6 ms·

I'm still not entirely sure why is Intel forced to do this? Is it only because they advertise that it optimizes equally well for any CPU? If not, then I don't r

by aeonsky 13y ago

I'm still not entirely sure why is Intel forced to do this? Is it only because they advertise that it optimizes equally well for any CPU? If not, then I don't really see why they can force them to provide another AMD-friendly version.

rcxdude 13y ago
It's because they specifically check for an intel chip, but the 'intel-optimised' version is also faster on AMD chips than the default (and they are well aware of this). Regardless of their advertising it's a scummy and anticompetitive move.
freehunter 13y ago
Intel is the market leader by a good margin, and in the past has been known to use unfair tactics to keep other players out of the market. AMD has been in a lot of lawsuits with Intel due to this. In this case, it's not just that Intel isn't playing nice with AMD, it's that they're specifically using poor optimizations during compile if you're not using an Intel processor. That's not by accident, that's done on purpose to make non-Intel processors seem worse. What you're allowed to do while competing in the market changes when you're the dominant player in the market.
- aeonsky 13y ago
  I am usually not a free market extremist, but if Intel makes an excellent software product after years and millions of dollars in R&D, and make it only work for certain platforms, power to them.
  - wmf 13y ago
    The problem is that they penalized AMD without telling anyone. The market only works if you know what you're buying.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikeash 13y ago
      To make an obligatory car analogy, imagine if Ford opened up gas stations that sold really good gas, but this gas was somehow made to run much less efficiently in non-Ford cars. And further that they didn't tell anyone this, and just left you to assume that if you filled up your Prius with Ford gas and subsequently got 20MPG, the car was to blame.
      - fnimick 13y ago
        It's even worse than that - since companies are distributing binaries compiled with icc, it's more like a Ford gas refinery distributing gas to normal gas stations that secretly runs terribly in other cars. There simply is no way for the consumer to know what they're getting.
        sitkack 13y ago
        This nock on effect is where the real harm is done. The fact that Intel is not checking for feature flags, but rather the existence of an Intel processor is actionable. They aren't following their own best practices for accessing optional features of the chip.
      - corresation 13y ago
        That analogy worked in 2005, but eight years on the fact that the Intel compiler optimizes primarily for Intel processors is common knowledge, and is explicitly stated by Intel repeatedly on all product materials. Invariably someone will bring up the "but what about benchmarks corrupted by this compiler" conspiracies, without a single example of a benchmark so contrived. It's worth noting that performance and processors isn't as simple as "it has the feature, so use it". Each instructions have timings that vary on different models, and something like SSE(2|3|4) or AVX(2|512) can vary dramatically in its net benefit or detriment by the number of words, alignment, and so on. Many people with the ICC and code that they think will be super fast using it often are surprised to find it hasn't chosen to use them at all, simple setup and teardown eating all possible benefit. In an ideal world we would have an open compilers that made best in class code for all major processors. Sadly that doesn't exist, and even now we have a case where a lot of the complaints about the ICC are "it crippled the code for my AMD....but still made better code than every other compiler".
  - Spooky23 13y ago
    You cannot give these companies an inch with stuff like this. In 2014, we're spoiled and for the most part don't realize that our network providers aren't the only potential toll keepers nickel and dimeing us. I don't know if you are familiar with mainframe or similar computing technologies. When you buy an IBM mainframe (or Power unix box to a lesser extent), you're essentially metered by a CPU budget. You're not permitted to use the full capacity of your system unless you pay. This case is a little different, but the point stands. Companies should not be allowed to sabotage the competition or hobble the ability of a device capable of doing a task from doing it. The free market works when the stakeholders don't cheat.
- corresation 13y ago
  Intel is not the market leader in compilers, however: It is somewhat rare to come across teams using the Intel compiler, and they tend to be in niche modeling/simulation or financial realms, more often than not with the sort of code that you compile for a specific piece of deployment hardware, compiling again when you move it to something different. Intel makes the ICC seemingly to try to encourage the adoption of newer features in newer processors -- multi-threading for many-core processors, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AVX, AVX2, soon AVX-512, etc. It is worth noting that simply using a feature (e.g. SSE, AVX) because it is there does not guarantee performance improvements in all scenarios -- the ICC uses specific model timings to make some of its choices. The obvious solution for this problem is to never have a reason to use the ICC compiler. For the auto-vectorization and use of things like AVX be as advanced in gcc, llvm, and even the Microsoft compiler.
  - wglb 13y ago
    Have you ever seen benchmarks to suggest that Intel is not the market leader in compilers is actually true?
    - corresation 13y ago
      That comment was in relation to market share, not performance. Few would argue that Intel has more than a low single-digit percentage market share of the overall compiler market. People should be far, far more concerned about how GCC, llvm and Visual Studio do in vectorizing code to SSE/AVX.
      - wglb 13y ago
        So if we were to define "market" as "compilers that people pay money for", would Intel be market leader then? (Certainly not a common definition, I agree.)
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    The gaming industry does use it quite often. It is the Watcom compiler of the modern times.
nkurz 13y ago
Yes, the this part of the settlement was based on buyers of Intel's compiler being misled into thinking that it produced good code for all processors. Intel is not forced to change their compiler to produce reasonable code on AMD, only to disclose this practice. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3839/intel-settles-with-the-ftc/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3839/intel-settles-with-the-ft... Intel's behavior continues to be scummy and reprehensible, but by adding the disclaimer to all pages regarding the compiler they are now legally compliant. Still, it's a good enough compiler that at times it may be worth using and patching the binary to avoid their dirty tricks.

