On a brighter note, Chips and Cheese are continuing the effort of quality technical journalism.
Tangent: Interesting coincidence that this is ten years to the day of Ryan Smith's tenure.
Goodbye, and thank you for the content that has accompanied me for more than a decade.
I thought Tom’s Hardware was very consumer oriented, and didn’t go into nearly as much detail the way AnandTech did.
This makes me wonder if there's a way to preserve websites indefinitely in ebook form. A small device that contains the entire history of a website, and is self-contained in the ebook. The device would obviously require power and the hardware could degrade, but this could be mitigated by making the hardware replaceable, or rather the content swappable across devices.
It seems like a middle ground between durability/portability (printed book) and usability/access (website).
In the end, I would assume it just boiled down to lack of money. There were people among us who would gladly pay for this kind of coverage, but Anandtech said at some point they had considered it and couldn't find a good model. (As an aside, I pay for LWN, and I would pay for something that covered similar areas to Phoronix but actually was good.)
I keep thinking that these specialized forums that lost space to Reddit could be revived if were integrated with ActivityPub.
A postscript deep dive article for AnandTech could look at the audience and business metrics of an ad-funded tech review site in 2024, in the context of competition from substack, Discord/Patreon, YouTube, neo-cable-tv, and other channels.
Does Algolia have enough data for a graph of AnandTech article discussions on HN, e.g. submissions and comments?
Sounds like it difficult to make enough to survive unless you're doing these things.
Which I suspect ties back to things like Google (and others) neglecting the quality of organic search, pushing it down the page, etc. Or competing with quality content by exposing it in snippets and AI summaries with only subtle ways to get to the actual article.
I suppose, if that's the case, those practices eventually eat their own tail. No new Anandtech content to ignore or copy now, for example.
Very true. But, in-depth reporting doesn't have to be not-sexy either. Considering the marked drop in audience attention spans in today's world along with the emergence of AI-driven knowledge sources, journalists will benefit a lot from just improving their presentation from long-form writing to something analogous to presentation slides with understandable visualizations.
This is often not how these things go, and Future PLC deserves credit for good citizenship.
It's sad to see the state of 'tech journalism' in the Youtube age when it comes to hardware products. I feel like I'm watching a 20-minute lifestyle commercial rather than an actual nuts-and-bolts review. I guess that's what gets views and affiliate link revenue now.
I'd like to bring AnandTech content to the public domain. Put it on the world wide scroll.
Let me know if I can help breck7@gmail.com
I hope they open source their benchmarking procedures. It’s valuable to see the results of comparable testing across multiple generations of hardware.
The difference, I think, is that media is shifting to video as the default, for better or worse. Looking at their YouTube channel, AnandTech only has about 20,000 subscribers, which looks like they never quite figured out how to transfer their content into video format.
Quite sad, we lost two of the greatest tech journalism of yesteryears, Game Informer and now Anandtech. Maximum PC barely hung on and later were boughtout by PCgamer.
I doubt anything will replace the in-depth tech journalism of Anandtech without visible paid biases and manipulation by big tech. I think Video centric media tech houses will rule the roost like Linus Media, GamerNexus and HuB.
Hoping Igors lab, chips&cheese and der8auer to carry the baton forward. I will kiss an old LGA 775 processor in their honor, rest in circuits.
But once Anand left, the site started dying. They posted 1 review a month, and didn't even cover the iphone or galaxy or pixel launches. How on earth was that meant to survive?
* Rise of social media
* Popularity of short-form video
* Significant deceleration in single-core performance gains
* Focus on fashion (e.g. colored LEDs) over performance in computers
* Popularity of smartphones/consoles
That was my first experience with Linux. That broken-ass computer was what I used when I learned Arduino. I'm now a firmware engineer, writing this comment on my work laptop, which is running Ubuntu.
What are people reading these days for hardware reviews?
I find that Notebookcheck and GSMArena are decent for laptop and phone reviews respectively.
This is very darkly ominous and of course it does not apply just to tech journalism.
Written communication, by real people, is not an optional luxury, its the best means to exchange dense, valuable, high quality information.
It feels as if the current digital "economy" is hell-bent to turn society into an illiterate, short-video watching, ad-clicking mob.
