
Intel publishes misleading benchmarks against AMD - PaulHoule
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-performance-strategy-team-publishing-intentionally-misleading-benchmarks/
======
NicoJuicy
They wouldn't have an answer to AMD untill 2021:
[https://newsroom.intel.com/news/2019-intel-investor-
meeting/...](https://newsroom.intel.com/news/2019-intel-investor-
meeting/#gs.d3i14m)

Ps. Long AMD, perfect execution the last two years. It's crazy, even their
late firmware fixes improve performance as it had bad press for a moment for
false benchmarks advertisement ( it was not false so it seems, the firmware
was just not ok yet. Not everything is fully ok now, it's the only minor
nitpick as far as I can tell )

And they are only just now starting in the server space and soon the laptop +
graphics space. They are going mainstream ( OEM offering is still lacking,
Microsoft Surface changed this) AND they still customize their superior
offering for big customers.

In the contrary, Intel has a lot of failures the last 2 years. Spectre,
meltdown, ... This isn't bad luck anymore, it's more like bad karma if you are
religious.

If you think I'm opinionated. Just check /r/AMD vs. /r/Intel . AMD is even
suggested in the Intel threat, lol

~~~
kmlx
"Long AMD"

are you expecting a higher stock price? because their 90 PE TTM doesn't look
like it's in line with the rest of the industry.

don't get me wrong, i was also long AMD, and still partly am, but i don't
think the stock can go higher than 36-37, or even maintain that level long
term, without some some mega quarters. which according to their own estimates
will not be the case.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Yes, i'm expecting stock price according how much they capture from Intel. And
they are capturing it fast. As said before: Servers, laptops, ... are coming
and that's the profit-market for CPU's and they aren't abandoning their nich (
semi-custom) also.

it was 40 in 2000, the current buy prediction is 40. They are doing way better
now and they have another full year to win market share. I compare against
Intel, not against AMD at the current ( minimalistic) state, mostly because
OEM's weren't onboard in the previous financial quarter.

I have also explained my financial relation to them and my belief. Which
seemed enough, no? PS. I'm probably one of the few to share my financial
relation. Not because i'm scared, but because i'm confident :)

And also, i feel kinda sorrow for you that you don't attack my comments/facts.
You just attacked my personal gain, which is a feedback loop to my arguments.

PS. I don't know of any other company that is in such a positive position. One
full year untill their competition has a competitor to their "current" product
line. That's insane. I haven't even mentioned TSMC 3 nanometer process for
2023 and theri future product line :)

~~~
solotronics
Exactly market cap of AMD is 35 and Intel is 250. Even if AMD can only manage
to steal half of that they will do phenomenally well.

------
Jonnax
I recall a few months ago they released a marketing pack benchmarking
themselves against AMD with a small print disclaimer that they hadn't applied
the spectre/meltdown fixes.

~~~
sp332
Many applications don't need Spectre or Meltdown mitigations, but they should
at least put the test parameters up front and not in the fine print.

~~~
gpm
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 to hostile actors?

~~~
jolmg
> 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.

~~~
vkou
If you're browsing the internet without JS, you don't need a CPU that was
built this decade to do so.

~~~
jolmg
Yet, Meltdown is said to probably effect every processor since 25 years
ago[1], so I doubt people would have one from before then by chance or be
willing to use it.

[1] [https://meltdownattack.com/#faq-systems-
meltdown](https://meltdownattack.com/#faq-systems-meltdown)

~~~
lonelappde
Every _Intel_ processor.

------
NicoJuicy
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...](http://www.fanlesstech.com/2019/10/exclusive-amds-nuc-is-coming-
soon.html)

~~~
chaosbutters314
Can I ask for anyone from AMD to sell a 4 socket, epyc mobo. Im looking for
256 (4*64) core desktop PC.

~~~
mattmar96
What will you use that many cores for?

~~~
robotmay
Running the Slack client?

~~~
dijit
Slack client is single-threaded.

However, 'chrome' would be valid. :)

~~~
robotmay
Haha I must admit I have run Slack inside Firefox for the past 3 years myself.

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pgodzin
Another take on this: [https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/11/05/intel-
messaging-hits...](https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/11/05/intel-messaging-
hits-a-new-low/)

~~~
Symmetry
Charlie doesn't mince words.

------
pinewurst
There's often a long lead time between writing up benchmarks/white papers and
publication. At my last employer it could take well over a month to let
everyone have their 2 cents and get through Legal for approval. This is a long
enough interval to explain the old/new GROMACS usage.

As the saying goes, don't attribute to malice that which can be adequately
explained by stupidity (including corporate bureaucracy).

~~~
paulmd
Also, the difference in sub-NUMA configuration actually favors AMD as well.
NPS=4 is optimal for AMD, as shown by ServeTheHome's own work earlier. Both
systems are tested in their proper (fastest) configuration.

Despite ServeTheHome's own previous work showing this, they're whining about
it being different. But if Intel hadn't tested AMD in the proper configuration
they would have complained about that too.

Yeah, you take first-party benchmarks with a big grain of salt like always,
but STH is just looking to stir some shit here.

