pre Skylake chips will suffer badly from security patch

[BoraMurdar]

At odds with Intel statements

Microsoft and Intel seem to be at odds over whether the Spectre and Meltdown patches slow down machines significantly.

While Intel said there are minor performance issues with the patches, Vole claims that systems running on older Intel processors are seeing a noticeable decrease in performance. Microsoft said PCs running older versions of Windows, or even just older Intel silicon, will see a noticeable impact in performance from the Meltdown and Spectre patches. Intel released its performance information, though it showed just a slight impact for its 8th-generation Core chips.

Writing in his bog, Microsoft’s OS chief, Terry Myerson, explained that patches for 41 of the 45 editions of Windows that Microsoft distributes are now available. Microsoft and other vendors recommend that those patches be swiftly applied; Windows Update’s January rollup patch applies those patches to Windows systems. Users also need to ensure that their antivirus software is up to date.

Vole said that Windows 10 on newer silicon (2016-era PCs with Skylake, Kaby Lake or newer CPUs), benchmarks show single-digit slowdowns. Microsoft doesn’t expect most users to notice a change because the percentages will be reflected in milliseconds.

With Windows 10 on older silicon (2015-era PCs, with Haswell or older CPUs), some benchmarks show more significant slowdowns, Microsoft says, and the company expects that some users will notice a decrease in system performance.

With Windows 8 and Windows 7 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPUs), Microsoft expects most users to notice a decrease in system performance.

Windows Server machines will show an even more significant performance impact when the mitigations are enabled, and untrusted code is run within a Windows Server instance, the company said.

Microsoft didn’t release specific benchmark results or say how it generated the numbers. Additional benchmarks will be published in the weeks ahead, Microsoft said.

Chipzilla still claims it saw no sign of a significant slowdown in computers. Intel said a typical home and business PC user should not see significant slowdowns in common tasks such as reading email, writing a document or accessing digital photos.

Of course not, but then they would be hardly using the processing power of their chips either. Datacentre users, on the other hand, will be sweating blood at any reduction in performance.

 

[boredog]

I am using this old CPU and have not noticed any slowdowns. I have checked and have the Reg Key.

 

[Danielx64]

I am using this old CPU and have not noticed any slowdowns. I have checked and have the Reg Key.
View attachment 177922

But it comes down to what you are doing. Are you running a VM on that box?

 

[DeepWeb]

Haswell user as well. No slowdowns.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

Seeing potato computers turn into super-large, genetically modified potatoes with this patch.

I think some people don't have the patch. Even with the reg-key, it doesn't mean you've had the patch applied yet.

 

[Vasudev]

My ivybridge felt a lot slower than usual by applying uCode patch through vmware cpu patcher.
I felt 20% loss and PC was unresponsive even on light to medium load tasks like Web Browser with 4-8 tabs, Windows Explorer, Background OS updates, AV scan etc.

 

[frogboy]

I sure noticed no obvious slow down here on this PC but sure did on my other Laptop.

 

[XhenEd]

My laptop has 5th Gen (Broadwell) CPU.

I actually don't feel any difference. Maybe, there's really a slowdown, but thankfully it's not noticeable on my end.

 

[Prorootect]

All people with slowdowns - cleans up your fan, why not!

 

[Danielx64]

All people with slowdowns - cleans up your fan, why not!

And what if you already have?

 

[frogboy]

All people with slowdowns - cleans up your fan, why not!

Sounds like a good idea regardless. A bit of maintenence is always a good thing.

 

[Prorootect]

Sounds like a good idea regardless. A bit of maintenence is always a good thing.

This Registry key applied, is the right dust test for your fan.

 

[tim one]

That's what I get on the official Toshiba page and no MS patch available for my old laptop, so far
I will check again this night.

Comming soon - vulnerability in Intel processors

 

[Syafiq]

Hmm... There is no difference in terms of performance, as it's already slow because of it's old age

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

That's what I get on the official Toshiba page and no MS patch available for my old laptop, so far
I will check again this night.

Comming soon - vulnerability in Intel processors

You likely won't see patches from most vendors. In some cases, possibly years if they even bother. Can you imagine the resources needed to churn out patches for dozens upon dozens of different models of systems and motherboards? Some vendors are indicating they'll never patch. Others are stating they will patch but only back 2 years. Nobody says they will go back past 3 years yet as that's considered the useful life of most systems according to many vendors. (which is really the refresh cycle time for enterprise/corporate - 3-4 years)

Depending on the PC I've seen some have little impact (Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7). I've seen others have little impact for non-gaming, but HUGE impact on physics performance (Intel i7-8700 - 40% drop in Physics). I've seen some PC's become almost completely unusable (Haswell Dual Core i3) We've delayed deployment on non-WSUS servers so I cannot fully comment on that yet, when those patches roll it could get ugly in server land.