[PC-BSD Testing] New blurb I thought some might like about AMD v Intel

[doverosx at gmail.com]

Arthur wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Matt Olander <matt at ixsystems.com 
>> <mailto:matt at ixsystems.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Arthur Koziol <A-Koziol at neiu.edu
>>     <mailto:A-Koziol at neiu.edu>> wrote:
>>     > On 01/04/2010 12:58 PM, Matt Olander wrote:
>>     >>
>>     >> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 10:34 AM, doverosx at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:doverosx at gmail.com> <doverosx at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:doverosx at gmail.com>>
>>     >>  wrote:
>>     >>
>>     >>>
>>     >>> Arthur Koziol wrote:
>>     >>>
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>>
>>     http://www.osnews.com/story/22683/Intel_Forced_to_Remove_Cripple_AMD_Function_from_Compiler_
>>
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>> Pretty evil if you asked me. Seems Intel is batting a
>>     thousand lately.
>>     >>>> Hope AMD takes 'em to the cleaners.
>>     >>>> _______________________________________________
>>     >>>> Testing mailing list
>>     >>>> Testing at lists.pcbsd.org <mailto:Testing at lists.pcbsd.org>
>>     >>>> http://lists.pcbsd.org/mailman/listinfo/testing
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>
>>     >>> Interesting...I thought it was a fact that WAS widely known
>>     and the
>>     >>> issue remedied by the order of the FTC in 2000-2001? Circa K7
>>     Athlons.
>>     >>>
>>     >>> Intel seems to be quite evil in how they handle some key
>>     operations, of
>>     >>> course, the way they have been "handling" business these days
>>     has earned
>>     >>> their appearance in an OpenBSD song ;).
>>     >>>
>>     >>
>>     >> It *is* the Intel Compiler, after all. Nobody has to use it
>>     and I'm
>>     >> not really sure why anybody would try to use it on a non-Intel
>>     system
>>     >> ;)
>>     >>
>>     >> -matt
>>     >>
>>     >
>>     > Matt,
>>     >
>>     > Bigger picture than just "use something else", imagine all the
>>     lost revenue
>>     > for AMD because something showed better benchmarks with Intel
>>     versus AMD and
>>     > someone went with Intel as a result. Evil is as evil does. It's
>>     funny though
>>     > that when you look at the TOP500, top 3 spots run AMD. HA!
>>
>>     Haha, good point, Arthur. It's definitely a shady thing to do on
>>     Intel's part but I'm just not surprised to find that an Intel
>>     Compiler
>>     would compile more efficiently on Intel CPU's. I can't imagine a
>>     large
>>     AMD cluster compiling their custom code on anything closed and
>>     Intel-specific like the Intel Compiler though. Ironically, we're
>>     trying to get some traction with Intel to get a modern port of the
>>     compiler on FreeBSD, along with some development tools that are
>>     currently Windows and Linux specific.
>>
>>     While AMD may have caught Intel with their pants down a few years ago
>>     and had the edge, there is no doubt that the tide has turned and
>>     Intel
>>     responded with very fast modern CPUs, regardless of what the code is
>>     compiled on. I'm sure we'll see AMD step it up in their next
>>     architecture :)
>>
>>     -matt
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Testing mailing list
>>     Testing at lists.pcbsd.org <mailto:Testing at lists.pcbsd.org>
>>     http://lists.pcbsd.org/mailman/listinfo/testing
>>
>>
>> I've been experimenting a bit with clang and llvm on FreeBSD/PC-BSD 
>> and Debian lately. I haven't tried doing any performance testing with 
>> the compiled executables against the Intel compiler, but it does 
>> compare favorably with gcc. Really close in execution time, but 
>> compiles FAR faster.
>
> CLANG, that's the one I was trying to think of. All those riding the 
> GCC sucks bus are fawning over it to take over as the default compiler.
>
> Arthur
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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> Testing at lists.pcbsd.org
> http://lists.pcbsd.org/mailman/listinfo/testing
>   
Onto compiler talk I see ;).

I hear PCC is a more likely candidate in the near but not-near future. 
Also is it true that FreeBSD isn't adopting GCC 4.3.X+ because of 
licensing discrepancies? There is a big performance gap between gcc 
4.2.1 and gcc 4.3.X that makes FreeBSD look bad in the useless 
benchmarks by phoronix.