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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

#431

Post by ValentineC »

unethical_ban wrote: post #418
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…

I just want to throw it out there that it might be impossible for AMD to actually go out of business. They're Intel's only major x86 competitor, IIRC their x86 license is non-transferrable, and no way Intel would be permitted in the USA to have an actual monopoly on x86 production. I kick myself for not buying AMD at $2 (or buying a LOT more at $5).

> They're Intel's only major x86 competitor, IIRC their x86 license is non-transferrable, and no way Intel would be permitted in the USA to have an actual monopoly on x86 production.

I just looked this up, and it seems to boil down to the patent cross-licensing agreement between Intel, which developed the x86 architecture, and AMD, which developed the 64-bit instruction set. I don't think there's a unilateral "non-transferable license" per se — and they're free to enter into a new agreement if either party does get acquired.

This Reddit thread seems pretty good at explaining it in much more detail: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/3b0ytk/discussion...

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

#432

Post by slivym »

snaky wrote: post #203
shriver wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkable how little we've seen from that acquisition. It's perfectly possible that Intel has butchered the acquisition the same way they have with many others.

The two huge companies being merged is more often considered fail than otherwise. > a 2004 study by Bain & Company found that 70 percent of mergers failed to increase shareholder value. More recently, a 2007 study by Hay Group and the Sorbonne found that more than 90 percent of mergers in Europe fail to reach financial goals. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/05/21/merger.marriage/ Especially when the merge should…

The Xeon + FPGA that was actually underway before the acquisition and based on pre-acquisition technology (Arria 10).

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

#433

Post by moolcool »

chrisper wrote: post #336
moolcool wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>gaming PC >Ubuntu Hope he likes Mahjong and Tux Racer

Have you not heard of Valve's Proton? It's the next best thing!

It has potential, but when I want to unwind and fire up a game, the last thing I want to do is deal with the rigmarole of alpha software

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

#434

Post by bluGill »

topspin wrote: post #405
wolfgke wrote: post #147

My thougt based on the HN headline "Intel Publishes Microcode Patches, No Benchmarking or Comparison Allowed" (after having read the article, of course): Doesn't this show that it is time for someone to set up some kind of "ScienceLeaks" website, where scientists can upload research (results, papers, ...) anonymously which they are are not allowed to do legally because of various such "research-restricting" laws. ---…

That's not the way. The tech press isn't powerless here. The media that has been performing such benchmarks for decades and have thus earned a large and faithful audience can organize and simultaneously publish the relevant benchmarks in the US, complete with an unapologetic disclosure right at the top as to the why this is happening. Put Intel into the position of suing every significant member of the US tech media…

The press can just give intel a "Don't buy" rating with a comment that intel has something to hide, we don't know what but you would be a fool to even consider them when you can't know if they are any good. Technically I can't even show the latest intel is faster than a old i386 that I'm finally ready to replace, while I can show the AMD is better.

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

#435

Post by Retric »

oarsinsync wrote: post #256
maxerickson wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

dedicated circuitry != FPGAs.

GPU's avoid the overhead of FPGAs while still retaining a lot of flexibility.

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

#436

Post by prolikewh0a »

bearjaws wrote: post #238
giancarlostoro wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't this show that it is time for someone to set up some kind of "ScienceLeaks" website, where scientists can upload research (results, papers, ...) anonymously which they are are not allowed to do legally because of various such "research-restricting" laws. I don't go there since 2008 but why not just wikileaks?

Wikileaks is a Russian propaganda machine. They are only interested in Anti-America leaks, not all leaks.

>Wikileaks is a Russian propaganda machine.

>They are only interested in Anti-America leaks, not all leaks.

Any evidence to prove this? If you go to Wikileaks there are leaks from all around the world. I personally am very glad Wikileaks exists, doing the work they do, and still has never been proven incorrect or fraudulent.

By the way, Anti-American leaks are also Pro-American leaks, even if they may not be favorable to your own political beliefs.

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

#437

Post by verall »

shriver wrote: post #146
snaky wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's remarkable how little we've seen from that acquisition. It's perfectly possible that Intel has butchered the acquisition the same way they have with many others.

Computer hardware has a very long lead time between product concept and metal-in-your-hand. Combined with the pains and huge initial slowdown of a megacorp purchasing a medium-corp, I think the real fruits of that acquisition are yet to be seen. I bet it took at least a year just for management to get their bearings on straight.

I would have guessed additional lead time for Altera to move their designs from TSMC to Intel process, but it looks like Altera has been planning to fab on Intels 14nm since 2013[0].

[0]http://chipdesignmag.com/display.php?articleId=5215

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

#438

Post by electrograv »

jimmaswell wrote: post #415
dhimes wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the market for a new rig- looks like I'll be going with AMD.

Is Intel not still leading in per-core performance? That's what I'll decide my next cpu on, since I care more about use cases like emulation/games (many games don't use multiple threads or use them effectively)

The problem is now it will depend on which patch(es) your CPU may have. Many online benchmarks and reviews of Intel CPUs vs AMD may be old, or run without patches applied / security modes enabled. If I order an Intel CPU now, I am not sure what microcode version I'll be getting to be honest. As a result, those benchmarks that show Intel edge out AMD a bit on some games may actually be inverted depending on these factors.

Going with AMD at this point is simpler, better for security, and if you care about this sort of thing -- rewards more honest and less consumer-predatory behavior. I've always gone with Intel my whole life, but given these many incidents with Intel, combined with their really poor public responses to it, I will now be switching to an AMD user for all future PC builds.

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

#439

Post by binomialxenon »

Nightshaxx wrote: post #273
lawlessone wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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).

I had a Zenfone 2 for a while too, performance and battery life were both pretty good. Thing was super unreliable though, not sure for what reason.

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

#440

Post by binomialxenon »

tomaskafka wrote: post #362
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?

I think Apple laptop CPUs will be like USB-C. First 'what's the point, nothing is compatible', year later 'everyone is doing it and it's actually pretty cool to attach everything including power with a single cheap dongle'.

I think it would take far longer than a year for a critical mass of OS X software to become ARM-compatible, but it could be viable in the long run.

I'd like for ARM laptops to become more popular though, as a Debian user nearly all the software I use is already there.

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