Spectre and Meltdown in Hardware: Intel Clarifies Whiskey Lake and Amber Lake

DooKey

DooKey

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Intel has said they are working on hardware fixes for Spectre and Meltdown, but they haven't been very specific about things lately. Anandtech decided to give them a ring and Intel told them a few more things about their upcoming processors. Amber Lake will not have any hardware fixes since it is basically Kaby Lake. Whiskey Lake will have some hardware fixes and Cascade Lake will have the most hardware fixes. Another thing that Intel did mention in their discussion was that Spectre Variant 2 hardware fixes will have minimal impact on performance.

The big performance marker is tackling Spectre Variant 2. When fixed in software, Intel expects a 3-10% drop in performance depending on the workload – when fixed in hardware, Intel says that performance drop is a lot less, but expects new platforms (like Cascade Lake) to offer better overall performance anyway.
 
So even with a hardware level fix there will be a percentage of performance loss? Ooh
 
Remember AMD has Spectre as well. They plan hw fixes in Zen2 (next year).

This is one reason why I don't have one of those gen 2 TR4 systems..
 
Chris_B said:
So even with a hardware level fix there will be a percentage of performance loss? Ooh
Click to expand...

The question is how much is a lot less than 3% to 10%? And is the 3% to 10% really accurate or a best case scenario.
 
drescherjm said:
Remember AMD has Spectre as well. They plan hw fixes in Zen2 (next year).

This is one reason why I don't have one of those gen 2 TR4 systems..
Click to expand...

Yes but they don't have Meltdown.
Meltdown is the (slightly) bigger issue since the fix for it causes a bigger performance impact than Spectre.
 
Rockenrooster said:
Yes but they don't have Meltdown.
Meltdown is the (slightly) bigger issue since the fix for it causes a bigger performance impact than Spectre.
Click to expand...

Meltdown is the easy one to fix of these. However yes it does have a larger performance impact in some situations with the current software / firmware fixes.
 
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I used to write all these long posts back in the day. A couple of scrolls, sometimes more! Now? Look at me. LOOK AT ME
 
Article aside, why would we believe anything from Anandtech or Toms now after the debacle that was the "Just buy it Shills". Both owned by the same company, to me both sites are avoid at all costs now. The info they provide has been poisoned.
 
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