Couple months ago I got an AMD Ryzen for my homeserver. I am pretty happy with it. Next time I'll probably get an AMD for the desktop as well. But I am talking about 6 years at least
Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
131–140 of 499 posts
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#132Can I publish benchmarks of 7zip, The Witcher 3 and OpenGPG from yesterday and tomorrow (after Intel patch, which was patched coincidentally)?
> (v) publish or provide any Software benchmark or comparison test results.
This seems to exclude any benchmark that may be affected by the Software's performance... Which means any CPU benchmark.
There is some play in the wording... And I'm taking the least favourable interpretation. But yeah... Seems like Intel have said no benchmarking, full stop.
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#133> 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
>Another issue is whether the customer should install the fix at all Microsoft will surely decide for me on my Windows 10 gaming PC. Better save my work (which I sometimes do even on a gaming machine) frequently lest the masters deem it fit to restart while I'm away having lunch if they decide I can live with the performance hit.
Just mark every 2nd Tuesday of a month as patch day and you won't have surprises!
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#134>Since the microcode is running for every instruction, this seems to be a use restriction on the entire processor
Does Intel's legal team even have a basic understanding of how computers work ? In essence, the word 'benchmark' ceases to exist after this microcode update. No more research in any domain. Back to hunting and gathering.
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#135Can I publish benchmarks of 7zip, The Witcher 3 and OpenGPG from yesterday and tomorrow (after Intel patch, which was patched coincidentally)?
This is why it just sounded stupid to me when I read the headline. The CPU IS the computer, sure I won't run Cinebench, but I'll want to run my web browser, and there are things called browser benchmarks because I want to know if Chrome is better than Firefox, coincidentally running older versions of the software on older machines.
Will they sue me ?
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#136As a side note: Some of the license changes also block Debian from updating their intel-microcode package[1]. [1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=906158#14
My guess is Intel will revert the license change soon. It's just too absurd to stay. But if not, I wonder if distros could have two packages, named with appropriate and well-deserved passive-aggressiveness, e.g.: intel-microcode-insecure and intel-microcode-legally-restricted.
There is nothing passive-aggressive in intel-microcode-legally-restricted, it's just a statement of fact.
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#137Here is one thing we can do about it: make public service announcement to our users that we no longer recommend Intel CPUs because of security holes, censorship and crippled performance. I am going to do that today. While we only have several thousand users they do CPU intensive work, buy a lot of new CPUs and rent a lot of servers. My small contribution will likely amount to low-mid 6 figures out of Intel pocket in…
That's one of the best ways to actually make a change.
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#138Here is one thing we can do about it: make public service announcement to our users that we no longer recommend Intel CPUs because of security holes, censorship and crippled performance. I am going to do that today. While we only have several thousand users they do CPU intensive work, buy a lot of new CPUs and rent a lot of servers. My small contribution will likely amount to low-mid 6 figures out of Intel pocket in…
This amounts to little more than making a statement at the expense of your users.
It would've carried that much more weight if it were _your_ low-mid 6 figures that were redirected away from Intel.
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#139Before 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 s…
> Clearly, they don't have an answer to AMD at all They still have a huge opportunity for CPU+FPGA, they bought Altera for the purpose.
But CPU+FPGA will forever be a tiny niche, right? I don't see any path where mainstream programs get a boost from FPGA.
Re: Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Another issue is whether the customer should install the fix at all Microsoft will surely decide for me on my Windows 10 gaming PC. Better save my work (which I sometimes do even on a gaming machine) frequently lest the masters deem it fit to restart while I'm away having lunch if they decide I can live with the performance hit.
Just mark every 2nd Tuesday of a month as patch day and you won't have surprises!
• Updates are not served to me at regular, known intervals. Perhaps it's due to a progressive rollout policy of some kind.
• Certain days come up that I, the paying user, do not want to patch on. Microsoft wins this disagreement and I lose. This occurs in a glib fashion with a message like "Hey, just a heads up, we are going to restart your computer" (whether I like it or not). It is my computer, there is no "we!"
It will absolutely close programs with unsaved work if I am not there.
• Maybe I don't want the performance hit on my gaming PC. This is another element of surprise: who knows how bad it'll be? Certainly not the users if Intel and Microsoft have their way.
• Yet another element of surprise: I've had hardware stop working after updates.
I cannot wait until it becomes viable to escape the toxicity of companies such as Intel and Microsoft.