PCMark Memory Benchmark Favors GenuineIntel

javy_tahu writes "A review by Ars Technica disclosed that PCMark 2005 Memory benchmark favors GenuineIntel CPUID. A VIA Nano CPU has had its CPUID changed from the original VIA to fake GenuineAMD and GenuineIntel. An improvement of, respectively, 10% and 47% of the score was seen. The reasons of this behavior of FutureMark product are not yet known."

Comments

Money

[TheRealMindChild]

The reasons of this behavior of FutureMark product are not yet known

Easy. Intel paid them to make it that way.

Re:Money

[ShieldW0lf]

Moral of the story is, when you're dealing with code like this, where it has the capacity to influence who receives billions of dollars and who doesn't, well, you can't trust it if it's closed source and not subject to public scrutiny.

Closed source test suites cannot be trusted, shouldn't even be considered by potential purchasers, and have been misleading the public for years and years. This is mute evidence to the fact.

Re:Money

[clickclickdrone]

This is just a classic example of amateur (poster) vs professional (Intel dev team).

Writes an (anonymous) Intel representative.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, sir, is the Internet, which you have won fair and square.

Re:Money

[Goaway]

"Everything I don't know how to do is easy!"

Possible semi-benign explaination?

[davidwr]

This definitely requires clarification from the creator of the benchmark.

It is possible that the benchmark uses the CPUID to change how the benchmark works, for example, to work around known flaws in a given chip. If this is the case, then the problem is not "omyghoshitplaysfavorites" but rather lack of full disclosure that the benchmarks are not directly comparable across different chips. In the most benign scenario, this could be someone at the benchmark creator's shop forgetting to tell the documentation team. This is still a very serious issue, but it's not fraud.

Moronic or Corrupt?

[OmniGeek]

Does it really matter whether the cause was "incredibly sloppy coding" or "Intel bribed them?" Either way, their benchmark cannot be trusted, and trustworthiness is ESSENTIAL for a benchmark. If anyone pays serious attention to this (which, having read TFA, it seems to merit), then FutureMark is toast.

Re:troll? really? mod up again!

[deanoaz]

>>> Contrary to the claims of OSS proponents, the code isn't really more trustworthy if it's open, because not all of us are programmers. If we were (hell, even if most of us were), that'd be true. As things are, though, closed source is only slightly less trustworthy than open source.

I disagree. At this point there is controversy. It will be explained by the vendor and people will have to either accept the explanation or not.
If it were open source, the facts of how the code behaves could be determined by third parties and publicized. We wouldn't have to take anyone's word for it.