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Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

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Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#41

Post by stock_toaster »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #4
muppetman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it's just designed to scare the big media websites from publishing numbers.

This is censorship, plain and simple. They cannot command everyone to abridge their speech, even if their license terms say so. It is unenforceable and illegal.

They also basically sold a defective part, and to fix it you have to agree to something additional post-sale. That is pretty damn questionable.

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#42

Post by squarefoot »

Sorry if I stress this even one more time, but we badly need 100% open iron, I mean something beefier than SiFive. If there is any effort in this direction, then, say for a year, most donations should be diverted over there. Closed hardware is becoming the unavoidable medium used to push closed firmware into everyone's system, that's a lot more important than benchmarks.

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#44

Post by theyinwhy »

tzmudzin wrote: post #33
gesman wrote: post #30

This TOS is driven by lawyers, not by business decision makers

Are lawyers running their business, or are business decision makers making business decisions?

So business decision makers made the decision to let their lawyers be business decision makers?

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#45

Post by infinity0 »

> Another issue is whether the customer should install the fix at all. Many computer users don’t allow outside or unprivileged users to run on their CPUs the way a cloud or hosting company does. For them, these side-channel and timing attacks are mostly irrelevant, and the slowdown incurred by installing the fix is unnecessary.

lol, javascript

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#46

Post by squarefoot »

eight_ender wrote: post #12

Has Intel just outlawed any review website (gaming, enthusiast, etc) from ever posting benchmarks of their CPUs again? I feel like they didn't think this through.

Most (all?) gaming websites also recommend the minimum/best system for each game. With AMD recent bumps in performance and after this bully move, Intel is in serious risk of disappearing from the list of endorsed solutions.

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#47

Post by kbumsik »

amluto wrote: post #13

I can think of two theories: 1. It's a mistake. Someone in legal got carried away. 2. The performance of the L1TF mitigation is so awful that someone at Intel thought it would be a good idea to try to keep the performance secret. (Which leads to option 2b. The performance of the L1TF mitigation is so awful that somemone at Intel is afraid that Intel could be sued as a result, and they want to mitigate that risk.) I w…

I think it's #1 but this legal change has been more than 2 weeks and there's no response from Intel in this problem. I don't understand why Intel is screwing everything lately.

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#48

Post by djsumdog »

amluto wrote: post #13

I can think of two theories: 1. It's a mistake. Someone in legal got carried away. 2. The performance of the L1TF mitigation is so awful that someone at Intel thought it would be a good idea to try to keep the performance secret. (Which leads to option 2b. The performance of the L1TF mitigation is so awful that somemone at Intel is afraid that Intel could be sued as a result, and they want to mitigate that risk.) I w…

The wording sounds like it bans any and all benchmarks. How would groups like Linus or Dave2D even operate? It honestly doesn't seem remotely enforceable.

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#49

Post by Fzzr »

wtallis wrote: post #24
muppetman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it's just designed to scare the big media websites from publishing numbers.

It wouldn't work. Even online media gets pretty strong first amendment protections that mean Intel wouldn't have a complete open and shut case, and we tech journalists are smart enough to be able to get the same microcode updates through other channels that don't have the same strings attached. If it's meant to deter anybody, it's the big corporate customers and competitors.

Unfortunately, the First Amendment does not protect against private action, only government restraints on speech. Other mechanisms like anti-SLAPP laws might help with that, but either way that's a lot of legal effort to publish some benchmarks. Intel also operates all over the world, so they could eg. sue a Britain-based branch of some media outlet that also publishes the numbers if the laws there are more in their favor.

Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed

#50

Post by headmelted »

Before Zen, we all kind of assumed they were so far ahead that AMD were more likely to be out of business before they would ever be a credible threat again.

I actually thought Intel must have had some tricks up their sleeves in terms of performance gains that we hadn't seen yet, simply because there was no market need to roll them out and they had so many years of coasting on marginal gains.

Seeing them taking this stance looks a lot like the microcode hit is that bad, and that the emperor has no clothes.

Clearly, they don't have an answer to AMD at all. If this is true, their shareholders should be asking serious questions about why they've nothing significant to show for all that time and money spent when they were raking it in without a serious competitor.

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