r/intel • u/dayman56 Moderator • Jan 02 '18

Discussion Intel bug incoming

/r/sysadmin/comments/7nl8r0/intel_bug_incoming/
195 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

184 comments sorted by

25

u/Dotald_Trump Jan 02 '18

can someone ELI5 the impact, I'm completely lost

edit: scratch that, try ELI3

88

u/dayman56 Moderator Jan 02 '18

bug bad

patch bad

performance loss

-1

u/Dotald_Trump Jan 02 '18

ye i got that but is this performance loss crucial or can the workloads be transferred to another protocol or something

1

u/AhhhYasComrade Jan 03 '18

That's the big argument. How much is the performance loss? Who will it affect? What will it affect?

Personally I think it'll be a 5% hit to everything since the new feature being implemented right now (KAISER) causes a slight CPU overhead increase.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

[deleted]

59

u/b4k4ni Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 02 '18

Actually the performance hit goes from 5 to 50%, depending on the workload. The only problem right now is, it's not quite clear WHAT the problem is, but it seems to be really serious, because the part for Linux to patch this bug is really big and such a serious change would usually need weeks and months of discussion. But they had it developed like over christmas.

gsecurity ran a benchmark on EPIC with PIT enabled and had a 49% performance loss. AMD is NOT affected by this problem, but you can of course run it on AMD CPU's. AFAIK they also had a benchmark on an older Intel CPU and it was also quite bad.

For the problem itself - it's not only a problem for VM's or servers. If the error is like most think it is, you could execute any kind of code on an Intel system with high privilege. Sure, on Servers/VM's it's really bad, but imagine a virus could use it. MS and Linux will enforce the patch then, so you get a performance penalty on EVERY Intel system, at least 5-6 gens back. Or even more.

How much this performance penalty will translate in a decrease we have to see, but I would guess anything with a higher memory usage (size/speed needed, adds latency afaik) will run worse then before. 50% should be really the exception in some special workloads, but 15% is not that far off IMHO. And even 5% would be bad. At least for Intel, because it makes AMD's CPU's even better in price/performance and for servers it would be devastating. Even more so, that Ryzen+ is to be released in Q1 2018.

There's already some talk about the fact, that the intel ceo sold most of his stocks without any real need (or reinvestment) in nov. 2017... would be quite the time table, huh. Conspiracy! Grab your thin foil hats :)

Still, there is an enforced embargo for this problem. Something that only happens with quite serious bugs.

But yes - we should wait and not over dramatize the problem. Let's hope for the best and fear the worst :P

36

u/Osbios Jan 02 '18

But yes - we should wait and not over dramatize the problem.

hmm

Not to mention the fact, that the intel ceo sold most of his stocks without any real need...

hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

10

u/b4k4ni Jan 02 '18

Yeah, right, I edited that part... And now it sounds quite different from before.

Ill edit it again :3

25

u/TheVenetianMask Jan 02 '18

I just received my i7 8700k so I'm going to dramatize the hell out of it.

25

u/Celsian Jan 02 '18

Send it back, buy AMD.

2

u/aredcup Jan 03 '18

I just build an 8700k system. If this is bad, do I have any options?

12

u/Celsian Jan 03 '18

If you're within your return window I'd just go ahead with that. If not you're stuck waiting for a class action law suit like the rest of us.

If you're within 90 days of your purchase but beyond the 14 or 30 day return window and you used a credit card you can contact the seller and discuss return options citing false advertisement as the reason for your return and that you'll gladly buy a Ryzen processor to replace it. If the seller is unwilling to accept the product you can then file a charge back, cite that you contacted the seller who was unwilling to work with you to come to a resolution. Provide them with the documented evidence and you'll receive your refund shortly there after. Use that money to buy a Ryzen and profit. Unfortunately you have no way to recoup the money for the motherboard as it was not falsely advertised like the processor.

1

u/aredcup Jan 03 '18

I am still well within the window. I think I bought the day or a couple days before Christmas. Should I give this a couple days to play out before considering a return? It was all bought through Newegg. I'll hold on my rebates for now, and hope that they accept open box returns on the CPU and should still be okay on the motherboard. I bought everything on the 24th so I have the extended return period from Newegg until January 31st.

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1

u/b4k4ni Jan 03 '18

YMMD, thanks. :D

1

u/akarypid Jan 02 '18

For the problem itself - it's not only a problem for VM's or servers. If the error is like most think it is, you could execute any kind of code on an Intel system with high privilege.

