Benchmarking The Performance Impact Of Linux 5.15's Newest Protection Around Side Channel Attacks

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 3 September 2021 at 09:05 AM EDT. Page 2 of 5. 13 Comments.
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS

For Linux gamers, there wasn't any observed performance penalty from running the ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS-enabled kernel build.

5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS

In a majority of the benchmarks ran, the performance difference was indeed flat or less than 1%.

5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS

Even in database tests there wasn't any measurable difference.


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