Why no full reviews of the GeForce 8800?

[MagicPants]

Here we are on the eve of the GeForce 8800 launch and there are still no full reviews of the thing. This seems ridiculous to me. Weeks before Intel released Core 2 Duo came out there were full reviews with detailed benchmarks, but for the 8800 we have mostly scattered synthetic scores, and a few non-comparative game benchmarks.

What is Nvidia thinking? It seems to me if they want people to buy the thing they ought to let tech sites review them a good week before they ship.

Generally speaking when a company has a good product they want reviews. I have a lot of doubts about Nvidia’s G80.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

NDA.

ATi and nV rarely allow leaked reviews, except for the ones that offer the least amount of information of he 'overall picture' (oh my all the early leaks are positive).

Graphics companies are very protective, and they don't want the other company to know performance until it's as late as possible (why give them early info on their next target).

the only reason Core2Duo benchies came out ealry was because Intel wanted to stop the migration to AMD, they were getting their A$$es handed to them. AMD will do the same to stop the flow in the other direction. however if they were closer then you'd see far more secrecy IMO.

Think about it, you boast when there's either an advantage or you're finally equal after a disadvantage, when it's close you stay quiet so the other side doesn't know what you're doing.

nV's still concerned (with reason IMO) that AT may do last minute tweaks to their R600 cards (things like change voltages, ram type, etc), clock rates wouldn't matter becuse those could be changed right up to the 11th hour.

Don't expect anything until the cards are actually launched.

Even the early preferential NDA-blessed reviews have stopped becaus that kinda of tactic simply ticks off the other sites, so expect everyone to launch at about the same time, likely minutes after the 0 hour on the NDA.