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Processors at Dawn: it's ugly out there

Review sites take the gloves off

HW Special There seems to be something of a spat brewing in hardware land, and we at Vulture Central can never resist a fight.

Three sites have got into a bit of a debate about standards, morals and who posted what first.

Eurogamer posted this article attacking Overclockers UK and the Overclocking Store for taking the market competition thing just a little bit too far.

As far as we can make out, it stems from a review OcUK posted slating Lian-Li cases, which had been described by OCS as "stunning", and comparing them unfavourably to an alternative from Coolermaster.

It seems that later a hasty counterpoint was posted and Eurogamer suggests that market forces may have played a part in this decision.

Of course, this opened the floodgates and Kyle over at HardOCP, who like us can't resist a bit of a verbal punch up, added his thoughts to the mix.

The best analogy I can think of is international sports refereeing. A lot of sports are taking advantage of TV replays to settle what would previously have been controversial referee decisions - take the third umpire in cricket, for example, or the extra ref in Rugby Union.

A ref's job is to be impartial, yet every now and then the third umpire is chosen from one of the countries involved in a match. No matter how impartial and professional he may try to be, his decisions will always be less credible than those of a truly independent observer.

This is the age-old problem of credibility. People who write product reviews are the refs of the hardware world. The lesson? If a retailer reviews a product, their advice should be taken with a pinch of salt. ®

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