Intel Processor Performance Hit Coming...

[Simon Barden]

A lot of people will be using Intel processors made in the past 10 years (Mac and PC). It seems there is a bug in all 64 bit Intel chips that allows a security breach and is now the subject of much activity to get fixes out. Unfortunately the nature of the bug means that there will be a performance hit as software is re-written to account for the bug and the extra software checking will slow things down. I don't understand much of the article but there's more about it in here:-

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/0...u_design_flaw/

[WeirdBits]

Dark Wings, Dark Words...

[Simon Barden]

Not just Intel, but ARM. And AMD also have a similar but lesser problem. The Intel chip security loophole has already been exploited, so action had to be taken, but I'm sure none of the chip manufacturers really wanted to make this public.

[DrNomis_44]

Microsoft just released a new update for Windows 10, KB4056892, that might contain the security patch but I don't know for sure.


Just did a quick google and apparently KB4056892 does contain the security patch that fixes the loophole.

https://www.windowscentral.com/micro...cessor-exploit

[Simon Barden]

Yes. It's supposed to be application dependent as to how much it slows down the processing.

[DrNomis_44]

[QUOTE=Simon Barden;156982]Yes. It's supposed to be application dependent as to how much it slows down the processing.[/QUOTE

I don't know if the windows update had anything to do with it but my computer has crashed at least once so far and I had to do a manual hard-reset just to get it working properly again.....hmmmmm....

[Sonic Mountain]

Mac addressed it in the last update apparently. My i5 is already pretty craptastic performance wise, but it didn't seem to get any worse after.

[DrNomis_44]

To be honest, I didn't really notice any significant drops in performance with my studio desktop PC, it has always been a bit temperamental anyway.


I'm using a brand new Logitech MK220 wireless keyboard and mouse combo with new Energizer batteries installed and I've been noticing some random freezing of the mouse cursor, whether that's related to the windows update that was downloaded/installed yesterday, I don't know for sure, but I do know that the mouse cursor had been a bit erratic since yesterday, I've also tried updating the driver, same result, so I'm guessing that it's probably wifi interference, since the wifi router and keyboard/mouse combo use the same frequency band (2.4Ghz), might try plugging my PC directly into the NBN Co box to see if that is the case.