4 ms·

The actual quote is: > Intel has already issued updates for the majority of processor products introduced within the past five years. By the end of next week,

The actual quote is: > Intel has already issued updates for the majority of processor products introduced within the past five years. By the end of next week, Intel expects to have issued updates for more than 90 percent of processor products introduced within the past five years. The post is silent on what will be done with older chips, it didn't say that they are not going to be updated. It makes sense that Intel prioritizes the newer chips.

ddebernardy 9y ago
It makes sense but 5-10 year old laptops aren't uncommon nowadays. Had this occurred 20 years ago nobody would have cared because computers would get replaced super fast anyway. Nowadays, even a geeky household can have 5+ year old CPUs lying around and still used.
- hug 9y ago
  Anecdotally: I game, compile, transcode, and do any other number of CPU-intensive tasks on my machine. My household is definitely "geeky". I still run an i7 2600k, which is a Sandy Bridge CPU introduced 7 years ago. I don't (didn't? may not?) have any pressing reason to upgrade, although I was considering it. Funnily enough, even before now I was considering the AMD Zen architecture, and although I'm still undecided I'm being pushed further and further towards AMD through ethical considerations alone.
  - gcbirzan 9y ago
    You won't need a microcode update. The microcode update is only needed for Broadwell and newer (for those, retpolines don't work). Also, hello, fellow 2600k owner :D
flukus 9y ago
Some careful wording there. I'm guessing that "introduced" means when they initially went on sale or something like that. I'd like to know what percentage of systems sold to consumers 2-3 years ago had processors that were "introduced" 5 or more years ago. It's similar to the absurdly short supported lifetime of many phones, they support them for "2 years after release" but in many cases people are still buying them brand new 2 years after release.
gcbirzan 9y ago
https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/01/Intel-Analysis-of-Speculative-Execution-Side-Channels.pdf https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/... - processors older than 5 years don't need a microcode update, and probably won't even benefit. The new instructions for preventing variant 2 is inferior to retpolines, even according to Intel...
- kbwt 9y ago
  > Note that the insertion of LFENCE must be done judiciously; if it is used too liberally, performance may be significantly compromised. Wow, as if we could press some magic button and it would pinpoint all the places where a branch condition involves user-controlled data. Of course Intel is downplaying this one to the max, the performance implications for a thorough fix are devastating.
  - gcbirzan 9y ago
    It's okay, retpolines are similarly so for C++: https://reviews.llvm.org/D41723 https://reviews.llvm.org/D41723 Again, obviously, not all indirect jumps need this, but still, Intel's fix might be even worse.
    - kbwt 9y ago
      It's not the indirect jumps that concern me but all the conditional branches, such as loop conditions.

ddebernardy 9y ago

It makes sense but 5-10 year old laptops aren't uncommon nowadays. Had this occurred 20 years ago nobody would have cared because computers would get replaced super fast anyway. Nowadays, even a geeky household can have 5+ year old CPUs lying around and still used.

hug 9y ago
Anecdotally: I game, compile, transcode, and do any other number of CPU-intensive tasks on my machine. My household is definitely "geeky". I still run an i7 2600k, which is a Sandy Bridge CPU introduced 7 years ago. I don't (didn't? may not?) have any pressing reason to upgrade, although I was considering it. Funnily enough, even before now I was considering the AMD Zen architecture, and although I'm still undecided I'm being pushed further and further towards AMD through ethical considerations alone.
- gcbirzan 9y ago
  You won't need a microcode update. The microcode update is only needed for Broadwell and newer (for those, retpolines don't work). Also, hello, fellow 2600k owner :D

flukus 9y ago

Some careful wording there. I'm guessing that "introduced" means when they initially went on sale or something like that. I'd like to know what percentage of systems sold to consumers 2-3 years ago had processors that were "introduced" 5 or more years ago. It's similar to the absurdly short supported lifetime of many phones, they support them for "2 years after release" but in many cases people are still buying them brand new 2 years after release.

gcbirzan 9y ago

https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/01/Intel-Analysis-of-Speculative-Execution-Side-Channels.pdf https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/... - processors older than 5 years don't need a microcode update, and probably won't even benefit. The new instructions for preventing variant 2 is inferior to retpolines, even according to Intel...

kbwt 9y ago
> Note that the insertion of LFENCE must be done judiciously; if it is used too liberally, performance may be significantly compromised. Wow, as if we could press some magic button and it would pinpoint all the places where a branch condition involves user-controlled data. Of course Intel is downplaying this one to the max, the performance implications for a thorough fix are devastating.
- gcbirzan 9y ago
  It's okay, retpolines are similarly so for C++: https://reviews.llvm.org/D41723 https://reviews.llvm.org/D41723 Again, obviously, not all indirect jumps need this, but still, Intel's fix might be even worse.
  - kbwt 9y ago
    It's not the indirect jumps that concern me but all the conditional branches, such as loop conditions.