by aeonsky 13y ago

rcxdude 13y ago

It's because they specifically check for an intel chip, but the 'intel-optimised' version is also faster on AMD chips than the default (and they are well aware of this). Regardless of their advertising it's a scummy and anticompetitive move.

freehunter 13y ago

Intel is the market leader by a good margin, and in the past has been known to use unfair tactics to keep other players out of the market. AMD has been in a lot of lawsuits with Intel due to this. In this case, it's not just that Intel isn't playing nice with AMD, it's that they're specifically using poor optimizations during compile if you're not using an Intel processor. That's not by accident, that's done on purpose to make non-Intel processors seem worse. What you're allowed to do while competing in the market changes when you're the dominant player in the market.

aeonsky 13y ago
I am usually not a free market extremist, but if Intel makes an excellent software product after years and millions of dollars in R&D, and make it only work for certain platforms, power to them.
- wmf 13y ago
  The problem is that they penalized AMD without telling anyone. The market only works if you know what you're buying.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikeash 13y ago
    To make an obligatory car analogy, imagine if Ford opened up gas stations that sold really good gas, but this gas was somehow made to run much less efficiently in non-Ford cars. And further that they didn't tell anyone this, and just left you to assume that if you filled up your Prius with Ford gas and subsequently got 20MPG, the car was to blame.
    - fnimick 13y ago
      It's even worse than that - since companies are distributing binaries compiled with icc, it's more like a Ford gas refinery distributing gas to normal gas stations that secretly runs terribly in other cars. There simply is no way for the consumer to know what they're getting.
      - sitkack 13y ago
        This nock on effect is where the real harm is done. The fact that Intel is not checking for feature flags, but rather the existence of an Intel processor is actionable. They aren't following their own best practices for accessing optional features of the chip.
    - corresation 13y ago
      That analogy worked in 2005, but eight years on the fact that the Intel compiler optimizes primarily for Intel processors is common knowledge, and is explicitly stated by Intel repeatedly on all product materials. Invariably someone will bring up the "but what about benchmarks corrupted by this compiler" conspiracies, without a single example of a benchmark so contrived. It's worth noting that performance and processors isn't as simple as "it has the feature, so use it". Each instructions have timings that vary on different models, and something like SSE(2|3|4) or AVX(2|512) can vary dramatically in its net benefit or detriment by the number of words, alignment, and so on. Many people with the ICC and code that they think will be super fast using it often are surprised to find it hasn't chosen to use them at all, simple setup and teardown eating all possible benefit. In an ideal world we would have an open compilers that made best in class code for all major processors. Sadly that doesn't exist, and even now we have a case where a lot of the complaints about the ICC are "it crippled the code for my AMD....but still made better code than every other compiler".
- Spooky23 13y ago
  You cannot give these companies an inch with stuff like this. In 2014, we're spoiled and for the most part don't realize that our network providers aren't the only potential toll keepers nickel and dimeing us. I don't know if you are familiar with mainframe or similar computing technologies. When you buy an IBM mainframe (or Power unix box to a lesser extent), you're essentially metered by a CPU budget. You're not permitted to use the full capacity of your system unless you pay. This case is a little different, but the point stands. Companies should not be allowed to sabotage the competition or hobble the ability of a device capable of doing a task from doing it. The free market works when the stakeholders don't cheat.
corresation 13y ago
Intel is not the market leader in compilers, however: It is somewhat rare to come across teams using the Intel compiler, and they tend to be in niche modeling/simulation or financial realms, more often than not with the sort of code that you compile for a specific piece of deployment hardware, compiling again when you move it to something different. Intel makes the ICC seemingly to try to encourage the adoption of newer features in newer processors -- multi-threading for many-core processors, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AVX, AVX2, soon AVX-512, etc. It is worth noting that simply using a feature (e.g. SSE, AVX) because it is there does not guarantee performance improvements in all scenarios -- the ICC uses specific model timings to make some of its choices. The obvious solution for this problem is to never have a reason to use the ICC compiler. For the auto-vectorization and use of things like AVX be as advanced in gcc, llvm, and even the Microsoft compiler.
- wglb 13y ago
  Have you ever seen benchmarks to suggest that Intel is not the market leader in compilers is actually true?
  - corresation 13y ago
    That comment was in relation to market share, not performance. Few would argue that Intel has more than a low single-digit percentage market share of the overall compiler market. People should be far, far more concerned about how GCC, llvm and Visual Studio do in vectorizing code to SSE/AVX.
    - wglb 13y ago
      So if we were to define "market" as "compilers that people pay money for", would Intel be market leader then? (Certainly not a common definition, I agree.)
- pjmlp 13y ago
  The gaming industry does use it quite often. It is the Watcom compiler of the modern times.

nkurz 13y ago

Yes, the this part of the settlement was based on buyers of Intel's compiler being misled into thinking that it produced good code for all processors. Intel is not forced to change their compiler to produce reasonable code on AMD, only to disclose this practice. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3839/intel-settles-with-the-ftc/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3839/intel-settles-with-the-ft... Intel's behavior continues to be scummy and reprehensible, but by adding the disclaimer to all pages regarding the compiler they are now legally compliant. Still, it's a good enough compiler that at times it may be worth using and patching the binary to avoid their dirty tricks.