A Massive Intel Hardware Bug May Be on the Horizon

Mohonri said:
So here's my question: how long will it take for Intel to fix the hardware bug, prototype/test it, and get new CPUs to market? I imagine that between now and then, their corporate/business sales are going to tank badly--businesses are going to want to defer purchases until after new CPUs are available. Or they'll opt for Ryzen/Threadripper.
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They would have to redo their branch prediction on their processors, some have speculated that it would take a clean sheet redesign. No one really knows tho.
 
Attention: AMD is also being force feed this performance crushing updates - https://www.techpowerup.com/240187/...from-unwarranted-intel-vt-flaw-kernel-patches

However. fear not. if you're the technically savvy non-lazy type then this will never affect you.

Get you a copy of Windows 10 Lite V5 and then image your drive after you've updated all the drivers. I cannot speak for future versions.

Windows 10 Lite V5 has updates permanently turned off. Zero chance of being force-feed an update that will cripple your performance.

Second, your image can be restored in a matter of minutes on a daily basis.

As far as apps go, not an issue. Your Firefox / Chrome install syncs to the cloud.

As far as games go, you should be installing those on a 2nd drive. As long as you install Steam to that drive it will find the games thus avoiding having to download and install them again. Your game saved as saved to Steams cloud services.

This is how I do it and it works amazing well for me.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Attention: AMD is also being force feed this performance crushing updates - https://www.techpowerup.com/240187/...from-unwarranted-intel-vt-flaw-kernel-patches

However. fear not. if you're the technically savvy non-lazy type then this will never affect you.

Get you a copy of Windows 10 Lite V5 and then image your drive after you've updated all the drivers. I cannot speak for future versions.

Windows 10 Lite V5 has updates permanently turned off. Zero chance of being force-feed an update that will cripple your performance.

Second, your image can be restored in a matter of minutes on a daily basis.

As far as apps go, not an issue. Your Firefox / Chrome install syncs to the cloud.

As far as games go, you should be installing those on a 2nd drive. As long as you install Steam to that drive it will find the games thus avoiding having to download and install them again. Your game saved as saved to Steams cloud services.

This is how I do it and it works amazing well for me.
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This is on linux and the patch can easily be disabled and full performance retained on AMD systems.

Currently there is no information on the patch for windows.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Attention: AMD is also being force feed this performance crushing updates - https://www.techpowerup.com/240187/...from-unwarranted-intel-vt-flaw-kernel-patches

However. fear not. if you're the technically savvy non-lazy type then this will never affect you.

Get you a copy of Windows 10 Lite V5 and then image your drive after you've updated all the drivers. I cannot speak for future versions.

Windows 10 Lite V5 has updates permanently turned off. Zero chance of being force-feed an update that will cripple your performance.

Second, your image can be restored in a matter of minutes on a daily basis.

As far as apps go, not an issue. Your Firefox / Chrome install syncs to the cloud.

As far as games go, you should be installing those on a 2nd drive. As long as you install Steam to that drive it will find the games thus avoiding having to download and install them again. Your game saved as saved to Steams cloud services.

This is how I do it and it works amazing well for me.
Click to expand...

This appears to be such a low level and severe security issue I don't see how avoiding this update for Intel CPUs at least is a good idea.
 
Mohonri said:
So here's my question: how long will it take for Intel to fix the hardware bug, prototype/test it, and get new CPUs to market? I imagine that between now and then, their corporate/business sales are going to tank badly--businesses are going to want to defer purchases until after new CPUs are available. Or they'll opt for Ryzen/Threadripper.
Click to expand...

Usually 18 months but can maybe be pushed to 6 months for a paperlaunch if it's trivial fix.

Business as usual means 18 months time from design to product but there is numerous time frames to when certain thing could arrive, from first design is tested and is ready to start production or when they have first tested normal production chips or full on production and it's on the shelves... If they fixed it last year we might see it this year and if not you're not seeing a fixed cpu this year (Not that intel's lineup shows anything New in 2018 until late late q4).

Let's wait for timeline leaks and we can deduce what Intel is doing\have to do because of this bug.
 
Verado said:
Yeah this is a bummer.
With the 8 gen also affected i currently have no viable upgrade paths as i am all about single core performance memory bandwidth. So ryzen is out of the picture for me.
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interesting. What is your use case, if you don't mind me asking?
 
What is the impact on Oracle Databases as opposed to MSSQL databases... and generationally what CPU's are impacted.

MF we just refreshed our servers last year to new generation Xeon's... Yea.. intel is going to get sued for this one.
 
I wonder if a firmware fix is possible, or if they'll just let the operating system developers spend the time and money this round.
 
Grimlaking said:
What is the impact on Oracle Databases as opposed to MSSQL databases... and generationally what CPU's are impacted.

MF we just refreshed our servers last year to new generation Xeon's... Yea.. intel is going to get sued for this one.
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You run Oracle? That seems to indicate a stuffy corporate environment with piles of cash.

