4 ms·

Microsoft says security fixes will noticeably slow older PCs

40 points by JohnTHaller 9y ago

chrishynes 9y ago
Interesting that it's more substantial on older CPU's. The cynic in me wonders if that's a way to force an upgrade from CPU's that normally would be fine for most typical office use.
- Someone1234 9y ago
  This has absolutely destroyed Intel's reputation and handed a massive PR win to their competitors (including AMD). Hard to imagine any normal company cutting out their own feet so willingly, this will cost Intel a lot more than it will make them in short term revenue.
  - throwawayfinal 9y ago
    I'm not sure how they could have come out of this cleanly other than waving a wand and not having it happen? They pretty clearly owned up.
    - thisacctforreal 9y ago
      Did we see the same PR announcement? It was misleading in multiple ways.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      Really? I thought they were still denying that this is a flaw, and not, “working as intended.”
    - lovich 9y ago
      They sat on it for over quarter and gave no indication that any sort of trouble was coming up. The CEO even sold stock and made a profit after being made aware of the issue, but before having the issue be announced publicly. I would not classify that as clearly owning up
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  Do what i do, when my android phone constantly flashes a light & sound notification after finnishing loading the battery- call your software representetive. It really helps against insomnia, if you wake some poor android developer halft the world away in the middle of the night to suffer with you - for his implementation of planned obsolence. Two souls united in burning hatred.
Scaevolus 9y ago
An instruction added as a curiosity / micro-optimization back in 2010 is now very important. Previously: "PCID is now a critical performance/security feature on x86" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16094349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16094349
user5994461 9y ago
>>> If you're using a 4th-generation Core or older CPU, however, you'll see "more significant slowdowns," With server CPUs always being a few generations behind the desktop, this is gonna have massive impact on datacenters.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  Heh. Have you seen the Phoronix benchmarks? https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KPTI-Retpoline-Combined-Ubuntu https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KPTI-Ret... E3-1280 v5 goes from 32278.00 Apache requests per second to 25399.47 Requests per second. In other words, a Skylake Xeon performs like an Fx Bulldozer after the patch. And Skylake has the PCID instruction too. Although to be fair, static-file hosting is about as I/O bound as it gets, and these patches affect file I/O the most.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    Compile time slowdown looks pretty sad too. -21% is quite bad.
    - TheSleeprAwakns 9y ago
      Is there any idea when this will be fixed in hardware?

40 points by JohnTHaller 9y ago

Interesting that it's more substantial on older CPU's. The cynic in me wonders if that's a way to force an upgrade from CPU's that normally would be fine for most typical office use.

Someone1234 9y ago
This has absolutely destroyed Intel's reputation and handed a massive PR win to their competitors (including AMD). Hard to imagine any normal company cutting out their own feet so willingly, this will cost Intel a lot more than it will make them in short term revenue.
- throwawayfinal 9y ago
  I'm not sure how they could have come out of this cleanly other than waving a wand and not having it happen? They pretty clearly owned up.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    Did we see the same PR announcement? It was misleading in multiple ways.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Really? I thought they were still denying that this is a flaw, and not, “working as intended.”
  - lovich 9y ago
    They sat on it for over quarter and gave no indication that any sort of trouble was coming up. The CEO even sold stock and made a profit after being made aware of the issue, but before having the issue be announced publicly. I would not classify that as clearly owning up
WillReplyfFood 9y ago
Do what i do, when my android phone constantly flashes a light & sound notification after finnishing loading the battery- call your software representetive. It really helps against insomnia, if you wake some poor android developer halft the world away in the middle of the night to suffer with you - for his implementation of planned obsolence. Two souls united in burning hatred.

Scaevolus 9y ago

An instruction added as a curiosity / micro-optimization back in 2010 is now very important. Previously: "PCID is now a critical performance/security feature on x86" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16094349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16094349

user5994461 9y ago

>>> If you're using a 4th-generation Core or older CPU, however, you'll see "more significant slowdowns," With server CPUs always being a few generations behind the desktop, this is gonna have massive impact on datacenters.

dragontamer 9y ago
Heh. Have you seen the Phoronix benchmarks? https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KPTI-Retpoline-Combined-Ubuntu https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KPTI-Ret... E3-1280 v5 goes from 32278.00 Apache requests per second to 25399.47 Requests per second. In other words, a Skylake Xeon performs like an Fx Bulldozer after the patch. And Skylake has the PCID instruction too. Although to be fair, static-file hosting is about as I/O bound as it gets, and these patches affect file I/O the most.
- lostmsu 9y ago
  Compile time slowdown looks pretty sad too. -21% is quite bad.
  - TheSleeprAwakns 9y ago
    Is there any idea when this will be fixed in hardware?