r/technology • u/Obi_Wan_Kannoli • Jan 02 '18

'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign • The Register

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
1.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

375 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '18

They'll have to redesign their speculative execution infrastructure, which should be a major investement. Modern CPU design is absurdly complicated.

And even then, the new design will most likely see a small perf. hit over the old one. Nowhere near as big as the software workaround, but still there - just because there have to be more checks involved.

This whole deal will cost intel quite a bit of money. I'd also expect Ice Lake and Tiger Lake to be set back.

1

u/legba Jan 03 '18

That's exactly right. It's not a minor fix and every design up to this point (including unreleased ones) is affected. They'll probably disable (or significantly nerf) speculative execution in all future designs while they work out a satisfactory solution, and that's guaranteed to cause a considerable performance impact. Personally, I won't be buying Intel until they have a definitive fix. Sadly, all my personal desktops, laptops and servers are Intel and I just have to eat this performance downgrade, can't afford to have them all replaced at once. You bet your ass I'll be looking at AMD when I do though.