~~~
greatpatton
oh really one thread per core is the optimum for EPYC server? I don't know why
AMD care about hyper threading then.

~~~
lolc
We're not talking about the general case. One thread per core might be optimal
for that specific workload.

------
microcolonel
The value proposition with AMD's current offerings is staggering. I didn't
know computers would be this good this soon.

The one thing I'm not pleased with is the general poor experience with
integrators, on both platforms. Who told them they shouldn't put prices on
gigabyte.com? I see the actual price on a distributor's site and I'm nothing
but pleased.

------
bhauer
Sidebar question: Would anyone be interested if we adapted the TechEmpower
benchmarks [1] to provide a composite score for the hardware environment? This
could, in theory, give some insight into the capability of server hardware
with respect to traditional web API-style requests.

[1]
[https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)

~~~
mooman219
That would be extremely interesting, but at least in short term I'd rather see
more bandwidth so we can see the top 10 stretch their legs :D

------
hadlock
Sky blue, water wet. I have seen this headline written in 1996, 2002, 2006,
2018...

~~~
LeifCarrotson
The long interval between 2006 and 2018 makes it easy to forget.

------
reacharavindh
Yes, synthetic benchmark results in general are to be taken with a grain of
salt, leaving a lot of potential for things like these that can easily produce
the result you desire than what really is.. there is a big question of how
this translates to what your workload needs/does.

We just bought our first AMD Epyc server for our HPC cluster. I cant wait
until next week to test it against our Skylake nodes. 1 socket EPYC 16C cpu vs
2X Xeon Skylake. I already have a suite of our internal workloads to hammer
them with.. one of them is a key in house software compiled usually with intel
compiler and intel mkl for performance reasons. Really curious how it will do
with the EPYC cpus.

~~~
jacquesm
Really curious as well, will you please do a write-up if you can make the
results public?

~~~
reacharavindh
I can definitely make the results public as it is a server we purchased to
test before a bigger purchase.

I will try to do some basic perf tests as well along with our workload
specific tests.

I plan to share the results as. Blog post here -
[https://aravindh.net](https://aravindh.net)

------
jmull
The article is more or less BS.

For one, the claim is that Intel misleads _intentionally_. Given the timeline
there's no particular reason to think there is something intentional here. The
AMD-optimized version of GROMACS just came out ~5 weeks ago.

Second, while this is misleading in a sense, it's in the way that benchmarks
are all generally misleading. By their intrinsic nature they don't tell the
whole story. (And of course marketing departments cherry-pick benchmarks to
tell the story they want to tell. Also by intrinsic nature.)

BTW, this isn't even all that bad for Intel. The AMD chip might outperform the
Intel one, but only if your software has been specifically optimized for it.

~~~
jammygit
They are publishing statements of fact about a competitor. The onus is on them
to check those facts, and companies should be held accountable for the things
they say - even in advertising

------
Traster
I wonder how much influence these benchmarks have in terms of (a) promoting
Intel's performance and (b) eroding trust and confidence in Intel

------
ai_ja_nai
remember when 3dmarks presented superior performances if you changed the
vendor id in a VIA chip to Genuine Intel?

------
mark-r
I'm shocked I tell you, just shocked.

------
twobat
There are small and middle corporations that don't have people brave enough to
choose AMD. I know, I worked at two of them. In there, nobody has the time to
think about AMD and to swallow and explain eventual issues that might arise.

And frankly I've never seen AMD trying to reach those people.

------
13daug
laptop + graphics space. They are going mainstream ( OEM offering is still
lacking, Microsoft Surface changed this) AND they still customize their
superior offering for big customers ok

------
eganist
tl;dr: using outdated benchmarking tools optimized for the latest Intel chips
and not the latest AMD chips. GROMACS 2019.3 v. 2019.4, the latter of which is
the latest but still came out over a month ago _and_ addressed AMD Zen 2.

Source is still a good read for explanations on why this is impactful.

\---

Disclosure: I'm long AMD

~~~
xenadu02
They used the Intel compiler. We know for a fact Intel’s compilers
deliberately don’t optimize as well for non-Intel chips.

That’s damning in and of itself.

~~~
dbcurtis
That is a little disingenuous. The whole point of Intel’s compiler is to
support Intel chips well. Results on other chips are what they are. No effort
to make other chips perform eiher better or worse is expended. Keeping up with
Intel chips is more than a full time job without other distractions.

The question to ask is whether or not they used the best complier/swithes
available for the other chips.

~~~
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
>No effort to make other chips perform eiher better or worse is expended.

This is not true. Intel compilers cripple non-intel CPUs on purpose, they
generate code that literally checks whether CPUID is equal to "GenuineIntel"
and if it isn't, it executes the less optimized code path[1].

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C%2B%2B_Compiler#Recepti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C%2B%2B_Compiler#Reception)

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13daug
I WANDERED why? My PC Never wanna turn the screen Display on AMD pro Costs me
to buy a New laptop Connex

------
paulie_a
Intel core constantly does this. They play dirty when AMD is consistently
kicking their ass

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bstar77
I guess this is what Intel has to do at this point. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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p1necone
Don't they do this every time they release new CPUs?

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aurizon
Intel has a long history of price gouging coupled with nefarious practices -
like this fakery. When did they turn to the dark side? 20 years ago it started
with their attempts to kill AMD.

------
moonbug
gamed benchmarks? in other news, ocean is wet.

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77pip2234
Why : is it to guard against AMD ?

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happy-go-lucky
A word in the title needs a spelling correction, please :)

~~~
tlb
Fixed, thanks

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exabrial
Pro tip: generic benchmarks, in general, are misleading.

~~~
stephencanon
All benchmarks are misleading.

~~~
VC999
Could you expand on that please

~~~
me_me_me
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.

~~~
deaddodo
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?

------
ComputerGuru
s/publises/publishes

(Bat signal @dang or anyone else)

Edit: thanks!

