AMD CPU Microcode Will Be Getting Larger With Future Processors

[quaz0r]

AMD Management Engine 💀

[ssokolow]

AMD Management Engine 💀

They've had it for ages. They just call it the Secure Processor (formerly the PSP or Platform Security Processor). IIRC, it's an ARM core that they licensed ARM TrustZone for.

It's one of the reasons I'm still running an Athlon II X2 270 from 2011 and a BIOS-based motherboard to match. (To be fair, I'm probably going to upgrade to something Ryzen within the next year, but I wasn't even willing to consider it until the thing was a decade old and the pandemic had already screwed supply chains.)

[PublicNuisance]

Really gets me to wonder why so much microcode is necessary in the first place.

Indeed. One wouldn't have to wonder if the microcode updates were open source and able to be audited by anybody.