[Deathspawner]

I have never thought too much of 3D Gameman's web site, so when I saw an e-mail sitting in my inbox this morning about this, it didn't come as much of a surprise. The fact of the matter is, the image used in that video review is undoubtedly SKYMTL's and the fact that Rodney continually denies it is just absurd. W1zzard's image is a little more difficult to pinpoint, but with a sharp eye, it becomes obvious.

Despite it going against my better judgement, I decided to check out a few of his previous reviews, and from what I can see, I wouldn't be surprised if this has been going on for a while. You'll notice his own personal images are decently lit and sharp, whereas GPU die shots and other odd viewing angles look cropped, flat, sharpened or with a higher contrast applied. I'm not insinuating that all of the images are taken from other sites, but his constant denial of of these two blatantly obvious images doesn't instill much faith.

What I don't understand, is that in his reviews, such as a GPU, he talks more about the accessories and how the fan moves, rather than the GPU itself. He's even lightweight with the graphs, benchmarking with five tests at most, and only on one setting each. That's all fine, to each their own. But if his reviews are so lightweight, I have no idea why he even deems it necessary to show a GPU die shot at all. It's clear that's not the audience he's after.

Normally I would ignore this situation. In my own case, I've caught other sites taking my images, but have never felt the ambition to ask them about it. But, I'm sure if I did ask them about it, the owner or editor would at least admit to his mistake. Rodney's clearly insistent that he's done nothing wrong.

Rodney has been doing this hardware review thing longer than most of us, so you'd expect that he'd have a good handle on what's accepted and what's not. It's apparently not the case. His goals are to do as little work as possible, then reap the rewards of ad money and the sales of products he reviews. The fact of the matter is, he's not being honest about these images, so who's to say he's honest about anything he writes or says in a video?

Regardless, that's all a matter of opinion. Kudos to HC for actually catching this plagiarism and good luck in getting it settled.