Looking out for number 1

[Rick Law]

You guys may already aware of the CPU bug known as Meltdown and Spectre which could enable one app from accessing data from other apps.  Affecting Apple, Android, etc., etc...

Business Insider (BI) January 3, 2018: Intel was aware of the chip vulnerability when its CEO sold off $24 million in company stock

"Intel CEO Brian Krzanich sold off a large portion of his stake in the company months after Google had informed the chipmaker of a significant security vulnerability in its flagship PC processors — but before the problem was publicly known."  [bold added]

^{http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-ceo-krzanich-sold-shares-after-company-was-informed-of-chip-flaw-2018-1}

To be fair, since this is deep in the article that some may not have seen: he knew in June and the stock was sold in November so he waited a while. But still, it is only this last week that the bug became public knowledge (dates according to BI).  So, it is insider-only knowledge when he did the stock transaction.  The subject said it all, "Looking out for number 1" here.

[rstofer]

It is important to understand the terms and conditions of stock options (assuming these were options).  In most cases they can't be exercised before a certain date and in others they must be exercised before a certain date.

I'm not saying that this applies to the CEO's options or even that they were options (but why would he buy stock when he is granted options?) but there is a possibility that the press doesn't know what they are talking about.

It could be a simple matter of the options expiring at the end of 2017.  It's not like the CEO didn't know that the imagery was all wrong and it's not like the transaction won't be in the SEC filings.  But there's no reason to leave a bunch of money on the table either.

[Mr. Scram]

I know this is unethical, but if I had multi million dollars of stock and I somehow managed to poke the knowledge that it will plummet in very short future, I would sell it as well.

Some people will choose to do this, and some of these people will go to prison for it. Real prison. Not the best environment for white collar villains.

Let's put it this way: if you already have millions in the bank and in investments, and you stand to take a hit, but avoiding it could mean losing your luxury life and going to jail. Would it still the same choice?

[helius]

It is important to understand the terms and conditions of stock options (assuming these were options).  In most cases they can't be exercised before a certain date and in others they must be exercised before a certain date.

Shares are not options, and any business magazine is aware of the difference. Exercising options is also not selling anything: it is a stock purchase for the strike price of the option.

I'm not saying that this applies to the CEO's options or even that they were options (but why would he buy stock when he is granted options?)

Options are usually granted to employees of pre-IPO startups as an incentive to stay with the company. To realize any value from an option you need to pay the strike price to own the stock. (When a company's stock price declines, it could trade for less than the strike price: in this case the options are said to be "underwater" and are completely worthless.) Mature companies have other tools to incentivize employees: you can find articles online that show Intel replaced options with restricted stock grants in 2006.

[cdev]

The people who do that kind of thing habitually are now in control, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

[cdev]

I'm sure if there was political upheaval in other countries the crooks from around the world could count on getting asylum here. Lots of dictators have done that, actually. 

Many have gone to Hawaii.  They can keep all their wealth and live like kings. Sometimes they have to leave quickly and don't get to pack their things.

Like the Marcoses. Imelda had to leave 2700 pairs of shoes behind.

[Mr. Scram]

That guy is Intel CEO, he is smart. He will definitely calculate the risk, and make it virtually unprovable that his trading has anything to do with this incident. And I won't be surprised if he has a few accounts in some autonomous islands and probably a permanent residency there.
Most first generation rich people in China (got rich in the 80s/90s) gained their wealth by illegal means such as arbitrage with internal information or illegal gaining of government property, and most of them have accounts in HK to not to raise a flag in Chinese banking system.
Many of them also have permanent residency in places like Singapore or Canada where a green card can be gained and maintained without physical residency, so one can conduct business in China just like everyone else, and when their old crimes decades ago get revealed, they run abroad and join local anti communism group and claim political asylum.
Here in where I live (NC, USA), there are a few Chinese lawyers doing this for a living. Those so called immigration lawyers provide wealth transferring, real estate investment management and political asylum immigration services for corrupted Chinese riches and government officers.

Being smart isn't enough, and thinking you can play the system isn't either. Some get away with it, but others get to be an example. You don't want to be an example.

