AnandTech
Few tech sites from the ’90s, aside from Ars Technica, are still active here in 2024, and today there’s one less. AnandTech, a fixture of CPU and GPU news and reviews since 1997, will cease publication today, according to an announcement from Editor-in-Chief Ryan Smith.
“For better or for worse, we have reached the end of a long journey that began with an AMD processor review and ended with an AMD processor review,” Smith wrote, referring to reviews of AMD’s K6 and Ryzen 9000 series chips, respectively. “It’s appropriately poetic, but it’s also a testament to the fact that we’ve spent the last 27 years doing what we love, which is beating the chips that are the lifeblood of the computing industry.”
The site's current owner, Future PLC, will keep the AnandTech archives online “indefinitely” and will continue to manage the site's forums, Smith wrote. Various AnandTech staffers will continue to publish articles on Tom's Hardware, another '90s-vintage tech site that still publishes today (AnandTech and Tom's have been owned by the same company since 2014, though they have retained separate sites and branding).
Media headwind
Smith wouldn't say specifically why the site closed, but he suggested the closure was a financial decision by Future.
“[T]The market for written tech journalism isn't what it once was, and never will be,” Smith wrote. “There's more I would have liked AnandTech to do, but after 21,500 articles, this was a good start.”
Ken Fisher, founder and editor in chief of Ars Technica, is familiar with the challenges of keeping a 1990s technology website relevant and profitable and largely agreed with Smith's assessment.
“The market for tech journalism has changed,” Fisher said. “Technology is now completely mainstream compared to the late '90s. Big tech advertisers are now just as happy to sell their products or services on lifestyle sites as they once were primarily on tech sites. Furthermore, whatever the cause (usually 'growth at all costs' thinking), Google is no longer driving the traffic it once did. This is especially true for tech buying advice (reviews, how-tos, etc.), which AnandTech excelled at. Reader culture has also changed. Extensive how-tos and long reviews are expensive to produce, but result in ever-shrinking audiences. Google AI Overviews then 'helpfully' summarize your content, and you get even less in return.”
It’s perhaps no coincidence that much of the audience for in-depth PC component reviews has flocked to Google YouTube, where major channels like Linus Tech Tips and Gamers Nexus publish meticulous component reviews that clearly owe their due to AnandTech’s rigorous methodology and endless sea of bar charts.
AnandTech's closure comes just days after Gannett announced it would shutter Reviewed, another tech site founded in 1997. Camera review site DPReview, founded in 1998, was on the verge of closing last year but was saved at the last minute when Amazon was able to sell the site to Gear Patrol.
To be completely honest, AnandTech wasn't my first time writing for pay, but it was certainly the first time I did anything noteworthy and the first time I wrote serious reviews of hardware (like the very first touchscreen Kindle) and software (like the Windows 8 Consumer Preview).
The site's founder, Anand Lal Shimpi, started AnandTech when he was 14, “armed with very little factual knowledge” (in his own words), and by December 1999 it had become notable and authoritative enough that CNN Money described it as a “megahot computer review site.” Shimpi's family remained involved with the site for years after its founding. When I freelanced there in 2011 and 2012, the person I sent my invoices to was Anand's mother.
While the site is best known for its PC component reviews, the site also did in-depth reporting on Arm processors during the early smartphone era, and AnandTech was one of the few outlets to publish in-depth, first-hand technical information on early Apple Silicon processors like the Apple A4, A5, A6, and the 64-bit A7. When Shimpi left AnandTech in 2014, it was to take a new position at Apple.
