AnandTech
Aside from Ars Technica, there are few '90s tech sites left here in 2024, and there's one less today. AnandTech, a major provider 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 worse, we've reached the end of a long journey — one that began with a review of an AMD processor and ended with a review of an AMD processor,” Smith wrote, referring to reviews of AMD's K6 and Ryzen 9000 series chips. “It's fittingly poetic, but it's also a testament to the fact that we've spent the last 27 years doing what we love: reporting on 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. Several AnandTech employees will continue to post articles at Tom's Hardware, another '90s vintage technology site that still publishes today (AnandTech and Tom's have both been owned by the same company since 2014, though they have maintained different websites and brands).
Headwinds in the media
Smith did not elaborate on the exact reasons for the site's closure, but suggested that the closure was a financial decision by Future.
“[T]”The market for written technology journalism is not what it once was – and never will be again,” Smith wrote. “I would have liked more from AnandTech, 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 late '90s technology website relevant and profitable, and largely agreed with Smith's assessment.
“The market for technology journalism has changed,” Fisher said. “Compared to the late '90s, technology is now completely mainstream. Advertisers for the big tech companies are just as happy to market their products or services on lifestyle sites now as they once were primarily on technology sites. Whatever the reason (mainly the 'growth at any cost' mindset), Google isn't sending as much traffic as it used to. This is especially true for technology buying advice (reviews, explainers, etc.), which AnandTech has excelled at providing. Reader culture has also changed. In-depth explainers and in-depth reviews are expensive to produce but result in fewer and fewer readers. Google AI Overviews then 'helpfully' summarizes your content and you get even less for it.”
Perhaps it's no coincidence that a large portion of the readership seeking in-depth PC component reviews has migrated to Google's YouTube, where major channels like Linus Tech Tips and Gamers Nexus offer meticulous component reviews that clearly owe a debt to AnandTech's rigorous methodology and endless seas of bar graphs.
The closure of AnandTech came just days after Gannett announced the closure of Reviewed, another technology website founded in 1997. Camera review website 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 clear, AnandTech wasn't my first paid writing gig, but it was certainly the first one of any significance, and the first where I did serious testing work on hardware (like the very first Kindle with a touchscreen) and software (like the Windows 8 Consumer Preview).
Site founder Anand Lal Shimpi started AnandTech as a 14-year-old, “equipped with very little actual knowledge” (in his own words), and by December 1999, the site had become so well-known and authoritative that CNN Money called it a “mega-hot computer review site.” Shimpi's family remained involved with the site for years after it was founded—when I freelanced there in 2011 and 2012, the person I sent my invoices to was Anand's mother.
Although the site is best known for its PC component reviews, it also covered Arm processors extensively in 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 such as the Apple A4, A5, A6, and the 64-bit A7. When Shimpi left AnandTech in 2014, he was looking to take a new job at Apple.