[rstofer]

Shares are not options, and any business magazine is aware of the difference. Exercising options is also not selling anything: it is a stock purchase for the strike price of the option.

Trust me when I say this, I know EXACTLY how stock options work.  I have exercised a bunch of them.  Not in the millions, obviously, but in the several tens of thousands.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can exercise their stock options for the strike price.  To buy out $20M worth of options usually involves a short term loan of $20M (by the company) to purchase the options which is repaid out of the sale of the shares.  It's done all the tiime...

I went to work for a company and they gave me a bunch of options with a $50 option price.  A year later, when they could be exercised, the stock was trading at $26.  To their credit, the company renegotiated all of the options issued the year I was hired.

Start-ups do a lot with options but there is the risk that the entire venture goes down the drain.  Established companies also try to motivate key employees with options.  The company does well, the employees do well.  A side issue is that the options can't be exercised before a certain date - helps with retention when the share price is higher than the option price.

There is no way a CEO buys stock in his own company out of his own pocket.  Part of his compensation package will include a bunch of options.  If the CEO drives the company upward, the options are part of his compensation and motivation.

I don't know exactly how the CEO of Intel is rewarded but I would bet that there is company stock grants or options involved somewhere.  Nobody works for wages at that level.

[helius]

There were changes in accounting practices some years ago that forced many companies to change how they give out options. I think the gist of it is that options now have to be counted as liabilities against the company's balance sheet, because the holder can exercise them to purchase stock for less than its par value.

[Electro Detective]

and this is why I buy the latest top of the line PC.. when it is 3 to 5 years old, and avoid all the Intel hardware BS that goes on 

Besides, the multicore AMDs sell for cheap and work just as well if not better  

The Intel INSIDER grabbed the cash and did a runner while the getting was good     

Perhaps he'll be brought to justice by Batman and share a cell with Hillary and others... in 3018 AD   

[nidlaX]

and this is why I buy the latest top of the line PC.. when it is 3 to 5 years old, and avoid all the Intel hardware BS that goes on 

That makes absolutely no sense in this context. 20 years of processor architecture are affected by these bugs. On the other hand, would you wait 3 to 5 years to buy a design that's fixed?

[Electro Detective]

I've done side by side comparisons with AMD and Intel across many 'generations', and both will run operating systems, software and surf the internet with the same efficiency

I have yet to cop a processor 'bug' from either that caused issues, and suspect it's always been just more scare sh!t to keep consumer bunnies freaked   

and spending/upgrading/going Mac/Linux whatever   

and something to blab about at gamer and security forums 
 

[rstofer]

If you read a better accounting of what happened, you will see that the transaction was planned and executed under terms set by Intel specifically to avoid being accused of insider trading.  There is an SEC filing that discloses everything there is to know about the transaction.

Some of the stock sold was from an options plan and some was personally owned.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/intel-ceo-reportedly-sold-shares-after-the-company-already-knew-about-massive-security-flaws.html

The filing showed that the sales were part of a 10b5-1 plan, which was created on Oct. 30, just a month before Krzanich sold the shares. The 10b5-1 is a trading plan that company executives set up to sell stocks they own at a pre-determined time so that they are not accused of insider trading.

Every time a CEO exercises options, there is the appearance of insider trading.  The thing is, these sales are fully disclosed to the SEC in the various company filings.  The appearance of insider trading goes a lot farther down the chain of command than just the CEO.

There's nothing to see here...  Except the bit where the CEO now only has 250,000 shares, the minimum allowed by Intel.  That sounds like a guy getting ready to retire.  Or he is expecting another grant.

The share price of Intel may have taken a little hit on the disclosure but, overall, the stock is at the high end of the 3 month trading range.  Not the absolute high but very high on the range.  No real damage to stockholders of which I am one.

[Mr. Scram]

]This bug affects many Intel chips from way, way back, so a 5 year PC won't be immune. Also, Intel is only going to release kernel fix for their chips made in the past 5 years, so if you run Windows (which Intel provides bug patch, not Linux community) on a 6 years old chip, you are still in trouble should someone exploits that bug on your computer.

