Massive security hole in CPU's incoming?Official Meltdown/Spectre Discussion Thread

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dark zero

Platinum Member
Jun 2, 2015
2,655
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Ouch... This is far worse than I expected... Is making the processor performance goes to even before the Sandy Bridge era....
 

FIVR

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2016
3,753
911
106
He'd be looking at jail if your implication is accurate.

Maybe a few years ago but in the current political climate there is almost no chance he will be prosecuted. Equifax CFO sold millions of dollars in stock and options after they found out about the hack and he is sitting pretty right now. I think BK with his well-known Trump connections will be fine.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
20,839
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I bet someone at the NSA is going
"DOH! we got caught trying to be big brother Trump... lets pretend like we dont know anything."

:X

but on another note...

If we do get a performance hit that big, Intel better be doing recalls... the chip is no good, infact its worse then last gen, and would make no sense to keep it over last gen.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
126
I bet someone at the NSA is going
"DOH! we got caught trying to be big brother Trump... lets pretend like we dont know anything."

:X

but on another note...

If we do get a performance hit that big, Intel better be doing recalls... the chip is no good, infact its worse then last gen, and would make no sense to keep it over last gen.

Yeah if this is true Epyc sales and market share really are going to be Epyc.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
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Several months ago I think there was a rumor was Intel managers were telling validation teams to hurry up. It's ridiculous because validation can't be sped up. Errors are caught over time, not at your will.

If that was true, then they would be paying the price for it. This bug, the minor bug Skylake-SP has(LSD), Atom C2000, Puma series modems, I woudn't be surprised if they were ALL affected by it. How unfortunate.
 

Dayman1225

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2017
1,152
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Several months ago I think there was a rumor was Intel managers were telling validation teams to hurry up. It's ridiculous because validation can't be sped up. Errors are caught over time, not at your will.

If that was true, then they would be paying the price for it. This bug, the minor bug Skylake-SP has(LSD), Atom C2000, Puma series modems, I woudn't be surprised if they were ALL affected by it. How unfortunate.

you mean this? https://danluu.com/cpu-bugs/
 
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StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
6,761
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Um....those are massive performance hits. We're not talking 1% here. Intel should recall every single CPU impacted if this is the case.
 

Dayman1225

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2017
1,152
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Um....those are massive performance hits. We're not talking 1% here. Intel should recall every single CPU impacted if this is the case.

So you want them to recall every CPU they've sold for the past 10 years? Yeah, um not happening....
 

mnewsham

Lifer
Oct 2, 2010
14,539
428
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Um....those are massive performance hits. We're not talking 1% here. Intel should recall every single CPU impacted if this is the case.
Lol, you're talking about probably 85% of computers sold in the last 8 years. That's hundreds of millions of computers. No recall is happening.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
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I remember when Linux had to re-write their page-table / -fault handling, when Intel came out with their Core2 line-up, because it further defined the behavior of how that all works, more specifically, than P4 and earlier, in which case "looser" code worked.
 

StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
6,761
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Clearly I'm talking about a recall under warranty. It's a faulty product, and in many countries that is a breach of warranty. Intel would be facing massive fines.
 
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Jan Olšan

Senior member
Jan 12, 2017
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I fear that if we made recall/replacement mandatory standard (which might not be possible with older CPUs or logic issues that can't be fixed just with some respin), it would make the business way too risky for the vendors.

Errata are not something you can completely rule out, they just happen, these chips are way too complex. Something like this can always happen and it would be unfortunate if a really massive recall actually killed essentially irreplaceable companies (it's mostly luck - probably - that it happened to Intel and not AMD, or VIA).

AMD TLB bug in Barcelona B2 didn't result in a recall either (although it was smaller in extent and not directly a security issue).

Newly released current Gen Coffee Lake is not effected by this bug correct?
Its architecture is old, I'd expect it is affected, Cannon Lake possibly too. If it was already fixed in it, that would likely mean Intel knew about the issue but didn't inform public/users to keep selling stuff.
 

DarkKnightDude

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
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Great way to start off the year...

What would the gaming impact be? I doubt most games really make all that many syscalls.
 

Justinbaileyman

Golden Member
Aug 17, 2013
1,980
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Well I just got my Rig on launch day and just cant afford a complete overhaul to switch back to AMD Ryzen. Guess I will just have to sit through BS this time around. I am hoping Video Encoding and Gaming isn't hit to hard with this bug.
 
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Eddward

Member
Apr 10, 2012
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It may be "old" but Intel has been fixing errata in the Skylake Core, from Skylake S through Coffee Lake S
True, Kaby and Coffee are basically newer revisions of Skylake core. Anyway Coffee retail chips are being produced since mid summer, so I doubt are not affected. And even if not then I dont understand the post above with benchmarks where is clearly performance hit on the Coffee Lake chips.