Eight new Spectre Variant Vulnerabilities for Intel Discovered - four of them critical
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nevcairiel
AMD has been susceptible to Spectre as well, and considering that this new finding does not only affect Intel, but ARM as well, its very well possible to also affect AMD. There is no information available about that in either direction afterall.
Fox2232
Intel reaps 7 years of higher sales due to having higher performance thanks to not secure implementations. I think they do not complain. It will hurt their sales for sure. But benefit they had in past...
Take i5-2500k at time of release of FX-8150. While FX chip was stronger as whole, performance per core was like 80% better on intel's side. For gaming and workloads using just 1~4 cores, i5 was clear winner.
But once all those patches are in place, what it will be like? Will i5-2500k retain at least 50% per core advantage over FX-8150?
If not: one can say that FX chip is baseline where 1C equals 1Perf.unit. So FX has 8Perf.units.
But i5 has 4C with let's say only 40% IPC bonus => 5.6Perf.units.
Suddenly even i7-2600K would not be so attractive as SMT on those gave like 30% bonus only and that would be around 7,28Perf.units.
I really wonder how all those people with older Intel's chip will do around xmas when it is all patched. If they suddenly feel itch for new CPU, will they get Intel again?
Embra
I am sure more will be discovered going forward. *sighs*
386SX
After my i7-3820 heard of Meltdown, it slowly melted down as instructed. Running a Ryzen build now. *lol*
Let's wait what happens next.
a) We cannot do anything about it. Bragging, swearing, crying ... does NOT help.
b) False information is the last thing which anyone who is possibly affected needs.
c) <> 🙂
EDIT:
Be thankful if more get discovered. They are already there, but haven't been found (or patched) yet. And almost nothing is worse than a 0-day.
alanm
There are over a billion PCs (as of 2008) worldwide, the majority which are vulnerable. What % of these can hackers breach and sift through passwords, credit card details, etc, before they get to you? Our biggest security remains safety in numbers.
Robbo9999
From what I know about the Spectre exploits - for everyday users at home on their PC it's not really a big thing: if you don't click on silly links in e-mails and maintain 'safe' computer practices then you'll be protected from Spectre - they have to compromise your PC first before they can launch the Spectre style attack. In other words, I think that if you know from past experience that your computer never gets infected with anything, then I think it's extremely unlikely to fall victim to a Spectre style attack, and therefore I believe the Spectre microcode protection to be not particularly important for savvy everyday PC users. That's my take on it. (And it follows that if your PC gets infected with stuff on a regular basis, then I think it's wise to ensure Spectre protection too).
fantaskarsef
Everybody knew that for multi core workloads AMD's more core approach was better, already back then... it's just that gaming traditionally did not need more than a single core (where Intel still gets aways better), but those things now slowly start to change. At least in theory, some games support 6 cores already, some games still run on a single core 😀
These days I'm more worried about my government exploiting any security flaws than about my credit card data. Credit card payment I can revoke within 14 days, with the current government here we're punished for the next years to come...
alanm
Why would your govt be interested in you specifically? Out of millions of other citizens is there a reason for them to focus on you? Or are you saying your govt is surveiling all of its citizens? Sounds like that would be a huge and costly undertaking which would be scandalous and politically suicidal for any govt to do (unless its a dictatorship).
RooiKreef
More patches and more performance drops??? Lol! soon we will have no processing power left in the tank, as our CPU's have to worry about running all the patches.
fantaskarsef
Who said me specifically? Ultimately questions of when a government uses exploits like these are politcal, or at least philosophical in nature, and that doesn't usually mean a single being or citizen.
I just don't think that giving anybody a way to exploit such a security flaw is a good idea, and no, not even governments.
(And my right wing, borderline nationalist, borderline neo nazi, borderline fascist government, I wouldn't even give my phone number and adress to them if they wouldn't have them already.)
Venix
Spoiler: "sorry i just had to make em a slogan !"
XP-200
Intel, the gift that keeps on giving. lol
asturur
Did they say if the security problem is also on the amd x86/x64 implementation?
RzrTrek
Do they even test their things, yes... (don't seems like it) and August is way into the future.
wavetrex
What I don't understand... on one's own gaming/media consumption/internet browsing machine ( computer at home ), with no VM's running and no foreign software which you didn't install...
...Why even care about Specter/Meltdown or anything similar (VM vulnerability cracks) ?
Dragondale13
It's not about Specter/Meltdown at that point.Manufacturers for everything PC that needs a driver to function is going to get "the vulnerability treatment" as well, through driver software, just in case customers' cpus aren't fully patched.
So regardless you'll see a performance drop or get bugs either way.
This sucks altogether....fuk away with Intel....I'm goin AMD on my next cpu upgrade.
easytomy
Oh boy... here we go again.
It's highly improbable that anyone will be able to "break" past the security of your random everyday Joe. However... big companies and organisations... that's where all hell will break loose.
easytomy
I'm a big fan of AMD, but I don't believe there's any processor or Operating System out there, that's risk-free. They just haven't found it yet.
The manufacturing technology and coding is getting insanely complex. Who knows what they'll find in Ryzen processors in 5-10 years time? Who knows what they'll find in Snapdragons in 1-2-3 years?
Dragondale13
My apologies...we'll still get forked in the performance dept though..hoping they can try and at least give us something back.
alanm
Even if they do break past security for the everyday Joe, there are over a billion average Joes wordwide. All the other Joes would be alerted far in advance. I still havent installed the CPU microcode bios update available for my chip due to that. I will wait until millions are complaining that their lives have been upturned before I do this.