Also, AMD is not good for all users. For gamers, especially for those playing less than optimally optimized games like PUBG, single core CPU performance and high bandwidth, low CL RAM are crucial to FPS, and Intel 7700k/8600k/8700k with XMP (officially overclocked) DDR4 3200 CL14 RAM are the only options for pumping stable 144FPS/165FPS on a professional high FPS eSport monitor at ultra high setting.

AMD's higher energy efficiency at less advanced silicon technology isn't from thin air. They used so called neural network branch prediction and very, very aggressive power management to achieve those. As a result, thogugh average performance is great, there's no guarantee for worst case performance, and hence in demanding video games, FPS jumps drastically. The same 100FPS average form an AMD platform is not the same 100FPS from an Intel platform. The 100FPS from Intel means almost a flat line, while the AMD 100FPS means 50FPS min and 150FPS max.

Personally I'm not into this thing, and maybe in a few years, I will consider server/workstation level Zen2/Zen3, but just to say, some people do care about crazy high and stable single core performance.

I don't know where you got your information from, but it seems to be the opposite of what the benchmarks said after the release of Ryzen. The average framerate in games was lower on Ryzen, but Intel chips showed more variance in the framerate. Many reported a smoother experience on Ryzen, despite the traditional numbers suggesting something else.

This was right after the release of Ryzen, so I expect things to be more optimized on the AMD side of things by now. There were a few obvious kinks that needed to be worked out.

[Mr. Scram]

If you read a better accounting of what happened, you will see that the transaction was planned and executed under terms set by Intel specifically to avoid being accused of insider trading.  There is an SEC filing that discloses everything there is to know about the transaction.

Some of the stock sold was from an options plan and some was personally owned.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/intel-ceo-reportedly-sold-shares-after-the-company-already-knew-about-massive-security-flaws.html

Every time a CEO exercises options, there is the appearance of insider trading.  The thing is, these sales are fully disclosed to the SEC in the various company filings.  The appearance of insider trading goes a lot farther down the chain of command than just the CEO.

There's nothing to see here...  Except the bit where the CEO now only has 250,000 shares, the minimum allowed by Intel.  That sounds like a guy getting ready to retire.  Or he is expecting another grant.

The share price of Intel may have taken a little hit on the disclosure but, overall, the stock is at the high end of the 3 month trading range.  Not the absolute high but very high on the range.  No real damage to stockholders of which I am one.

I think the realization that other brands are hit too, and that many companies will need or want to buy new hardware has softened the blow. It's not as if people are suddenly going to go to another manufacturer for their server hardware, though both AMD and the sales of the relatively new ARM servers might benefit.

[wraper]

blueskull, you likely see the pictures, but the rest just see the message in Chinese. Likely something like images should not be linked.

[wraper]

This was right after the release of Ryzen, so I expect things to be more optimized on the AMD side of things by now. There were a few obvious kinks that needed to be worked out.

Early Ryzen benchmarks certainly do not hold well. Many games got patched, but most importantly, bios updates had drastic impact on gaming performance. Also RAM support greatly improved since then and most sticks can be run just as fast as on intel.

[wraper]

All FPS curves are tested with PBUG.

PUBG is very unoptimized, actually it left early access on Dec 22, so that test most likely is outdated. Performance sucks on any hardware but it especially ir doesn't like Ryzen. With most other games minimum fps on Ryzen is not any worse than on intel.

[Mr. Scram]

To certain degree, yes, but RAM support still sucks. Intel CPUs have RAM controllers that can be overclocked to support up to DDR4 4200 even without increased voltage (XMP has already increased RAM voltage to 1.35V, no extra voltage tweaking needed). Ryzen can hardly do 3200, and that requires specific RAM chips, mostly Samsung B-die chips.

With most standard non-Ryzen certified XMP RAMs, they can easily do 3200+ on Intel platforms, but only 2400, or if you are lucky, 2666, on Ryzen.

