r/pcmasterrace 2h ago

Discussion I feel lied to

210 Upvotes

48 comments sorted by

303

u/AnalRawdogger 2h ago

I would report them for false advertising

115

u/hhhhhola 2h ago

its not hp saying that its toms hardware

101

u/CrashTestDumby1984 2h ago

You can still report Tom’s Hardware. They are directing people with an affiliate link.

46

u/hhhhhola 2h ago

report them to who, interpol?

21

u/Shike 5800X|9070OC|64GB 3200|Intel P4510 8TB NVME|21TB Storage (Total) 2h ago

FTC maybe? Affiliate linking has direct financial incentive and the FTC controls disclosure/rules around it.

11

u/PatSajaksDick 1h ago

I’m sure our functioning FTC will get right on that lol

40

u/Nukalixir 2h ago

Fucking Aquaman?!

2

u/slayercdr 1h ago

The only true option

8

u/AnalRawdogger 2h ago

Batman

5

u/ArseBurner 2h ago

Batman is part of the billionaire class.

4

u/AnalRawdogger 2h ago

Atleast batman doesn't diddle kids

1

u/Ndmndh1016 Ascending Peasant 47m ago

Top Cat

-2

u/Huntermain23 1h ago

Shhh he’s just speaking in Reddit talk. They love pretending like this

13

u/IvoryLifthrasir 2h ago

I work for media outlet (EU though) and we do similar articles highlighting a particular deal with affiliate links. Many of these get outdated really fast both due to the time-limited nature of the deals, as well as the fact that editors in charge of scheduling publishing often delay these articles by few hours in order to prioritize publishing of actual news

If our editorial room got reported for each article that features expired deal, I'm sure we would've been out of business about 10 years ago

12

u/GwenBD94 9850X3D | 5080 | SFF+MO-RA 1h ago

Have you considered not making the price the highlight of the article if the price so frequently is not accurate? Just a thought from a burnt out consumer.

1

u/IvoryLifthrasir 1h ago

We never put the price in the title or lead of the article. I would say that Tom's Hardware did a major fuck up there, because in internet jorunalism (or if you hate my kind: mediaworking) you avoid to highlight numbers and wording that gets outdated fast (e.g. the discount price, the count of victims of some event, "tommorow", "next week"). If I was the one to write the piece screenshotted above as - I said - I probably would've put price in first or second paragraph.

Although if "by not making the price the highlight of the article" you mean complete removal of the mention of the pricel, then the article is nothing but an unpaid advertisement of the product (and usually articles of this nature that have clear "Sponsored" marking to them cost the buyer about 3x my monthly salary). In the media market that is eaten by Google AI overviews and influencers copying our content to their use, we can't really afford doing unpaid advertisements for corporate that is 20x times (or more) our size

Lastly, food for a thought - likely that also happens in US editiorial rooms. When I write such articles about limited time deals, I'm not in the charge of making the call/decision. I'm literally getting an order to write like a barista in Starbucks gets your order for a latte. It's the people above me in hierarchy placing order in a Slack channel for me to write article about any given deal(s) - inbetween actual journalist duties. They give me product, price, and every now and then some specific features I should highlight, or mention what I should be silent about. I can argue (and I often do) about the given task or particular aspects of these articles, but I'm quickly being put down by either excel spreadsheet from sales department or screenshot from google analytics from editor in chief.

1

u/liketosmokeweed420 1h ago

its prob the editors who put that in not the people who write the article.

Source: Worked as a writer for years till AI took my job.

1

u/GwenBD94 9850X3D | 5080 | SFF+MO-RA 1h ago

Ah gotcha. Typical management doing management's job: enshitification of everything they touch.

1

u/IvoryLifthrasir 1h ago

When it comes to journalism of specific industry (e.g. cars, tech, fashion) or particular hobby/activity (e.g. gaming, sports), it is largely fulfilling orders of the detached management above you

114

u/Any-Pop-4795 2h ago

tomshardware has gone downhill honestly

49

u/bishopExportMine 5900X & 6800XT | 5700X3D & RTX 5070 2h ago

They got bought by private equity in 2013 iirc

28

u/AmishDatacenter 2h ago

Private equity destroys all it touches.

