Intel bug incoming? Meltdown and Spectre exploits

[Diddums]

Hate to say it but it probably effects 90% of the pop. If you have received and applied the various updates from Microsoft(if applicable) + bios update(if applicable) you should be fine.

This is based on you having a Intell CPU that is.

just make sure everything is up to date (OS web browser Bios etc) and you should be fine.

Cool, thanks

 

[jpaul]

Some fun performance regressions on servers with new microcode and OS patches:

is the disk benchmark software itself likely to be contributing to poor results, if it is accessing disk in manner that exacerbates problem or it needs a recompile ?

 

[fozza_99]

Asus have made an announcement regarding BIOS updates for a number of their boards. The list of board which are going to get that update is here.....

https://www.asus.com/News/V5urzYAT6myCC1o2?_ga=2.109660237.958891166.1515068667-676642648.1512981630

My SABERTOOTH Z170 S with updated BIOS 3703 is noted, but the BIOS has yet to be released.

Not sure if that list is final or complete but at least it indicates that the ones noted should get a BIOS update soon.

Spoiler: MOTHERBOARD list

Cheers .. Saves me checking again!

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Step 1:Check below to see if your motherboard has been impacted.

x99-A not on the list, so not impacted, unless that lists going to be updated as and when, as theres not many x99 boards on there, only 2x lol.

I'll keep a check, just incase.

 

[Randomface74]

They shouldn't really say "impacted" because it makes you think you're safe if you're not on the list.

 

[TrixP10]

Just in case anyone has a Lenovo product (ie laptop)

https://support.lenovo.com/be/en/solutions/len-18282

 

[smilingcrow]

Meltdown is an intel issue (ok and cortex but they're hardly used), they're just trying to spin it as everyone. Spectre is a different issue which is much less severe but can in some circumstances affect some rivals processors. To be clear this is very much an intel issue.

I write this as their effort at spin is working well as many people in here are repeating the pr line of it being everyone which is effectively wrong.

The person I responded to didn't mention Meltdown but was talking about Google who found and reported the 3 variants.
It's just as important that people realise that this whole issue impacts not just Intel as it is to recognise that Intel have been hit the hardest by far.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Google claims they already have a mitigation.

It's not hardware, but some software magic that will lessen the impact of patches.

This appears to be a workaround for Variant 2, that article is stupidly misleading as it suggests that this could mitigate the huge slow down caused by the fixes, but the slowdown is caused by the patch for variant 3.

Google doesn't say anything about preventing catastrophic slow down with it. Verge decided that a patch for Variant 2 somehow prevents slow down of the patch for variant 3, the article is just completely wrong.

Everyone has various work arounds to mitigate for variant 2. It's odd, people have been saying that variant 2 is hard to fix, but it's really very easy to mitigate. THe problem is you need almost per application mitigation and the reality there is most software won't get updated.

 

[Shac]

Online gaming affected.

https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/forums/news/announcements/132642-epic-services-stability-update

Without having read all 44 pages. So apologies if already viewed.

 

[TrixP10]

The person I responded to didn't mention Meltdown but was talking about Google who found and reported the 3 variants.
It's just as important that people realise that this whole issue impacts not just Intel as it is to recognise that Intel have been hit the hardest by far.

Everything that I own HTPC - PC's - Laptops are all AMD and I recognize that INTEL have a problem. I don't (yet)

 

[AndreiD]

Seems to be on the server side and one caveat is that Intel supposedly has some microcode updates coming to mitigate that performance loss.
Either way, the hyperscalers probably fleeced Intel for this bug, I can imagine they got some massive discounts on Skylake-SP.

 

[smilingcrow]

Everything that I own HTPC - PC's - Laptops are all AMD and I recognize that INTEL have a problem. I don't (yet)

From AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution

"Variant One Bounds Check Bypass Resolved by software / OS updates to be made available by system vendors and manufacturers."

It's a bigger issue for ARM than AMD so all 3 are impacted just by very different degrees.
My concern is that Spectre seems to be more of an unknown in terms of how it will unfold so I suggest everyone keep that in mind.

 

[ltron]

x99-A not on the list, so not impacted, unless that lists going to be updated as and when, as theres not many x99 boards on there, only 2x lol.

I'll keep a check, just incase.

The X99 chipset as a whole is impacted. Whether Asus choose to fix all models is another matter.

 

[TrixP10]

From AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution

"Variant One Bounds Check Bypass Resolved by software / OS updates to be made available by system vendors and manufacturers."

It's a bigger issue for ARM than AMD so all 3 are impacted just by very different degrees.
My concern is that Spectre seems to be more of an unknown in terms of how it will unfold so I suggest everyone keep that in mind.

My sentiments entirely. If there are fixes / updates to circumvent Spectre I will surely apply them. At the moment I am very relived that I do not have the hasle of Meltdown or the system degradation that the Meltdown fixes will incur.
Intel have and still are knowingly screwing their customers.

 

[sideways14a]

Hmm i bet i dont see an update for my Gigabyte X99 board, even if i do its going to cost something in SSD performance by the looks of things.
Ohh well just the final push to go back to AMD once the update to Ryzen appears in a few months - wont take much convincing even though this 5820k has been one of Intels better chips in the past few years.

 

[TrixP10]

Best selling cpu Amazon Germany - Ryzen 1600
Best selling cpu Amazon Japan - Ryzen 1700

Best selling cpu Amazon UK - Intel Pentium Dual-Core G4400 3.3

seems about right

 

[gavinh87]

Best selling cpu Amazon Germany - Ryzen 1600
Best selling cpu Amazon Japan - Ryzen 1700

Best selling cpu Amazon UK - Intel Pentium Dual-Core G4400 3.3

seems about right

Did you escape from r/ayymd?

 

[humbug]

Intel's problems are just getting started.

Those who have run comparison benchmarks after Firware updates are seeing performance degradation especially for solid state storage and software compiling, there are thousands of companies using thousands of Intel CPU's whose businesses depend on the performance of exactly those sort of workloads.
At least 3 unnamed California based companies have filed class action lawsuit against Intel over this, that number is likely to swell.

Millions Desktop and mobile users will have to have their hardware's firmware updated, this for machines going back a decade, as far back as X58 as there are still users of those products, Motherboard and/or OEM vendors will have to do that but its not them who will get lumbered with the bill, Intel will be paying for that.

This will cost Intel not just in huge amounts of money but also in reputation and yes AMD will gain kudos for having much more robust security in their hardware.

2018 has a whole lot of hurt in store for Intel

 

[LoadsaMoney]

 

[TrixP10]

This will cost Intel not just in huge amounts of money but also in reputation and yes AMD will gain kudos for having much more robust security in their hardware.

or not choosing performance over security