Not sure there has ever been technological innovation that was so regressive in its impact, profiting by actively degrading the human condition. Alas, here we are and we can't blame the Martians.
I was around when the ghz wars were happening. I remember reading SharkyExtreme, hothardware, 2CPU.com, hardocp, anandtech and others for their reviews.
Sad. Very sad. I almost wish they had not decided to close up shop. Instead spin out and go sub only.
THANK YOU!
Hard to imagine that type of content being lucrative from a display-ad point of view if they used traditional ad networks, but the effort was absolutely appreciated and respected by readers.
A sad day but considering how the online ad market has tried to force publishers to focus on video content an understandable one for printed-word journalists. It's awful.
The era of unbiased, objective and deeply technical journalism is dying out. Sad.
Reading articles and discussions there was my first experience getting into tech and helped my build my first computer.
I hope the editor and writers of Anandtech know the impact they had!
Anandtech was always reliable. It was Tom's Hardware when Tom's Hardware sold out (some 20 years ago). Many here may not even know that Tom's Hardware was originally a well-respected source of information. But I guess Tom's Hardware was a glimpse into the future, low-quality content litttered with affiliate-spam.
But there is a market for high-quality content still. I can't help but think that the article sites simply failed to adapt. Look at Linus's Tech Tips [1]. Yes, video production is expensive but the advertising revenue is also higher.
None of these sites seemed to have adapted to the world of short form video content (Tiktok, Youtube Shorts, IG Reels) in a way that feels fresh, organic and useful.
Reddit seems to be the last bastion of getting authentic information and even that is steadily getting astroturfed.
We need a case to be made for enthusiast-owned media. Anything left to the corporates will eventually degrade and die.
This is something I will work on, once I reach the stage of my life that involves capital. Things need to be better for the niche reporting world.
I'm glad the forums continue and hope they thrive. Those forums are where I started my tech support journey 20+ years ago. It'll be interesting to see if Toms can fill in some of the more in-depth, technical and objective reporting.
Y'all will be missed.
[1] https://www.prefetchers.info/ [2] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...
CPU Microarchitecture analysis was the best, after Ars Technica cofounder Jon Stokes retired from his site: Anand and Brian Klug and Ian Cutress; I'm certain I've overlooked a few stellar tech analysts.
Especially during the era when Intel was trying to wedge x86 into mobile and even wearable devices.
Of late, the site has been posting the occasional deep-dive hardware review (notably, PC power supplies by E. Fylladitakis) and industry breaking news (Ganesh, Anton Shilov), but it's all moved to Tom's Hardware.
Chips and Cheese https://chipsandcheese.com/
Serve the Home https://www.servethehome.com/
Tom's Hardware https://www.tomshardware.com/
Anandtech Tech Report HardOCP Ars Technica (Eric Berger is the lone holdout here) Slashdot
the list goes on. I'm glad at least that Anand went out as he went in. Thanks for all the years, Anand!
I am happy at least that there are others trying to carry the torch. Gamer's Nexus, Chips and Cheese, and a few small blogs here and there are still trying to dig into the nitty gritty of computer hardware in a way that's not only approachable, but accurate, without all the marketing BS. It's unfortunate though that it's so hard to make something like this survive.
I can't think of many other sites that have been around this long. https://www.bluesnews.com/ for gaming news comes to mind. It's been going since 96.
So the status of that content needs to be discussed and how that can be preserved!
Good jab!
> AnandTech’s final boss
Quips like that, are one reason.
It's actually crazy how fast new media became old media.
feels like the old internet is nearly gone
For me, the beginning of the end was when Anand and Brian Klug both moved to Apple. While I bet that they're doing great things there, I've been significantly less fascinated by new hardware, and in particular Apple hardware, ever since.
Shiny exteriors and magical features might appeal to many, but to me, somebody explaining in all detail what makes it work doesn't take anything away from the magic – quite the opposite.
Thanks, and farewell!
Progress has essentially halted since 15+ years. Back then a new computer really coud do something the old one didn't even dreamt of. Now what can the new generation of CPU do? Watch YouTube shorts even shorter? :) Or the new Android or Apple phone? Send more pictures on WhatsApp? Literally don't see any difference between my current phone / computer compared to what I had 10 years ago. (I don't play games, maybe there it's visible somewhat).