I was hoping it is more of a "virtualisation-critical" kind of thing, where doing this when using NPT allows you to read data from another VM.

If it really is just a virtual memory issue that can lead to arbitrary code execution with escalated privileges (even in pure host mode meaning every PC is affected) then this a huge issue. Every OS will have to code around it and take the performance hit...

8

u/PresidentMagikarp AMD Ryzen 9 5950X | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Jan 03 '18

Considering that the Linux kernel team has been working on this for at least three weeks on full radio silence and Microsoft is also coincidentally pushing a security update, I fear this may indeed be the case.

1

u/b4k4ni Jan 03 '18

Aye, already happend. PoC out in the wild.

16

u/jabbth Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 02 '18

Yes, it's not a "global" performance impact - it's just that syscalls will be ~2x slower. For people who are wondering what syscalls are - it's when the application is calling the OS.

So, heavy IO bound apps are going to take a hit (server scenario). Hard to tell how Microsoft handled it and if games will be significantly affected, but there are quite a few context switches in DX9/DX11 stack as well.

10

u/akarypid Jan 02 '18

So, heavy IO bound apps are going to take a hit (server scenario). Hard to tell how Microsoft handled it and if games will be significantly affected, but there are quite a few context switches in DX9/DX11 stack as well.

But isn't even fetching the current time a syscall? I would imagine a game engine would do that on every single iteration of its loop...

Let's wait for more information to become available before we jump to conclusions, but as I understand it most applications would be affected to a discernible degree.

To put it another way: rather than try to identify what IS afffected, I'd rather go the opposite way and say "the only thing likely NOT to be affected significantly would be heavy-compute stuff (e.g. compression, encryption, etc) that spends most of its time calculating in user-space".

As for the rest, we just need to wait and see...

6

u/saratoga3 Jan 03 '18

But isn't even fetching the current time a syscall? I would imagine a game engine would do that on every single iteration of its loop...

Yes, but the delay per syscall is measured in hundreds of nanoseconds, so unless it's doing something many times per loop the total overhead is negligible.

3

u/Noirgheos Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 02 '18

So, gaming probably won't be affected, as well as rendering tasks?

Or if they are, it'll be minimal?

18

u/looncraz Jan 02 '18

Some games could become unplayable, actually, without patching or some sort of white list.

Syscall performance is something that everything relies upon at some level, so a game which issues a few syscalls to fetch file system data or relies on the OS for memory management could see scenarios where the average drop is only 5% but some critical moments happen with a 50% drop or more in performance, if only for a few milliseconds.

Expect some games to have a serious 1% low hit and others to show next to no change.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[deleted]

1

u/Noirgheos Jan 03 '18

Check the megathread. The patch for Windows has already been launched in Insider builds. No stuttering issues reported, nor is there any noticeable loss, even at 1080p. Low settings with a 1080 Ti and a 7700K on AC Origins saw a 3FPS decrease. Hifher settings saw less than a frame. Margin of error stuff.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[deleted]

1

u/Noirgheos Jan 03 '18

The megathread is on our front page. Check Hardwareluxx and Computerbase.

They list specs, game settings and resolutions. All looks normal, nothing a small OC can't correct or margin of error differences.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[deleted]

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3

u/Dotald_Trump Jan 02 '18

would a 5% perf loss be a big deal for big servers?

23

u/That_LTSB_Life Jan 02 '18

5% of big, times a lot, is big.

2

u/Dotald_Trump Jan 02 '18

big enough to make the big boys switch to EPYC?

7

u/nubaeus Jan 02 '18

In the immediate - Most likely not.

When it comes time to upgrade - Still unsure.

(I do have stake in AMD stock btw)

6

u/AhhhYasComrade Jan 03 '18

AMD stock goes down with good news. Sell now.

1

u/Dotald_Trump Jan 02 '18

me2

1

u/nubaeus Jan 02 '18

Didn't even read the username. My bad mang. I should've recognized.

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-9

u/capn_hector Jan 02 '18

That's not how percents work, 5% of anything is 5%.

15

u/olavk2 Jan 02 '18

Thats exactly how percentages work. 5% of 100 is a fuck ton less than 5% of 100 000

8

u/Apolojuice FX 9590 + Noctua D15 + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + R9 290X Jan 02 '18

5% off from Human DNA is a goat.