I guess you're on the same situation we were a little while ago: "Nobody ever for fired for buying blue."
 
GDI Lord said:
You run Oracle? That seems to indicate a stuffy corporate environment with piles of cash.

I guess you're on the same situation we were a little while ago: "Nobody ever for fired for buying blue."
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HA thankfully I'm not the architect that decided what hardware we put in place. Though I did influence it. My company thankfully won't blame people for making a decision they simply had NO information on the potential risk for.

This may be a patch we don't put on our DB servers...
 
heatlesssun said:
This appears to be such a low level and severe security issue I don't see how avoiding this update for Intel CPUs at least is a good idea.
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Then people are free to suck up and take the performance hit. I offered a very good solution. I have bookmarks. I use the same websites day in and day out. If I do visit new websites and somehow get infected then the following day when I re-image my drive ... I'm good to go.

35% performance hit? If true ... that's a devastating amount of lost performance.

I'm just not going to suck it up and take the performance hit.

There is nothing I do on my computer that I have to worry about.

All my financials are handled strictly on my phone. I get email alerts for every transaction. Maybe the rest of you are exposed. I'm not.
 
GDI Lord said:
I wonder if a firmware fix is possible, or if they'll just let the operating system developers spend the time and money this round.
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That is a good question.. if it is a firmware fix that would mean the CPU has updatable microcode in it? Or maybe just a bios flag that can fix this via a firmware update for the chipsets in question?
 
Grimlaking said:
Really that would be a shock to my ESXI hosts running guests consuming a lot less memory than allocated either hardware wise to the host or allocated to the guests running on that host. In windows yes... we always run SOME sort of virtual memory. Maybe this is where NVME and Octane will come in to play?
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ALL programs on Windows, Linux, and OSX use virtual memory. Virtual memory is not the page/swap file/partition. It's a method of isolating applications from each other so they don't have to worry about where other applications are putting their data. There's two sets of address spaces in a modern system. there's the virtual space where application memory is allocated, and the physical space where the OS/CPU actually puts the data and code that applications are storing. A set of page tables tells the OS/CPU where each application's virtual addresses are in the physical space. Applications know nothing about the physical address space, nor can they (normally) access it.

The page/swap file/partition is actually part of the physical address space.


GDI Lord said:
I wonder if a firmware fix is possible, or if they'll just let the operating system developers spend the time and money this round.
Click to expand...

If this is fixable with a microcode update, then a firmware fix is possible. If it's truly a hardware design flaw, then it'll have to have OS workarounds until new silicon can be released. Seeing how the focus seems to be on OS workarounds, I'd guess that a microcode fix may not be possible since the OS can update microcode too.
 
Grimlaking said:
This may be a patch we don't put on our DB servers...
Click to expand...
WSUS FTW!

Seeing your username pop up in my email, I mistakenly read it as "Grim Lake," the code name for the next Intel CPU family that will be released.
 
GDI Lord said:
WSUS FTW!

Seeing your username pop up in my email, I mistakenly read it as "Grim Lake," the code name for the next Intel CPU family that will be released.
Click to expand...
SCCM but same diff. ;)

I really am shocked at this. I don't see how intel shoves this down peoples throats and doesn't take a shot to the junk for it. I can see some spin coming off of this about how.. "When this was designed the ability of hackers... and the internet wasn't... the risk was not thought to be... well we're fucked really. Want some money?"

I'd love to see intel forced to pay for hardware refreshes for all customers since say... 2015 that purchased new line CPU's/Systems. That would put a 100-200 billion hit on them.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Attention: AMD is also being force feed this performance crushing updates - https://www.techpowerup.com/240187/...from-unwarranted-intel-vt-flaw-kernel-patches

However. fear not. if you're the technically savvy non-lazy type then this will never affect you.

Get you a copy of Windows 10 Lite V5 and then image your drive after you've updated all the drivers. I cannot speak for future versions.

Windows 10 Lite V5 has updates permanently turned off. Zero chance of being force-feed an update that will cripple your performance.

Second, your image can be restored in a matter of minutes on a daily basis.

As far as apps go, not an issue. Your Firefox / Chrome install syncs to the cloud.

As far as games go, you should be installing those on a 2nd drive. As long as you install Steam to that drive it will find the games thus avoiding having to download and install them again. Your game saved as saved to Steams cloud services.

This is how I do it and it works amazing well for me.
Click to expand...
Maybe not needed to go to those extremes:

hardware/comments/7nr7dy/_/ds46kfe

hardware/comments/7nqy3h/_/ds42kks

AMD does not have this particular security issue, looks like the patches will not totally include AMD, especially over time. Wonder when Microsoft will have their patch out?
 
SixFootDuo said:
Then people are free to suck up and take the performance hit. I offered a very good solution. I have bookmarks. I use the same websites day in and day out. If I do visit new websites and somehow get infected then the following day when I re-image my drive ... I'm good to go.

