Bits Introducing The New Score System

in many comments i've read you talk about "bit-tech's professionalism"... does it mean they can't relax and have a laugh? I'm sure that those guys who come to read professional articles never read the ones about cheesecake, mince pies and energy drinks! Come on, give them a break. I do enjoy read all the articles, but not always agree with them. that's life. The Extreme Ultra title could have another name and some will like and others won't. it doesn't matter. it's just a name to categorize a product that is above all others. if you take a look at ALL the reviews written by guru3d.com, they all receive a great badge, even if the product really sucks... i don't read those reviews anymore.

 

what happened to 'full retard' ?

 

Actually, it's to categorize a product that is completely OTT (hence the OTT title).

 

It's good to know things are improving with Bit-Tech and your scoring and overall rating of products has always seemed fair and accurate.

I would have thought a Bit-Tech must have or essential buy would have been on the cards for those products that truly excel at what they do for a fair price and whether it's a piece of hardware, game or whatever is one of those things you simply must have.

Anyway, food for thought...

 

couldn't resist.

 

I want an "Extreme Ultra" mince pie please.

Also, I think you should have an "Epic Fail" award for products that are spectacularly ****.

 

i approve of the new scoring system and even don't mind the award names... I am, however sad there is no 'Relix' award.. or 'Cheesecake Badge'

 

At risk of being a curmudgeon, I'm not so keen on either the new system or the new badges.

The old badges of 'Recommended' and 'Certificate of Excellence' had a quiet dignity which worked rather well. And they said what they meant (or is the other way round?). The new ones are a bit, well, style over substance.

On the percentage points, I would quote from the old score guide:

"Our scores are given on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest and one being the lowest. We don’t use decimals or half-points because, unlike some publications, we don’t think we can realistically draw a line between a score of 8.1 and 8.2 and it just ends up over-complicating matters."

On the basis that 8.1 and 8.2 are effectively the same as 81% and 82%, how did Bit-tech suddenly become able to draw a finer line? I hope it is simply the effect of reaching a higher stage of enlightenment...

 

Just read through the latest mag & see extreme ultra is in use already so no cheesecake award lol I'm sure I'll get over it .

I'll have to change my avatar back to something else soon .

 

Extreme Ultra for the win. How about extrime pwnage or extreme ti <560ti>

 

If it's not broken don't try and fix it. Extreme Ultra!? Were you all dressed as super heroes when you came up with that one? Also, why a professional award? It's called Custom PC not PC Pro. Sounds like you have lost your way.

 

We've done professional kit for ages - Xeon and Opteron CPUs and motherboards, for example. However, these products tend to only be relevant for professional users, so giving them the standard Premium Grade award would have been confusing as that award implies the product is great for everyone to buy and use.

We've also had plenty of correspondence from readers about reading Custom PC and bit-tech for advice on fast kit they can use at work. One guy thanked us for reviewing the Skulltrail platform because he could get rid of all the G5 Macs in his science lab, for example.

Looking at professional-level kit is nothing new for us, but we want to be clearer about how we cover it and how we present that coverage to the readers.

Hope that clarifies that point!

 

I'm not confused by the scoring system I just think adding percentage bars to the existing scoring system would be a useful addition. This is why:

When I click on a review I go straight to the back page for the verdict, and breakdown.
Previously I could just glance at the verdict and consume the verdict extremely rapidly thanks to the bar system used.

If, for example, all the scores are good apart from the "Value", I know to click Back on the browser to check out the price...

Or if the "Features" have a low score I then know which pages of the review I might be interested in - Bit-tech may be marking down for features I have no intention of using.

With the new scoring system, yes, I can still do this...but it is nowhere near as fluid as the old visual scoring system. I bet if you check your analytics with this use case in mind you'll see I'm not the only one who does this

All I'm suggesting is the addition of percentage bars beneath the fractions to make them more visually digestable.



^best of both worlds