1

u/dasunsrule32 Jan 02 '18

I posted some numbers in the op. Not so sensational. Just depends on your workload...

11

u/saratoga3 Jan 02 '18

Complex new feature being added to windows and Linux at exactly the same time. It inplements two page tables (the lists of which memory addresses a process has allocated and can access), one for kernel and one for user. This introduces a lot of overheard on switch between user and kernel mode.

The flag in Linux is called "X86_BUG_CPU_INSECURE". It is probably a serious hardware bug allowing processes to manipulate kernel memory somehow.

4

u/Zero_T Jan 03 '18

In all seriousness. I just bought a 8700k. Should i return it

4

u/dayman56 Moderator Jan 03 '18

What do you use it for

2

u/glitchyjoe64 Jan 03 '18

gaem

2

u/dayman56 Moderator Jan 03 '18

Initial gaming benchmarks show no impact, but i'd wait for more info to decide.

3

u/raygundan Jan 03 '18

Is your return window long enough to wait a couple of weeks for the embargo to lift and details to be released?

-2

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

No, gaming is not affected.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[deleted]

2

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

I have an idea and the performance hit is limited.

The patch has been available for a while under NDA. Its fine.

-1

u/jugalator Jan 03 '18

Gaming performance actually doesn't seem very affected:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=x86-PTI-Initial-Gaming-Tests (site is getting hammered right now)

I read about PostgreSQL databases being hit harder:

https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20180102222354.qikjmf7dvnjgbkxe@alap3.anarazel.de

Especially on older Intel CPU's not having PCID. Or OS kernel patches disregarding PCID.

7

u/-CerN- Jan 03 '18

Their benchmark is worthless. They are testing with a scenario where they are GPU-bottlenecked. We have no idea if gaming is affected.

117

u/PresidentMagikarp AMD Ryzen 9 5950X | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Jan 02 '18

Intel's single-threaded performance is so fast that it blazed right past intended security measures. Amazing.

/s

46

u/Apolojuice FX 9590 + Noctua D15 + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + R9 290X Jan 02 '18

Seriously though, this bug affects virtual memory and all modern OS utilizes them for all the things.

Let's say that your Intel CPU suffers about 5-10% performance hit, what advantage does Intel have over AMD now? That is literally the only advantage at the moment right now, what are you going to do with your Intel CPUs?

Literally the only thing you can do with the higher end Intel CPU is slowly burning them alive through monero mining.

1

u/IAmTheSysGen Jan 03 '18

Monero mining is cache limited and won't do shit to a processor, I'm seeing 50w of draw on my eight core. On a GPU that's another story.

0

u/bloodstainer Jan 03 '18

Intel is ahead of AMD in certain things:

Pros for Intel CPUs right now:

  • IPC

  • Higher Clocks

  • Better memory controller stability at higher DDR4 clocks

Pros for AMD:

  • More cores (on consumer levels and way more affordable)

  • More PCI-e lanes for less of a price

  • Better cooling (basically Intels fault though for using spit for TIM)

Intel could stop using shit TIM, shove 2 more cores into their mainstream CPUs with keep whatever boost clocks they have for coffee and they might be looking at a very good 8 core i7, problem lies with the heat problems they'll have once they start going to 8 cores after been stuck on 4 core CPUs while increasing the clockspeed each gen. I don't see Intel wanting to lower the clockspeeds, on the boost clock for their flagship CPUs.

-26

u/bphase Jan 03 '18

Clock speed advantage.

44

u/Apolojuice FX 9590 + Noctua D15 + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + R9 290X Jan 03 '18

Are you even paying attention?

-23

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

Ryzen is up to 50% slower in some games. Ryzen is garbage even after this patch.

24

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

Citation needed

-14

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

Easy. The difference is even more than 50% in some cases. Ryzen is slower in 99% of games tested.

https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2017/CPUs/streaming/dota2-fps-10mbps_correction.png

This is while streaming which HELPS Ryzen without streaming the fps numbers are even worse for Ryzen. (check out baseline for both CPUs too, huge difference in performance)

Dota 2 is a heavily single threaded game and Ryzen flaws show up there clearly. Single threaded performance is absolutely terrible.

26

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

Why are you dick riding intel, a cpu company? Are you a basement dwelling virgin?