35% performance hit? If true ... that's a devastating amount of lost performance.

I'm just not going to suck it up and take the performance hit.

There is nothing I do on my computer that I have to worry about.

All my financials are handled strictly on my phone. I get email alerts for every transaction. Maybe the rest of you are exposed. I'm not.
Click to expand...

The risk implications of this are off the scale, there's no way anyone would want to do this if there was no better way to handle it.
 
noko said:
AMD does not have this particular security issue, looks like the patches will not totally include AMD, especially over time. Wonder when Microsoft will have their patch out?
Click to expand...

Apparently it's been in Windows 10 insider builds since November and seems to be on slate for this coming Patch Tuesday. Not sure about older Windows versions but as it's a severe security flaw it would have to be supported in 7 and 8.1 as well.
 
Mchart said:
That’s pretty scary. Anyone who chooses not to update isn’t being very smart.
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Yea it would have to be a truly isolated system to do that. MF this sucks. I expect someone big at Intel to take a shot to the face for this one and 'retire'. If not the whole company to shit the bed. Putting a 30% perofrmance hit (worst case scenario) on hosting companies is FUCKING HUGE.
 
heatlesssun said:
Apparently it's been in Windows 10 insider builds since November and seems to be on slate for this coming Patch Tuesday. Not sure about older Windows versions but as it's a severe security flaw it would have to be supported in 7 and 8.1 as well.
Click to expand...

if that's true I haven't noticed any slow down in new insider builds.
 
Megalith said:
There is mounting evidence that an Intel CPU bug, which could have lasting consequences for Amazon, Google, and other major cloud providers, is about to be disclosed. While a fix is in the pipeline, people say that it could impose performance penalties of as much as 35 percent. AMD chips are reportedly unaffected.

tl;dr: there is presently an embargoed security bug impacting apparently all contemporary CPU architectures that implement virtual memory, requiring hardware changes to fully resolve. Urgent development of a software mitigation is being done in the open and recently landed in the Linux kernel, and a similar mitigation began appearing in NT kernels in November. In the worst case, the software fix causes huge slowdowns in typical workloads.
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Honestly x86 would benefit a lot if a bit of FPGA was integrated into them...they could be used to fix these sorts of hardware flaws by leaving a bit of re-programmable headroom.
 
Headline from the future:
Intel Stock in undergoing massive rally, as people and corporations replace old Intel hardware known to be a mayor security risk, with NEW Intel hardware.
I mean really, I love AMD, and I am typing this in an AMD computer, but even if the hit in performance is 'massive' (I doubt it, maybe some very specific scenarios, and that might go away with in short order as programmer/companies optimize).. I mean, WTF people going to do?, AMD can't scale that fast... shit maybe Intel will just buy AMD, or even do a hostile takeover.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Headline from the future:
Intel Stock in undergoing massive rally, as people and corporations replace old Intel hardware known to be a mayor security risk, with NEW Intel hardware.
I mean really, I love AMD, and I am typing this in an AMD computer, but even if the hit in performance is 'massive' (I doubt it, maybe some very specific scenarios, and that might go away with in short order as programmer/companies optimize).. I mean, WTF people going to do?, AMD can't scale that fast... shit maybe Intel will just buy AMD, or even do a hostile takeover.
Click to expand...

I think the SEC would have something to say about Intel taking over AMD in any fashion.
 
drescherjm said:
I think this is a sign that Intel made some good choices 10+ years ago.
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Grimlaking said:
I think the SEC would have something to say about Intel taking over AMD in any fashion.
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Eh, maybe.. ten years ago surely.. now.. I think it would be fair to say, at least that most of the world's end-user computing is done on ARM-based devices.
Servers, I can't be sure, I know a lot of computing is moving to GPU, but that might be specific stuff though.
 
This seems like it will mostly hurt Virtualized Environments and IO intensive tasks. Good thing theres no money in those areas... /s
 
Mohonri said:
So here's my question: how long will it take for Intel to fix the hardware bug, prototype/test it, and get new CPUs to market? I imagine that between now and then, their corporate/business sales are going to tank badly--businesses are going to want to defer purchases until after new CPUs are available. Or they'll opt for Ryzen/Threadripper.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but Intel will panic that AMD is grabbing market share because servers have to be rolled out on a regular basis regardless. Why buy a known defective chip if a similar chip performs just as well on a similar platform for less money?

To compensate and get back into good graces, Intel will have to reduce profit margins. And the built up demand will be so high, no consumers will see any future variants (Ice Lake) in good supply for quite a while as business look to shore up their servers and early retire others.

This is a cluster....
 
Shintai said:
Lots of drama tho ;)
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Even if it is limited to 5% (more likely 10% as it's a lot of sql calls), all those corporate servers running on the cloud will be affected. Considering clock limits on Intels HEDT's, that means AMD is on par performance wise, more than ever and for less money.

Cry in your soup Shintai, you know it's true.
 
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