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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

#271

Post by chx »

kashyapc wrote: post #232
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…

Yeah, my guess would be it's #1 too; I can't believe that Intel can be so naive that no one on the internet will benchmark the performance—given how all these nasty CVEs are raising such a stink. Serious customers will demand performance numbers; you can't simply answer them with "blocked due to legal".

I am not a lawyer but I question whether this is enforceable in the USA and I do not question, rather state this is not enforceable in the EU. All click-though / shrink-wrap licensing the end user is forced to or has to accept automatically is invalid.

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

#272

Post by josemanuel »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #226
glenneroo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology often starts out expensive and enthusiast only, but if Intel keeps throwing these wild punches in every direction, why wouldn't we see a steady migration to alternatives? AMD is definitely benefiting from Intel's recent decisions, I am sure Raptor is also starting to get more business. A few more years of shady Intel decisions combined with sufficient negative press and I am sure the market will gladly dec…

You cannot deliver competitive quality, performance and pricing right away, completely agree. But there's generally a threshold to how much more expensive it can be in the beginning, and more importantly, how much you benefit from it. The problem here is that only few people even understand the problems with what Intel does, and even fewer people care. My games still run fine so why should I care? HN is a real echo c…

But riscV processors will always be closed source. so you cannot crowdsource vulnerability finding...

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

#273

Post by Nightshaxx »

lawlessone wrote: post #219
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel are still ahead in low power mobile (laptop) CPU race, and the clear leader in the laptop market. Who knows for how long, though?

>Intel are still ahead in low power mobile CPU race, I never met a person with a smart phone that uses an intel chip. They probably exist but i know none. Apple aren't using them. Samsung aren't.. HTC nope.. Google pixel nope... Intel basically sold off/scuttled their mobile division right before the iphone took off.

I think it's referring to laptops. That said I had the ASUS Zenfone 2 and the performance seemed alright, but certain apps didn't work because of the architecture difference, most notably Pokemon Go for the whole time it was popular (although it's probably for the better that I missed that whole craze).

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

#274

Post by rbehrends »

ksrm wrote: post #106
mehrdadn wrote: post #60

Even if everyone plays by the rules, can't someone in another jurisdiction publish comparison results? How do they expect this to work?

I'm curious to know how valid this is in EU countries. Anyone know?

Against consumers, almost certainly unenforcable under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Directive alone, nevermind that some countries have even stricter laws regarding unfair contract terms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Terms_in_Consumer_Contr...

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

#275

Post by CaptainZapp »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #156
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aside from my vic20 and c64 I’ve only ever owned intel CPUs, and those two may have been intel as well, I wouldn’t know. At that time, few home computers were based on Intel processors because they were too expensive. Commodore's early computers, like Atari's, were based on the MOS Technology 6502 (made by ex-Motorola engineers as a cheaper and easier-to-integrate alternative to the Motorola 6800; the corresponding…

Zilog was of course famously founded by ex-Intel people to provide a cheaper alternative to the 8080. The UK's Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC were famously Z80-based, as well as the MSX spec (as you've mentioned) which was huge in Japan. It was also used in a lot of arcade machines either as a main CPU or as a sound chip.

The Sinclair ZX80 (predecessor of the Spectrum) was Z80 based. I know, because it was my very first computer.

Not really ideal for word processing and somewhat limited with 1KB (yes as in one kilobyte) of RAM.

You could get a rather expensive 16KB memory extension. Alas ,this had the problem of disconecting every 30 minutes or so, due to thermal issues. So you had to be really sure to save your work to datasette (don't ask!) in very regular intervals.

Fun times!

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

#276

Post by gehsty »

gowld wrote: post #248
yohann305 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is certainly a myth. Everyone knows, including big companies, that as you grow in size you have a harder time innovating. The classic "lean startup" book mentions this issue and gives the example of Intuit's in-house accelerator/incubator. No way Intel doesn't know about it too. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/04/19/in...

What myth? As you say, bigger companies have a harder time innovting.

Apple / Google / Amazon don’t seem to struggle?

Microsoft / IBM and now Intel defintely did.

I think it has more to do with the leadership of the company than the size of the company.

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

#277

Post by pbhjpbhj »

duxup wrote: post #22
Nition wrote: post #9

They better be wary of the Streisand Effect here. Banning benchmarking just makes it seem like the performance hit is going to be serious, which makes everyone even more curious.

I didn't know anything about this... now I'm really curious what the benchmarks are. Now that it is news they're pretty much begging for someone to do the benchmarks. This reminds me of the oracle license that was so broad it prevented users from talking to other users about their experience with the product... any experience.

Perhaps they're not complete imbeciles and this is a marketing stunt, turns out the benchmarks are fantastic??

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

#278

Post by pbhjpbhj »

harry8 wrote: post #94

I would like to see the New York Times co publish benchmarks with phoronix (or whomever has the relevant expertise and credibility) with a box detailing the ridiculous license and an editorial suggesting Intel investors may have cause for concern about managerial competence.

Someone with a publishing arm at their disposal is surely shorting Intel as we speak, ready to publish just such a story?

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

#279

Post by laumars »

cm2187 wrote: post #167
TheRealPomax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works for Oracle (it is famously illegal to publish benchmarks of DB2 vs other engines), I'm sure intel can make it work for them thanks to Oracle's court case(s).

But you can't buy an oracle license in a shop around the corner. It is going to be hard for intel to enforce it.

Perhaps if Intel were to play honestly then you might have a point. However there's certainly a few ways they could attempt to enforce it through slightly underhanded, yet pretty typical practices for how many multi-nationals like to operate in this day and age.

* cease and desist orders. They could probably argue improper use of trademark or something. And by "could" I don't mean "they have a legitimate legal case" but rather "a flimsy one but one that is still scary enough that few people might want to take the risk / expense testing the argument in court.

* many benchmarks are ran by reviewers who might have access components before they hit the shelves. It would be trivial for Intel to end that relationship. If it's suppliers further down the chain who are providing samples to journalists and reviewers then Intel might put pressure on those suppliers to end their relationships with said journalists. This might break a few anti-competition laws in the EU but it's not like that's ever stopped businesses in the past.

On a tangential rant: I think the real issue isn't so much whether it is enforceable but rather the simple fact that companies are even allowed to muddy the waters about what basic journalistic and/or consumer rights we have. I'm getting rather fed up of some multi-nationals behaving like they're above the law.

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

#280

Post by snaky »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #213
headmelted wrote: post #50

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 s…

Intel are still ahead in low power mobile (laptop) CPU race, and the clear leader in the laptop market. Who knows for how long, though?

New Snapdragon 845-based Chromebook is on the way.

> It comes as Microsoft continues its work with Qualcomm to optimize Windows for devices powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips, including the forthcoming Snapdragon 850, which Samsung used for its first Arm-based Windows 10 laptop. So it appears there is some momentum behind the concept.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/arm-on-windows-10-chromebooks-...

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