Andrzej Bania wrote:

The whole thing has clearly been engineered - to what purpose no one can say for certain.

Whether it was one of these reasons - or a completely different twist of logic - one thing is for certain - it has certainly acted as an appetiser for ATI's next generation launch... and for that I have to say 'Thanks Sander !'

Has it been engineered? Well not in the way Andrzej Bania is implying. Have I been in touch with a few of the AIBs prior to talking to him about the launch event? Well, yes. The condesending tone of his emails however are what motivated one of the AIBs to get me some early scores of the R520 architecture. The article wasn’t meant to smythe ATI, although the introduction outlines why I feel ATI has been rather difficult to work with, that is another story though.

The benchmarks provided are not knowingly false or meant to put ATI’s new architecture in a negative light, but provided AS-IS as they are run on a pre-production sample. In all honesty I’m glad that my article has attracted such massive attention, and that a lot of people, that includes me, are now eagerly awaiting the introduction of this new architecture and are curious as to how it performs. As mentioned the benchmarks we’ve posted were run on pre-production hardware and thus they could be far off from the actual performance of the R520 architecture.

I’m glad Andrzej Bania took the time and effort to step forward and offer ATI’s perspective on the matter. With this post I now have presented mine, we’ll let the readers decide what to make of this. Unfortunately it meant I had to correct quite a few of his inaccuracies which I’ve now set in stone by providing full transcripts of emails which do put the majority of his comments in an entirely different light. Fortunately there simply is no getting around the truth I’m afraid. I do hope we can now move beyond this, although maybe not on a personal level, as ultimately we both want the same thing; proper coverage of ATI’s products on a popular and high-profile website.

I’d also like to mention that I will not be devoting more time to this. I’ve taken the effort to defend myself in forums the world over, sharing my views, thoughts and issues that led me to post these benchmarks and the note directed at ATI that accompanied them. I ask you when’s the last time someone has bothered to fight his cause to such lengths? My final reply regarding this is this document. If you’ve read my previous forum replies you’ll notice that I never stoop down to the level of personal insults or quoting things out of context, etc. I sincerely believe that these things are best dealt with by being open and honest, not by attacking the person.

Regards,

Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com