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Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

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Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#81

Post by pvg »

computerex wrote: post #56
seminatl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just leaped to the unfounded conclusion that every computer needs to run untrusted JavaScript. The vast majority of computers have no such need. Especially in a performance-sensitive contest like buying CPU for your database server that lives in a datacenter and never runs a web browser you will certainly disable these security things.

Disabling Spectre/Meltdown mitigations on a server especially would be the dumbest thing imaginable. These attacks are not restricted to JavaScript, they are side-channel attacks and have a huge exploitable surface. Just look at the number of patches for the MS SQL server needed to mitigate: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4073225/guidance-pr...

Scroll down to the table and many paragraphs in which they describe when the various scenarios in which the various mitigations are recommended. That wouldn't be needed at all if not having them was always 'the dumbest thing imaginable'.

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#82

Post by dijit »

jolmg wrote: post #58
gpm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many? Anything running a browser needs it because of js. Anything running connected to the internet at all would be well advised to have them because you can take advantage of the exploits via the network stack. Anything running on a vm has to have them since microcode is set by the hypervisor. So, we're talking about desktops not used to browse the internet, and bare metal servers whose network stacks aren't exposed…

> So, we're talking about desktops not used to browse the internet You can browse the internet without JS. Many people here seem to do so.

>Many people here seem to do so.

And many more are ardent that "I should not build a non-js version of my website just for the >1% of users who disable javascript".

Personally I do not disable javascript because it makes huge portions of the web inaccessible, in weird and frustratingly ambiguous ways. But I used to, and I am the kind of person who would again if it were a remote option.

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#83

Post by deaddodo »

me_me_me wrote: post #23
VC999 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on that please

The fastest animal on earth is the fastest not because it has huge muscles, but because it falls. Is it fair compare top speed of falcon to cheetah? Yeah but... x y z. Every benchmark can be set up in a way that will give edge to one part or another. Especially if there is a vested interest.

And even in your example, the Cheetah can hit 65mph for a whopping 330 feet before risking total exhaustion. Meanwhile Pronghorns, Impala and Antelope can reach 55mph-60mph and maintain it for about half a mile, and vary their speed to increase distance.

So which would you consider faster? The one that can give you a few seconds of effort really quickly; or the one that gives you 90% of that effort but for hours?

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#84

Post by jagger27 »

LinuxBender wrote: post #77
NicoJuicy wrote: post #65

And if anyone from AMD is reading this. I'm truelly awaiting AMD's NUC in multiple price ranges of 150-700€, if possible :)! I'm currently building a DIY RPi 4 cluster for microservices/kubernetes setup and would like to replace my DIY home streaming setup. http://www.fanlesstech.com/2019/10/exclusive-amds-nuc-is-com...

And please have at least two server quality 1gb nics. :-) My home router needs an upgrade.

Even Mac minis come with a 10gig NIC. Gotta future proof, right?

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#85

Post by GhettoMaestro »

sp332 wrote: post #60
gpm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many? Anything running a browser needs it because of js. Anything running connected to the internet at all would be well advised to have them because you can take advantage of the exploits via the network stack. Anything running on a vm has to have them since microcode is set by the hypervisor. So, we're talking about desktops not used to browse the internet, and bare metal servers whose network stacks aren't exposed…

I'm not clear what your point was about the VMs. Why do hypervisors need Meltdown mitigated? I think you're underestimating the % of HPC networks with properly-configured firewalls and only running code from trusted sources.

HPC is not the real use case (target). The percentage of HPC compared to the rest of the target market (public cloud) is insignificantly small.

The real question is do you trust any potential co-tenants in a public cloud that share a hypervisor with you, when said hypervisor does NOT have Spectre/Meltdown fixes applied? (There is only one correct answer...)

Also you can fairly easily mitigate this in a public cloud setting by running your VM on a dedicated hypervisor. AWS calls these "EC2 Dedicated Instances". Interestingly enough for most compute sizes the cost different is negligable. I imagine that isn't the case everywhere / for-everything, but if you A) need pre-Spectre/Meltdown perf and B) need protection against co-tenancy attacks, paying a few more dollars for a dedicated hypervisor host seems like a no-brainer to me.

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#86

Post by profquail »

LinuxBender wrote: post #77
NicoJuicy wrote: post #65

And if anyone from AMD is reading this. I'm truelly awaiting AMD's NUC in multiple price ranges of 150-700€, if possible :)! I'm currently building a DIY RPi 4 cluster for microservices/kubernetes setup and would like to replace my DIY home streaming setup. http://www.fanlesstech.com/2019/10/exclusive-amds-nuc-is-com...

And please have at least two server quality 1gb nics. :-) My home router needs an upgrade.

Maybe they could include NBASE-T nics that’d also support 2.5 and 5 Gbps speeds?

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#87

Post by rhn_mk1 »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #65

And if anyone from AMD is reading this. I'm truelly awaiting AMD's NUC in multiple price ranges of 150-700€, if possible :)! I'm currently building a DIY RPi 4 cluster for microservices/kubernetes setup and would like to replace my DIY home streaming setup. http://www.fanlesstech.com/2019/10/exclusive-amds-nuc-is-com...

I've been waiting for that as well, and while the hyped models from usual cheap brands are unobtanium, HP and Lenovo have quietly kickstarted the sector with Lenovo m715q Tiny, HP ProDesk 405 G4 and HP EliteDesk 705 G4.

The prices could be better however.

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#88

Post by Someone1234 »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #59
eganist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing - they keep doing it, which means regardless of people coming out with stories like this, it must be effective.

They can't fake public PassMark results though. They currently hold four of the top five results for high end processors there ( https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html ) and a lot of the top price/performance results ( https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html ). A lot of folks use charts like these to guide buying decisions or make recommendations to others.

Why can't you fake a PassMark? I'm legitimately asking. Seems like an aggregated public data set would be particularly prone to intentional cheating.

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#89

Post by zerkten »

emmelaich wrote: post #64
Tepix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you designed a benchmark for your special requirements.

It still is misleading, because your special requirements will not perfectly match your benchmark.

That's true, but like many human endeavors we can reach a point that is good enough, or the process of implementing the benchmark leads to useful discoveries. It is not going to be perfect for all situations, but that doesn't mean it's not a valuable tool to use in some situations.

Re: Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD

#90

Post by gameswithgo »

chaosbutters314 wrote: post #70
NicoJuicy wrote: post #65

And if anyone from AMD is reading this. I'm truelly awaiting AMD's NUC in multiple price ranges of 150-700€, if possible :)! I'm currently building a DIY RPi 4 cluster for microservices/kubernetes setup and would like to replace my DIY home streaming setup. http://www.fanlesstech.com/2019/10/exclusive-amds-nuc-is-com...

Can I ask for anyone from AMD to sell a 4 socket, epyc mobo. Im looking for 256 (4*64) core desktop PC.

Probably can't get enough memory bandwidth on a motherboard for that to be practical
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