Anyhow, it was nice while it lasted but all good things must come to an end ... Bye Anandtech, you will be remembered.
It might be impossible to have independent journalism with the internet as it currently is.
I don’t know what the alternative is, but I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if search engines had been prevented from displaying search results from news organizations that happened within the last month. This might have trained internet folks to go to the news websites for news and kept the economics propped up a bit better than the disaster it currently is.
AnandTech - one of THE sites that literally done hardware upbringing for me ... will be no more.
Thank you for all the in depth reviews and explanation how hardware work - I use this knowledge to this day ...
Farewell.
That’s the core of it. And too bad they’re off. Finding a news outlet that isn’t “tweeting” an article and isn’t a blog post on HN was great. And while they mention Tom’s hardware. It always felt (to me) less verbose where I needed it.
Fair well.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1094
Uni had fiber to the dorm room, so I was interested in maximizing available bandwidth through the rest of the system. Which in P4 / PCI days wasn't trivial!
Ironically enough, I still have that motherboard downstairs in a backup system, humming away... with a Pentium M via adapter. :)
Couldn't bring myself to put it out to pasture, and thought it was an interesting inflection point as "the last of the Netburst" era.
Interestingly enough, one of my favorite uni classes was on microprocessor design, taught by someone who apparently taught Anand at NC (Tom Conte).
RIP. But better to call it quits when they're playing the send-off music.
Even though it’s not best financially.
It first stated as the journey of AMD CPU. Who wouldn't want the best bang for the bucks. And then Pentium II / III, SSE. Pentium 4, Itanium, AMD64. Pentium M, Core, and then the rise of SSD. In between that we also have many Video Card reviews, S3, Matrox, Voodoo, Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR, explanation of Playstation CELL processor. Creative Sound Blaster. I think by mid 2000 all those news were quite boring. Largely because most of the consumer decisions are settled. Until iPhone came around Anandtech was the first and perhaps still the only tech site that goes behind the scene and start looking not only the Apple technology but a educational guess behind the rationale why some of those product decisions were introduced. And only after a few years Anand himself got hired from Apple.
I also remember my first death threat on Anandtech Forums from Intel Fan Boys. That was before most tech people knew much about TSMC. There was a time when people think Intel is an undisputed king in technology and wont believe TSMC would take over.
Lot of memories. It is very unfortunate Anandtech is closing down. I just wish I am a multi billionaire and could buy it and keep it running even as a hobby. Somewhat fortunate is that we have Chips and Cheese, a relatively new site which fills a lot of what Anandtech used to do. Servethehome for Enterprise section.
Really Sad. I know some of current and ex-anandtech staff lurks on HN but dont post much. Farewell, Thank You and Good Luck to you all.
good run, and remember from the late 90s - later at my interview in Lehman Brothers, the hiring manager was looking at the site when I walked in and that was the small talk. RIP AnandTech
I've leaned on Anandtech ever since as a go-to source for understand technical innovation in hardware. Thanks for making everything that much easier to understand.
Thanks for all the good work!
Dr. Ian Cutress did a video of his thoughts. (Just a subscriber of his channel)
On the one hand a bittersweet end to a familiar editorial, on the other hand a deserved end to one of many "journalism" outlets. No, I don't have a good opinion of journalists.
In any case, RIP.
Distilling what you like about a thing and then build it (and don't forget that finding someone to pay you to do it is essential too) is key. Intellectual honesty is key in this process: You have to be honest about what you like about the Acquisition, Assimilation, and Dissemination of your ideas and product. They did that so well.
I always thought that whatever I wanted to build, it has something complex(and hence cool), but it could instead just what I want and have it be cool anyway.
I hope tomorrow's enthusiasts take up the torch of deep technical reporting and fight back against all the shallow, clickbait reporting out there.
I am disturbed by the death of long-form content happening. Google is failing.
It helped me dream larger than my surroundings; which in turn helped me get out of an unstable home, poverty, and a dead-end town. I was sad when [H]ardOCP went down, but this hits different.
I'll miss them, but for what it's worth they could probably be replaced by one guy with a decent substack. Or maybe that already exists, if anyone has any recommendations let me know.
Tech report became a zombie about a decade ago.
Tom's hardware has always just been 'mid'.
I feel old
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