require targeted subsidies. It only becomes realistic from around 345 euros net, i.e. around 410 gross. And even then, the margin is a shadow of its former self. The quantities? Symbolic. The market availability? Selective. The MSRP is a label that fits on the box, not on the invoice. But we already know that from the green corner.
That’s why I haven’t tested the supposed entry-level cards and won’t do so now. I don’t do token reporting based on prices that don’t really exist. And I don’t take part in a publication circus where the invitation is selectively awarded and the outcome is a foregone conclusion anyway. If you want to buy reach through exclusivity, you should at least disclose your own conditions. The rest will be available tomorrow at 3 p.m. in accordance with the NDA, but not one more ticket. For me, this thing is just as over as the RTX 5060 – a question of character.
Between claim, expectation and reality: A debate about sampling, influence and independence
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