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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

#251

Post by justinclift »

executesorder66 wrote: post #209
justinclift wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleazy marketers would be all over that. :/

If they show reproducible results, then I don't see a problem. If they don't, well then you know it is either dodgy or not rigorous enough to take seriously.

They'd definitely show reproducible results. eg either get their mates to submit matching fakes ones, or just submit an extra set themselves after slight tweaking

That being said, as soon as someone with a clue comes along + tries them out and finds it's bogus... that would lead into potentially weird territory too. eg the dodgy submitters likely attempting to discredit the er... whistleblower(?).

Seems like a re-run of an old story. :/

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

#252

Post by dhimes »

beefhash wrote: post #14

As 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

Would be cool if this was blown out by the courts.

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

#253

Post by _ph_ »

tzmudzin wrote: post #32
paulie_a wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if they did think it through. It should be aggressively ignored.

... or just the reverse: clearly omitted in all benchmarks, stating you buy at your own risk because of Intel's unwillingness to subject its products to examination. [Sure it's not going to fly given Intel's market position, but it's a tempting thought anyway...]

Right, technically speaking, a review site now only has the choice of either ignoring Intels terms or no longer consider Intel processors in their benchmarking at all. As a reviewer , I would not benchmark unpatched products on a general basis.

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

#254

Post by mannykannot »

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…

A corporation the size of Intel doesn't do this sort of thing accidentally, especially as there was no good reason for them to be modifying the terms in the first place.

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

#255

Post by dhimes »

chrisper wrote: post #133
theprotocol wrote: post #68

Earlier 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!

This doesn't work. They can hit on other days too- with no warning.

Maybe best to disconnect from the internet when not using- putting to sleep doesn't do it.

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

#256

Post by oarsinsync »

maxerickson wrote: post #227
snaky wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Specialized coprocessors are mainstream actually - from network cards offloading to small chip in every iPhone, and for a reason. The obvious way forward is universal specialized coprocessors, reprogrammable for the task(s). Better if tightly integrated with the memory, buses and CPUs. The weak side of FPGA historically is programmability and especially the tools. But since the interest for FPGA is growin…

How is every consumer device with a display "niche"?

Dedicated GPUs were not required historically to drive displays, and this was done by the CPU instead.

Similarly, we’re finding more functions we can take away from the CPU and migrate to dedicated circuitry (FPGAs) that can handle those tasks more efficiently than the CPU can.

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

#258

Post by mcv »

dom96 wrote: post #247
johnchristopher wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you loathe Intel after all the lies they have been telling and marketing speaks, you should buy AMD. > If you love Intel still after all, you should still buy AMD, teach them a painful lesson to wake them up. But how do I choose which AMD CPU I need ? Back in my youth p4 and athlon were easy to compare (freq., IPS and a modifier because AMD) but now I can't even tell the differences between any i5/3/7 and when I…

Compare the benchmarks for those processors?

Ah, but now we're not allowed to benchmark Intel anymore, so nobody can prove AMD is faster now.

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

#259

Post by angry_octet »

maxerickson wrote: post #227
snaky wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Specialized coprocessors are mainstream actually - from network cards offloading to small chip in every iPhone, and for a reason. The obvious way forward is universal specialized coprocessors, reprogrammable for the task(s). Better if tightly integrated with the memory, buses and CPUs. The weak side of FPGA historically is programmability and especially the tools. But since the interest for FPGA is growin…

How is every consumer device with a display "niche"?

Because they were all 2D. And the idea that GPUs would be used for mobile computing was not obvious.

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

#260

Post by tait »

Back in 2000 or maybe 2001, Intel had software one could use to create an image (something analogous to Paint or Photoshop). If I recall correctly, the novelty was that it was online.

The license for that software was that Intel owned all rights to everything produced with it - your art was not your own.

My Google-fu is weak today. Does anybody remember the name/have a reference?

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