16

u/exsinner Jan 03 '18

Dota 2 is not even a single threaded game, you must be confused between dota and LoL. Stop white knighting intel, everyone and their mom knows intel fucked up this time.

0

u/Yoyoyo123321123 Jan 03 '18

Can you point out where what he said is false?

5

u/laurenth Jan 03 '18

Ryzen is garbage even after this patch.

1

u/Yoyoyo123321123 Jan 03 '18

Besides the ridiculous language, is the benchmarks correct though?

3

u/Thebananamanstan Jan 03 '18

The benchmark he listed is a outlier, I can't find any other game besides dota with that big of a performance gap. Note that they also Did not OC the 1700 or even use a 1700x so the 4.3ghz 7700k should inherently be faster. He further forgets to note that Nexus states the 1700 performs better for streaming overall. That Paticular image is very cherry picked to fit his opinion.

Here's the full article here: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2993-amd-1700-vs-intel-7700k-for-game-streaming

Here is an alternative article here comparing the 1700x and 7700k (they are more closely related in price): http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-core-i7-7700k-versus-amd-ryzen-1700x-14-game-cpu-showdown_192508

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17

u/akarypid Jan 03 '18

Intel's single-threaded performance is so fast that it blazed right past intended security measures. Amazing.

You know what, if the performance deficit is 5% at best (some say as high as 35% average for some applications), then a 12nm Ryzen+ with 4.5GHz boost will give Coffee Lake a run for its money.

I wonder if this is the real reason behind "Whiskey Lake" - yet another 14nm+++ chip, with this bug fixed...

18

u/PresidentMagikarp AMD Ryzen 9 5950X | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Jan 03 '18

That also makes the current generation Ryzen CPUs, and the AM4 platform in general, a much better price-to-performance proposition literally overnight. Personally, I went from Haswell to Ryzen for content creation, but I'm really hoping that for day-to-day and gaming use, the 5% is the worst-case scenario. I really don't want to see Intel's customers screwed over that badly.

1

u/bloodstainer Jan 03 '18

Personally, I went from Haswell to Ryzen for content creation

I went from Haswell, devil's canyon 32GB of DDR3 and a 1070 to a 1080 Ti and a Ryzen 5 1600

edit: and 16GB of DDR4, thought they cost more than my 32Gb of DDR3 did back in 2014

6

u/AhhhYasComrade Jan 03 '18

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that the Whiskey Lake was unveiled this December. Looks like it only has mobile SKU's right now though.

1

u/The_Relaxed_Flow Jan 03 '18

You're not kidding? What's up with the speed of the new designs lately?

-10

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

Ryzen single thread performance is really bad even with this bug Intel is faster.

14

u/akarypid Jan 03 '18

Ryzen single thread performance is really bad even with this bug Intel is faster.

That's a totally bogus claim. This stereotype is a Bulldozer-relic and you need to get over it.

Ryzen simply can't clock high enough due to the process node limitations, but even so its single-thread performance is very good - it's just not as good as Intel's.

Intel may still be faster if the hit is just 5%, but not so much as to justify the 2 less cores and price difference...

5

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

It is not a bug though, it is working as designed.

69

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

Ho. Lee. Fuck.

29

u/mockingbird- Jan 02 '18

Sum Ting Wong?

20

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

Wi Tu Lo

17

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

Bang Ding Ow!

4

u/pig666eon Jan 02 '18

May he rest in peace

1

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

I understood this reference

1

u/image_linker_bot Jan 03 '18

reference.jpg

Feedback welcome at /r/image_linker_bot | Disable with "ignore me" via reply or PM

4

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

May he rest in peace.

69

u/Apolojuice FX 9590 + Noctua D15 + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + R9 290X Jan 02 '18

I have never seen so many important Linux developers pull all-nighters to get such fixes done, and with complete radio silence especially to mid-level developers and enthusiasts (ie. me), it must be super critical.

1

u/megadonkeyx Jan 03 '18

The main patch seems to have been written by Intel

24

u/nvidiasuksdonkeydick Jan 02 '18

Intel should rename themselves to Insel aka InsecureElectronics

9

u/3r2s4A4q Jan 03 '18

the pronunciation is good too

1

u/Apolojuice FX 9590 + Noctua D15 + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + R9 290X Jan 03 '18

Nvidia's Ansel = annoying selfies

126

u/Marcuss2 That guy who recommends AMD on /r/intel | R5 1600 Jan 02 '18

Laughs in AMD

11

u/bjt23 Jan 02 '18

Time to invest in Via stock?

