AMD Programmer Manual Update Points To PCID Support, Memory Protection Keys

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Programmer Manual Update Points To PCID Support, Memory Protection Keys

It looks like AMD Zen 3 CPUs will finally be supporting PCID! And memory protection keys are coming too, at least according to AMD's latest programmer reference manual...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-PRM-PCID-PKEY

[Social Justice Mage]

To be fair AMD builds fairly decent consumer CPUs, but they still have a long way to go to compete with Intel on the business market

[brad0]

but they still have a long way to go to compete with Intel on the business market

The same could be said about Intel. AMD is completely thrashing Intel.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Hm. Given that PCID helps with various mitigations, will we see further performance improvements on AMD CPUs from this?

[Black_Fox]

To be fair AMD builds fairly decent consumer CPUs, but they still have a long way to go to compete with Intel on the business market

I've been seeing this remark lately. While AMD's advantages in consumer market are quite evident at this point, I haven't seen any concrete information on AMD's shortcomings in the server area (meaning technical issues, not business ones). Could you point me in the direction of some articles, or elaborate yourself? Thanks.

[brent]

Yeah, I think AMD's shortcomings are mostly business and supply chain related. It's clearly a variant of the "nobody was ever fired for buying IBM" mantra.

[kobblestown]

Hm. Given that PCID helps with various mitigations, will we see further performance improvements on AMD CPUs from this?

Well, PCID helps mostly with Meltdown mitigations, which there is no need for on AMD processors. Of course, if the OS uses separate address spaces even though there's no need for it, the performance impact will be mitigated with PCID.