Intel’s New Spectre-Like Flaw Affects Chips Made Since 2008

[Sethos 4,303]

Looks like *another* major vulnerability was found in Intel CPUs today. Bit of reading, for anyone interested;

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-disable-hyper-threading-spectre-attack,39333.html

[G-RFRY 1,708]

Check out the post on tomhardware about the security hole in Nvidia GTX and RTX drivers.

[Ted Striker 338]

All this is starting to suspiscoulsy sound like fear mongering by the industry to keep us buying the latest hardware and OS. We are not upgrading very often now due to the marginal performance improvements despite the marketing claims, so now they are going to try scaring us to upgrade?...

Ted

[LecLightning56 33]

11 minutes ago, Ted Striker said:

All this is starting to suspiscoulsy sound like fear mongering by the industry to keep us buying the latest hardware and OS. We are not upgrading very often now due to the marginal performance improvements despite the marketing claims, so now they are going to try scaring us to upgrade?...

Ted

Here, here to that. My now very dated PC (10 years old and largely unupgradable) looks like a David amongst the Goliaths of today which cost no doubt upwards to £5000, but is absolutely flying now with the release of the Hotfix for P3D v4.5 enabling even my modest system to look good at least cost to myself.

I don't think that security vulnerabilities are going to force me to waste anywhere up to £5000 on a PC for the benefit of running an extremely inexpensive (by comparison) simulator platform such as X-Plane 11 (£50 to £60?), just to rest my conscience that the security of that PC could never be compromised. I do rather laugh at people who persistently use the argument to throw money at PC-based flight simulation where hardware is concerned when, in my experience, a bit of judicious boosting and management of CPU and GPU performance can produce exceptional results. Although I suspect I have started a slightly off-topic discussion, it seems insanity to me at the moment to throw vast sums of money at a state-of-the-art PC system for, as you have put it, marginal performance gains when the simulator software is within the budget of e.g. a schoolboy. If we were in the realms of having to purchase a licence costing say many hundreds or thousands of pounds for very advanced and capable simulator software which had been designed around the latest computer hardware, one might expect a substantial outlay in order to enjoy the benefits of such software (as well as perhaps slapping a prohibitive label on such software for educational/hobbyist applications on grounds of the extent of one's disposable income). 

I do rather hope that the fears of such attacks do not force us all into a corner with Intel to commit ourselves to such possibly unjustifiable and expensive upgrades when the simulator software itself is seemingly budget-priced to say the least. 

[G-RFRY 1,708]

On the Intel problem they have advised switching off HT I already have that, on the Nvidia security hole the 430.64 driver addresses that.

[Ted Striker 338]

I've had HT off since my initial performance testing when I built my current box in 2013. I'm in the process of building a new system because my current one is 8 years old now, but frankly it is has been going slow because my current system still runs very well with medium settings.

Ted

[G-RFRY 1,708]

Guru3D has some info on the Intel problem today and Intel`s, latest turning off HT will not solve the problem and a fix could slowdown PCs. 

[TechguyMaxC 516]

On 5/15/2019 at 12:58 AM, rjfry said:

On the Intel problem they have advised switching off HT I already have that, on the Nvidia security hole the 430.64 driver addresses that.

Who's "they"?  Intel?  No they haven't.  Intel, and all affected software vendors that have prepared software updates to mitigate these vulnerabilities have provided comprehensive guidance to their customers.  That guidance lays out several configurations, each intended to provide a different outcome.  Only those users concerned with security above all else are instructed to disable HT, and only after considering the potential performance impact in their environment, after an informed analysis.  I am currently overseeing just such an operation in my company's virtual environment as we speak.  

Here's the bottom line: if you are a home user, you likely don't need to turn off HT.  Unless you operate servers in a virtual environment, there isn't really a use case where you need to be concerned beyond simply installing the updates that are being offered to you by the various vendors whose products are installed in your system(s).