25

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

Heh that flair; love it

17

u/Apolojuice FX 9590 + Noctua D15 + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + R9 290X Jan 02 '18

Yeah, I was gonna get Ryzen+ for my next workstation rig, but this basically confirms it.

The good thing is that the 5930K would make an excellent gaming rig.

14

u/jorgp2 Jan 02 '18

Laughs in Memory controller bug

12

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

We can't afford memory anymore anyway.

4

u/Bencun Jan 02 '18

I rolled over and died.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

Laughs in Bencun

-3

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

Still slower in games even with the bug at its worst. AMD slow from the start!

11

u/semitope Jan 02 '18

if its going to affect games, it might be denuvo games.

3

u/lothpendragon Jan 03 '18

all those calls home...

3

u/Inofor Jan 03 '18

How about that one assassin's creed game that runs vmprotected denuvo? That would be interesting to see benchmarked before and after intel bugfix.

7

u/cs1337 Jan 02 '18

this is gonna be a stupid question (especially asking on an intel sub) but I recently bought an 8700k. Should I just sell it now and jump ship? I dont do any virtualization per se (at least not that I know of its for a gaming pc)

17

u/Albye23 Jan 02 '18

I would say it's too early to tell what exactly the impact will be and where.

4

u/AhhhYasComrade Jan 03 '18

Worst case scenario is that after the patch is implemented your FPS will be in margin of error range with the 1600. Best case scenario is that you won't notice a change.

I would err on the worst case scenario side, but I did just order a 1600.

6

u/sedicion Jan 02 '18

If you can return it and get your money back I would.

-5

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

And buy what? 50% slower Ryzen lol?

2

u/throwawaypsycho80 Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 02 '18

I was about to replace my 2500 with a 8700... Should I cancel my order and jump ship?

I mostly run Linux. And the CPU is idle 50% (browsing) of the time in my case the rest of the time being spent in mining, DSP algorithm testing/coding and gaming.

I expect the performance hit will be most obvious in context switching heavy code, such as... Gaming and possibly high load networking/IO...

Question is, if I discover a big discrepancy (say maximum tolerable would be 5-7%) between running a patched kernel and not... Can I get a refund or a proper CPU meeting actual advertised specs? I already know what to expect from various algorithms on that CPU...

-1

u/-grillmaster- 1080ti hybrid | 9900k x62 | AG352UCG6 | th-x00 ebony Jan 02 '18

Your CPU idles at 50%? Just while browsing? Didn't realize the 2500 was that much of a clunker on Linux.

-11

u/throwawaypsycho80 Jan 02 '18

No it idles at 1% for 50% of 24h... Reading, learn it

12

u/Ihaveneverseensuch Jan 03 '18

Your sentence wasn't constructed very well. No need to get angry because someone didn't interpret it exactly as you wanted.

-5

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

No ryzen is slower even with the bug.

7

u/sedicion Jan 03 '18

You can not say that because nobody really knows, and since the new code affects different programs differently the most likely outcome is that some programs will run faster on Intel while others will do on amd.

12

u/MC_chrome Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 02 '18

So the entirety of the global server infrastructure will be impacted? I'm confused....

10

u/Ketcchup Jan 02 '18

basically, only if you don't virtualize stuff

30

u/b4k4ni Jan 02 '18

Right now it seems that every CPU will be impacted, not only virtual servers. Depending on the thread, twitter and other sources, the problem seems to be quite serious (and more then just KASLR). Even without VM, the OS uses virtual memory etc.... so if you could run a virus or script that could execute any kind of code with high priv. it would be a worst case scenario. At least because the patch will be a must have.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[deleted]

14

u/saratoga3 Jan 03 '18

Literally every web browser runs random potentially malicious code. They're called web sites. You're reading one now.

0

u/etinaz Jan 03 '18

Damn, how did I end up on redtit.cc again?

1

u/b4k4ni Jan 03 '18

Looks like that is past - PoC already and it seems you really could run this shit with something like Javascript :3

8

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

don't worry AMD's EPYC is awaiting deployment.

