Spectre/Meltdown/L1TF/MDS Mitigation Costs On An Intel Dual Core + HT Laptop

[GunpowaderGuy]

birdie the memory activation patterns initially used by rowhammer were mitigated by simple changes such as doubling the refresh rate . The current ones reliably work despite all software and hardware protections released since then

[ThoreauHD]

The people that are going to get F'd the most are the Chromebook on Linux crowd(GalliumOS).

[cfeck]

I don't understand why they keep patching holes on Intel CPUs. As long as you don't kill Intel Management Engine IME, you are actually exposed as a naked fly.

[Bsdisbetter]

Intel is a mess. I hope in a class action against this scammer!

Actually it's the architecture that's the problem:

https://secure64.com/not-vulnerable-intel-itanium-secure64-sourcet/

No problems with openvms on itaniums

[Spacefish]

First of all: thanks Michael for performing these benchmarks!

It is not the uArch it's the way Intel implemented their processors, they did some unsafe optimizations, which do not clear all shared resources after use. This could happen with arm as well, as we might have deep pipelines and implementations of the uArch might perform unsafe speculative execution of branches to increase performance.. they just don't do it, as ARM is mostly used on power sensitive devices and executing something "just in case" may waste power.

[willmore]

First of all: thanks Michael for performing these benchmarks!

It is not the uArch it's the way Intel implemented their processors, they did some unsafe optimizations, which do not clear all shared resources after use. This could happen with arm as well, as we might have deep pipelines and implementations of the uArch might perform unsafe speculative execution of branches to increase performance.. they just don't do it, as ARM is mostly used on power sensitive devices and executing something "just in case" may waste power.

"the way Intel implemented their processors" is the uArch. That's the part they broke. If you're trying to say that x86 isn't the fault, just the way that Intel implemented it, then that's the uArch, not the arch.

[ermo]

As someone who has a penchant for using older hardware -- albeit most of it AMD -- this has my attention. The newest piece of hardware I operate is a Skylake equipped dual core laptop with SMT.

Here's hoping Zen 2 isn't too vulnerable and errata ridden.

[bepvte]

Any idea which protections are the most important? I would like to regain some speed but I do believe I need some migitations. Which is the easiest or least easiest to execute?

[noangel]

Wow, the difference is huge. I'll think twice before buying Intel CPUs again. And they are still more expensive than CPUs from AMD!

[coder]

Phoronix: Spectre/Meltdown/L1TF/MDS Mitigation Costs On An Intel Dual Core + HT Laptop

Timed Kernel Compilation would've been nice to see, for those of use that do software development on our laptops.