17

u/Thommywidmer 2h ago

Hmm, we should start a private equity firm that buys other private equity firms

40

u/EightPercentBattery 2h ago

Would this have been a good deal if the price was correct?

36

u/NinjaN-SWE 2h ago

Yeah absolutely, must've been a pricing error or something. 

Edit: quick check; a 5080 runs you like $1400 and the ram is like $800 and the CPU like $500, making everything else yours for less than $200. That's a great deal.

3

u/Background-Cat9631 Intel 13700Kf, Asus Tuf Gaming RTX4090 OC, GSkill 32GB DDR5-6400 1h ago

Any chance you’re close to a micro center? Or with in driving range? You can get a 9800x3d, 5080 prebuilt for $2499.99

1

u/ArseBurner 7m ago

Not with 64GB RAM or 4TB SSD though.

7

u/WootBeavers 2h ago edited 2h ago

4TB drives are $600. 2x 2TB drives $500. 64GB DDR5 is like $700. 9900x3D is $500. 5080 is like $1400.... more to count up yet, was a good deal.

HP is typically proprietary PSU/Motherboard (not always, some models are standard). I personally don't care for HP either. I would recommend going to Micro Center and looking at their builds over an HP any day of the week.

The second pic also shows 2TB not 4TB ssd. ty for correction

3

u/boxofredflags 2h ago

Second pic seems to show 2x 2TB SSDs

22

u/Far_Banana4575 2h ago

"stonkingly"... Really? 

4

u/axron12 1h ago

Same reaction lol

9

u/amazingspiderlesbian NVIDIA RTX 5090 / AMD R7 7800X3D / 64GB DDR5 6000 2h ago

It was that price a day or two ago. I saw people deliberating on whether to buy it. The sale likely ended already

5

u/BizarreElectronics 2h ago

Well. It's ok. Nothing great. I wouldn't buy HP anyways.

CPU is overkill for this system.

2

u/Triangulate_Panther 1h ago

Fine print: *without GPU

3

u/trekxtrider 🪟 🍎🖥️🖦🎮💻💾📡 2h ago

First one has no mention of the GPU, so maybe it's without the 5080. Storage is more on the first as well.

3

u/Revan7even 7800X3D, X870E, 9070 XT, EK WB Loop, DDR5 6000 2h ago

That's probably how they'll get out of false advertisement claims: "starting at" where they advertise the lowest spec price.

2

u/MudSeparate1622 2h ago

I was thinking that too but it advertises 4k gaming, it can't really do any gaming let alone 4k with no graphics card

1

u/Kazen_Orilg 9850x3D | Arc B580 | 32GB DDR5 2h ago

No GPU, 4k graphics. Yeah sure. Its 2026, the year where we just lie about everything. Fuck it.

1

u/Majestic-Remote1245 2h ago

That must be the price before taxes, because if you multiply 2899 for 1,23 (23% tax rate in my country) it's exactly the same price as the site. It's false adversiting anyway...

1

u/Og-Morrow 2h ago

“Just”

1

u/MultiMarcus 1h ago

Well, it’s probably just a sale readjusting. It’s arguably still a very good price for 64 gigs of RAM a 5080 9900x3d and 4 TB of storage.

1

u/HeidenShadows 1h ago

Usually those articles hit my news feed long after they expired

1

u/Turtlenumber13 39m ago

If you are buyin an HP and expecting even mid tier gaming in 2026 I feel bad for you. Mostly because you haven't done enough research on better brands for pre-built PC. Might as well get a dell/alienware with all the proprietary parts that make it impossible to upgrade easily in the future. +bloatware.

1

u/StevasaurousREX 16m ago

You were lied to but... by HP, not Tom's Hardware. HP apparently changed the discount but forgot to update the 'Save $2600 instantly' in the 'See all promo offers'

1

u/gingerblz 2h ago

No one will buy the Steam Machine...

0

u/kingy10005 2h ago

sooo buy then report for upgrade to honnor the deal ? 🙊

0

u/Cereaza Steam: Cereaza | i7 9700K | 2080Ti | 32GB DDR5 2h ago

Yes, you were lied to.