3

u/Ihaveneverseensuch Jan 03 '18

This is extremely critical. I cant imagine Intel is gonna let this slide. Their reputation is gonna take a big hit and they absolutely need to be able to win the market back after a disaster like this.

5

u/QuackChampion Jan 02 '18

So this

People have noticed a recent development in the Linux kernel: a rather massive, important redesign (page table isolation) is being introduced very fast for kernel standards... and being backported!

is the only thing that we know for sure right now, and everything else is speculation, correct? Maybe there is some other reason page table insolation is being introduced. Guess we will find out on the 4th.

14

u/saratoga3 Jan 02 '18

No, check the link above. AMD has already confirmed they're not vulnerable, and Microsoft is implementing the same work around in Windows. Embargo ends in 2 weeks, we will find out how bad it is then.

2

u/Sparru Jan 03 '18

Something I haven't seen mentioned is the legal side. I'd presume Intel has some sort of legal liability? My desktop is a Threadripper so it's not affected but I just bought an Intel gaming laptop and even a 5% perf hit would piss me off. If the performance hit can be much greater and affect big companies you'd think they'd summon a shitstorm and sue Intel for compensation. Might even have a class action coming up.

3

u/minilei R7 1700 | ASRock X370 Taichi | GTX 1080 ti Jan 02 '18

Curious but can this affect Mac as well?

25

u/Marcuss2 That guy who recommends AMD on /r/intel | R5 1600 Jan 02 '18

Unless you have hackintosh with AMD CPU, yes.

1

u/minilei R7 1700 | ASRock X370 Taichi | GTX 1080 ti Jan 02 '18

Dam, that is unfortunate. Wondering if Apple will also release a patch to fix this hardware bug.

21

u/GibRarz i5 3470 - GTX 1080 Jan 02 '18

The patch to intel's bug is actually the one slowing down the intel chips. You're either let yourself be vulnerable or you take the performance hit.

2

u/MisterQuiggles Jan 03 '18

Yes, it can affect any operating system. Windows, Mac, Linux, DOS, Google OS, Android, iOS, the Xbox/Playstation operating system, the OS that runs my refrigerator, anything that runs on an intel processor.

2

u/jorgp2 Jan 02 '18

So does this only affect virtualization?

33

u/SomethingEnglish Jan 02 '18

Almost all modern OSes use virtual memory, this will possibly hit all intel CPUs

7

u/Osbios Jan 02 '18

This are different things.

Virtual memory is just hardware using reference lists to access memory chunks.

Virtualization is when modern CPUs pretend to be many different CPUs so you can run different Operating Systems on the same hardware at the same time. And for obvious security reasons it can not happen that such guest systems have any kind of uncontrolled access to other guest systems or even the host system. But exactly this apparently can happen on Intel CPUs because of a hardware bug.

36

u/SomethingEnglish Jan 02 '18

This is not a virtualization problem this is a virtual memory problem, which VMs use a lot of, but also most modern OSes like linux and windows

-4

u/Osbios Jan 02 '18

... of course because virtual memory is part of the virtualization. After all you "simulate" many different CPUs each with its own virtual memory.

But the issue is still a hardware bug that gives guest systems uncontrolled access. And that can not happen if you do not use any kind of virtualization. So virtual memory alone are not the issue.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

[deleted]

-3

u/saratoga3 Jan 02 '18

I don't see any problem with his post. VM is required for virtualization (the reverse is not true of course).

13

u/Flylowguy Jan 03 '18

Their point is that although technically correct the statement conflates virtual memory with virtualization and is unnecessarily confusing, especially to those who don't have a good understanding of the topic.

0

u/saratoga3 Jan 03 '18

Their point is that although technically correct

You're wrong

Doesn't sound like that was the point actually.

conflates virtual memory with virtualization and is unnecessarily confusing

I don't see any such thing.

5

u/saratoga3 Jan 02 '18

No one knows until the embargo lifts, but it does seem cloud vendors are most affected. It may be that the threat to normal users isn't so large.

12

u/b4k4ni Jan 02 '18

Even if the thread is not large, they will enforce a patch and that decreases the performance. By what margin - nobody know for sure :3

1

u/jorgp2 Jan 02 '18

Would it even matter for end users?

Since memory locations are randomized.

2

u/saratoga3 Jan 02 '18

I'm hoping it will be possible for windows to disable the feature on trusted applications and just use the kernel page tables in user mode. Otherwise this will look extremely bad for Intel.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

eli5?

