I do think the unreliable based on if the hardware was free or not is largely based on the writer not the fact they got it for free.
But it is very true that if you depend on that company to keep paying your rent, and if you give them a bad review... you could loose your rent... that’s where biased or flat out bull shit reviews come into play.
One of the ironies to all this with ProCooling is run by people who work real jobs, and have real lives. This means that really.. I could care less if a company sends me some free hardware. Suck is Suck no matter who sends it or what I pay. If the company doesn’t like it... oh well, there are others, and it doesn’t risk my bottom line at all. But the irony part is while the reviews and tests may be more credible, there are less of them since we work to pay for our rent and not rely off the site... Cant have your cake and eat it to I guess
Because I do buy most of my hardware ( or work side jobs and get paid in goodies), the facts of “cost” is a very big one to me. A 500$ video card is serious money, and is pretty much obscene for just a video card.
I won’t run a hardware site just to run another site... I will run a hardware site if I can find a niche or take on it that someone else isn’t doing... I will not run a site if its just going to be a carbon copy of the thousands of here today gone tomorrow websites. Gotta find a edge or aspect to exploit that the big “corporate” sites cant or don’t look at.