Isn't that last bit obvious? These modules were tweaked to work well on Intel platforms when that was the only performance platform, of course you aren't going to pop them in any Ryzen system and expect similar performance. Manufacturers are still catching up.

[wraper]

If you look at mid range, like $220-$250, Ryzen beats intel in gaming performance. Only if you take the expensive end, then intel is ahead in gaming (not always).

[wraper]

Also, for competitive, professional eSports athletes, minimum deviation of frame generation time is also crucial

Ryzen is better at this, it keeps low frame time in many situations when intel lags.

[Mr. Scram]

That's the point. GTA V started as single core manic as well, so do many others, and optimization kicks in later.
The point is, for gamers looking for the latest, hottest games, Intel's higher single core performance and higher RAM performance stands a good chance.
Ask yourself, do you still see anyone playing GTA V nowadays? It's like PUBG is taking over the video game world, just like Overwatch did last year, and GTA V did one year before.

And yes, I did pick test running on 1080p or 2k with GTX 1070+ GPU because at higher resolution, GPU starts to limit performance, and you only see CPU bound performance with a super high end GPU at lower resolution.

Also, for competitive, professional eSports athletes, minimum deviation of frame generation time is also crucial because they usually will not enable VSYNC to try to gain even a little bit of timing advantage, and yes, under extreme training, human can detect changes happening milliseconds earlier and takes advantage of that. Without VSYNC, smooth frame generation time is crucial. Many online competitive games like LoL have essentially zero multi core optimization, so a crazy 5GHz i3 7350K can beat the shit out of an R7 1800X at 4GHz.

Intel had a marginally better IPC performance of up to 10% depending on the application. However, the mitigation of Meltdown may very well decimate that difference and hand AMD the crown. The recent AMD offerings are really suprisingly competitive and now the little advantage Intel had may have evaporated. The market is still adjusting, but it's obvious Intel is sweating it.

You're right that Intel plays their marketing right, but there too AMD seems to have caught up. Of course, Intel has traditionally played all sorts of nasty tricks, which is probably one of the reasons they're still ahead. I doubt they cleaned up their act completely, but they can expect a lot more scrutiny than before for sure.

[Mr. Scram]

Latest game benchmarks show Intel doesn't suffer much from performance hit cause by this incident. SYSCALL intensive tasks like file IO, database, compiling, etc. suffer a lot, but CPU computation intensive tasks like gaming or rendering suffer little.
Intel's IPC advantage is not the most point of advantage, the biggest advantage is overclock capability. i7 8700k officially automatically turbo boosts to 4.7GHz, and with manual overclocking (delidded, tooth paste replaced with liquid metal), 4.9GHz is average result, and 5.0GHz is possible with a bit of luck, at 6 cores/12 threads.

Both are bad news for the server market. No one sensible will overclock a production server and database, file and and hypervisor tasks seem hit relatively hard by Meltdown. That's basically the three main tasks of modern servers.

In regards to gaming it's good to note that it is AMD's first generation of this chip. Good overclocking capabilities are typically something that comes from understanding the manufacturing process properly and that comes with experience. The more you tinker with producing something, the better the yields typically are and tge better performing the chips will be.

[wraper]

Both are bad news for the server market. No one sensible will overclock a production server and database, file and and hypervisor tasks seem hit relatively hard by Meltdown. That's basically the three main tasks of modern servers.

In regards to gaming it's good to note that it is AMD's first generation of this chip. Good overclocking capabilities are typically something that comes from understanding the manufacturing process properly and that comes with experience. The more you tinker with producing something, the better the yields typically are and tge better performing the chips will be.

Yep, gaming servers got a huge hit by meltdown patch.

Epic Services & Stability Update
Yesterday, 06:49 PM
Attention Fortnite community,

We wanted to provide a bit more context for the most recent login issues and service instability. All of our cloud services are affected by updates required to mitigate the Meltdown vulnerability. We heavily rely on cloud services to run our back-end and we may experience further service issues due to ongoing updates.
...
The following chart shows the significant impact on CPU usage of one of our back-end services after a host was patched to address the Meltdown vulnerability.