Make JavaScript run as fast as possible on your chips.
There, now you don't need to collect any data.
There, now you don't need to collect any data.
Instructions unclear, got speculative execution attacks. Slapped a fix, now everything runs slow.
The characteristics (memory access, numeric operations, etc) are complex and simply saying “make all of it fast” isn’t helpful - presumably intel is trying to make their chips faster at everything in general, but if they find that there are a few particular bottlenecks maybe they could allocate more resources/surface area to those particular instructions, etc
Not saying this is a remotely sane way to do the study, just that's probably the rationale
If that's not enough, they could also require all their contractors to opt their households in.