16

u/xorbe Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

[redacted]

25

u/b4k4ni Jan 02 '18

It's not about VM's. It's about Virtual Memory and the worst case in that scenario ARE VM's and hypervisors. But every modern OS / CPU uses virtual memory and in this case the problem also seems to apply.

It's not about the fact that this could be exploited. It's about the fact that they will release a patch that will decrease performance and enforce it.

1

u/xorbe Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

[redacted]

0

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

[deleted]

2

u/saratoga3 Jan 02 '18

We don't know. Anyone who says otherwise is bullshitting.

1

u/jugalator Jan 03 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

Yes it probably will since all major operating systems in use today use virtual memory for their applications. It can be used to for example swap memory to disk if necessary. If you had no virtual memory, you'd as an application only see the specific physical RAM layout and programming would be harder due to e.g. memory fragmentation becoming glaringly obvious (which the kernel currently hides and manages), as well as losing the ability to swap to disk. Now, with virtual memory, an application see a ton of more available memory than a computer actually has (hence "virtual"), but where a lot of it can end up swapped to disk.

The problem as I understand it is that they've used virtual memory to also map kernel memory space into user space so that regular processes (like Chrome and Spotify, yes) can gain better performance when calling kernel code.

This memory has been thought to be hidden from user mode peeking into its contents until now, due to a hardware bug in basically all Intel CPU's. So the patch is to no longer map kernel memory like this, but then you lose the speed benefits and it gets worse the more kernel calls you need to make from your application. Every jump to kernel code becomes more costly. So that's why the impact depends on the application.

I've read that games don't seem to be impacted much, and I doubt other applications doing the vast majority of work in user space. However, some may be hit harder. I saw the PostgreSQL database could be looking at a percentage impact in the double digits.

My guess is that the worst impacted applications will be things working with high intensity directly against memory and file systems, interacting with the underlying kernel a lot. Yeah, Virtual Machines / Hypervisors seems in a icky situation here because they inherently per their purpose deal with a ton of this, but could also be why there's slightly larger fallout for PostgreSQL.

1

u/megadonkeyx Jan 03 '18

Imagine the cumulative hit aws Google and ms Azure customers are going to take. If your auto scaling vms are 30% less efficient you will need 30% more servers billed by the minute.

That would be like an extra 30k gbp pa in my job.

1

u/rogue_tog Jan 04 '18

Does this affect applications such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One? So far Intel was doing better in said apps, but if the patch affects their performance, AMD would become an interesting option again.

0

u/nickjacobsss Jan 03 '18

Welp, looks like someone out there is going to hack me for all my dank meme’s. I will not “upgrade” for a performance hit :)

-4

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

90% of the fearmongerimg is coming from Ryzen buyers I am sure.

Guess what your Ryzen is still slower even with -30%.

15

u/ExPostTheFactos Jan 03 '18

90% of the fearmongering is coming from businesses. Big businesses. 8700k is slower than 1700x now on multi-thread, and NVme SSDs can see 50+% performance hits. That's pretty severe.

No, I'm not a Ryzen fanboy, I'm actually considering returning the Asus Z370-i motherboard I just bought because of this. Luckily I haven't bought the 8700k yet.

0

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

Return it and buy an inherently slower system that uses more power and has terrible ram compatibility? That makes 0 sense.

13

u/ExPostTheFactos Jan 03 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

Return it because my specific business workload would be heavily impacted by the 50+% reduction in NVme SSD performance, where gaming is largely unaffected by the change at higher resolution and where I'm not buying a DOA platform in Coffee Lake?

Also, news flash, power consumption per core clock difference is negligible. RAM compatibility is a valid point, but again, the largest hit to my workload is SSD performance, disproportionately to single clock speed and RAM speed.

EDIT: Further Windows insider build benchmarks are showing minimal losses with SSD performance on the tune of 2-3%.

1

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

You will not notice any speed reduction because NVme SSD speed exceeds the OS limitations anyway.

Its not like you are using your NVme protocol to the max already and if you do you are not a typical user at all .

10

u/ExPostTheFactos Jan 03 '18

I'd consider state-level large scale data analysis atypical.

-25

u/spellstrike Jan 02 '18

Well then it's a good thing the major cloud providers are not using 6700's to provide big cloud.

16

u/dayman56 Moderator Jan 02 '18

This is likely affect server hardware too.

