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Do the new 8th gen Intel chips finally deal with Spectre/Meltdown issues in hardware or do they still depend on OS level fixes?

BeeOnRope 8y ago
8th gen (Coffee Lake) have the same uarch as Skylake and have no hardware fixes for Meltdown or Spectre.
- shaklee3 8y ago
  And no pcie4 either, unfortunately.
- GautamGoel 8y ago
  Yes, but 9th gen has fixes: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-review/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9...
ct520 8y ago
Sure they take care of it real well... in the OS.. can’t wait till this comes to windows by default. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-420-stibp&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-42...
ENOTTY 8y ago
Yes. I expect both vendors to reach parity with respect to mitigations of known speculative execution vulnerabilities. Whether their architectures have been fundamentally redesigned to make these issues more difficult to exploit is anyone's guess. Variant 1: Both AMD and Intel will continue to rely on OS patches. Variant 2: Both AMD and Intel will fix in silicon. Intel's fix comes in Cascade Lake. Variant 3 (aka Meltdown): AMD was not affected, Intel will fix it in silicon in Coffee Lake Refresh and Cascade Lake. Variant 4: Both AMD and Intel will rely on OS and Microcode patches L1TF: AMD was not affected, Intel will fix in silicon in Coffee Lake Refresh and Cascade Lake. I'll note that for the AMD products, this is my best guess from Lisa Su's comments. I do wish they put out a table like Intel did. [1]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13450/intels-new-core-and-xeon-w-processors-fixes-for-spectre-meltdown https://www.anandtech.com/show/13450/intels-new-core-and-xeo... [2]: https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-2-cpus-fix-spectre-exploit/ https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-2-cpus-fix-spectre-exploit/ EDIT: Replaced the Intel source with a better link
- linedash 8y ago
  Don't forget the recent seven additions to meltdown/spectre. It'll be interesting to see if the latest round of hardware protections help there.

BeeOnRope 8y ago

8th gen (Coffee Lake) have the same uarch as Skylake and have no hardware fixes for Meltdown or Spectre.

shaklee3 8y ago
And no pcie4 either, unfortunately.
GautamGoel 8y ago
Yes, but 9th gen has fixes: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-review/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9...

ct520 8y ago

Sure they take care of it real well... in the OS.. can’t wait till this comes to windows by default. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-420-stibp&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-42...

ENOTTY 8y ago

Yes. I expect both vendors to reach parity with respect to mitigations of known speculative execution vulnerabilities. Whether their architectures have been fundamentally redesigned to make these issues more difficult to exploit is anyone's guess. Variant 1: Both AMD and Intel will continue to rely on OS patches. Variant 2: Both AMD and Intel will fix in silicon. Intel's fix comes in Cascade Lake. Variant 3 (aka Meltdown): AMD was not affected, Intel will fix it in silicon in Coffee Lake Refresh and Cascade Lake. Variant 4: Both AMD and Intel will rely on OS and Microcode patches L1TF: AMD was not affected, Intel will fix in silicon in Coffee Lake Refresh and Cascade Lake. I'll note that for the AMD products, this is my best guess from Lisa Su's comments. I do wish they put out a table like Intel did. [1]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13450/intels-new-core-and-xeon-w-processors-fixes-for-spectre-meltdown https://www.anandtech.com/show/13450/intels-new-core-and-xeo... [2]: https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-2-cpus-fix-spectre-exploit/ https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-2-cpus-fix-spectre-exploit/ EDIT: Replaced the Intel source with a better link

linedash 8y ago
Don't forget the recent seven additions to meltdown/spectre. It'll be interesting to see if the latest round of hardware protections help there.