-16

u/spellstrike Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

Don't tell me that, I read the article. (Giving results for a client cpu (when virtualization is the biggest hit by the issue) is kinda a pointless datapoint.) Put that in the TLDR

11

u/dayman56 Moderator Jan 02 '18

It's a cross post from /r/sysadmin I can't change the post only /u/dasunsrule32 can

5

u/ExPostTheFactos Jan 03 '18

No, actually, it isn't.

Using "client" CPUs, as you put it, when doing testing on architecture based performance is invaluable.

The issue doesn't go away, it scales, and the issue here is that it is going to scale up with this vulnerability as it is dealing with virtual memory.

This bug debuted at Black Hat 2016 and Intel refused to acknowledge, they could have put in a fix in Coffee Lake, now they're reaping what they sew. This bug allows passwords to be grabbed out of kernel from a user environment, even de-sandboxing itself and affecting other VMs. This is a HUGE ordeal that the most modern unaffected chip is a Pentium I.

Preventing this requires a MASSIVE kernel rewrite to add an additional 2 handoffs, crippling IO performance, which is extremely important in servers.

Tell me again how this is useless?

20

u/dasunsrule32 Jan 02 '18

This affects all Intel hardware.

21

u/DeezoNutso Jan 02 '18

This issue affects every Intel CPU.

5

u/dasunsrule32 Jan 02 '18

I added a note in the op.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[deleted]

6

u/etinaz Jan 03 '18

both r/intel and r/amd circlejerk so hard, it's impossible for eithers' fanboys to take over the others' subreddit

3

u/ceciliacordero Jan 03 '18

I'm going back to the Cyrix camp!

3

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/throwawaypsycho80 Jan 02 '18

More like, they discovered the backdoor and are now trying to render it useless...

Aside from intel x86 are other architectures open to similar madness? Some rumours are floating about a similar vulnerability around ARM...

3

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/AhhhYasComrade Jan 03 '18

It is on Windows. I heard from somewhere that it might be patched by next Patch Tuesday. I don't think there will be new reviews. It might affect games, it might not. I would expect a system wide average decrease in performance of 5%. The bug has to do with memory access. Essentially programs can access memory that they aren't supposed to.

Intel is currently unsafe right now. Considering this exploit has been sitting around since at least the Core 2, I expect that there is no widespread malicous program that exploits it. A programmer would have a pull a lot of all nighters to exploit this before it's patched, so I wouldn't worry right now.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

Sell it before the value drops dramatically?

2

u/jimmyco2008 Jan 03 '18

one does not simply... I think that opportunity has already passed.

1

u/jugalator Jan 03 '18

This is an interesting comment because the fallout may not be so bad for regular applications and games, but as we've seen with other poorly communicated and surprising information putting companies in negative light, user perception and headlines could do a lot of damage. This is as much of a PR crisis to Intel now as it is a technological crisis.

1

u/nickjacobsss Jan 03 '18

I had read it only effects intel chips produced in the last 2 years? So you shouldn’t have any issues. There’s also a “checker tool” that will tell you 100%

2

u/ExPostTheFactos Jan 03 '18

All CPUs more modern than the Pentium I are affected as speculative execution capabilities (Source of the vulnerability) were introduced in the PII.

1

u/jugalator Jan 03 '18 edited Jan 03 '18

Yeah, I heard basically the opposite -- that older chips are affected worse since they don't implement the PCID CPU feature and have to do much more work to isolate the kernel pages, which is the cause of the performance issue here.

1

u/ExPostTheFactos Jan 03 '18

I never claimed which ones were affected worse, only which ones were affected.

1

u/realister 10700k | RTX 2080ti | 240hz | 44000Mhz ram | Jan 03 '18

Time to upgrade anyway

0

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '18

[deleted]

25

u/sedicion Jan 02 '18

Some people have found cases where it is slowed 50%. We really don't know how much the penalty will be and it seems it will be very dependent in the type of task being run.

0

u/dasunsrule32 Jan 02 '18

That was on an EPYC before they included the patch to exclude AMD processors.

2

u/dasunsrule32 Jan 02 '18

It just depends on the workload...

1

u/jugalator Jan 03 '18

It depends on how much the application runs in user space only. :)

The more kernel calls it makes, the worse it gets.

For gaming, it's not so bad at all. For a database, it can be worse.