Patched Desktop PC: Meltdown & Spectre Benchmarked

[Julio Franco]

Following up to our initial testing of the Meltdown patch for Windows 10, today we're looking deeper into the matter by testing a patched desktop system, by addressing the two now famous security flaws, Meltdown and Spectre, by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update, more precisely a motherboard BIOS update.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1556-meltdown-and-spectre-cpu-performance-windows/

 

[cliffordcooley]

by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update

So a BIOS update is required?

But what about older CPUs? Your Wells, Bridges and older 45nm models? As it stands right now we can’t test those. It’s possible to test the impact of the Windows 10 Meltdown patch but it’s not yet possible to test the impact of the big one, Spectre. For this we need BIOS updates for the older motherboards supporting those CPUs. When and if we will get them at all, is a bit of an unknown at this stage. We haven’t found a motherboard maker willing to give us the inside scoop yet.

Since I'm a Sandy Bridge owner, I can make a safe bet, I will not see a BIOS update.

 

[penn919]

by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update

So a BIOS update is required?

But what about older CPUs? Your Wells, Bridges and older 45nm models? As it stands right now we can’t test those. It’s possible to test the impact of the Windows 10 Meltdown patch but it’s not yet possible to test the impact of the big one, Spectre. For this we need BIOS updates for the older motherboards supporting those CPUs. When and if we will get them at all, is a bit of an unknown at this stage. We haven’t found a motherboard maker willing to give us the inside scoop yet.

Since I'm a Sandy Bridge owner, I can make a safe bet, I will not see a BIOS update.

Honestly, I don't think the performance penalty would be worth it anyways. I'd just wait until intel releases newer CPUs with fixed hardware and then upgrade.

BTW, is it safe to say Ice Lake will miss out on the revised CPU fixes?

 

[Angga B]

by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update

So a BIOS update is required?
Since I'm a Sandy Bridge owner, I can make a safe bet, I will not see a BIOS update.

I am theorizing that earlier-gen Core processors may feel the most performance hit, comparatively speaking.

 

[Dr Aggressive]

by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update

So a BIOS update is required?

But what about older CPUs? Your Wells, Bridges and older 45nm models? As it stands right now we can’t test those. It’s possible to test the impact of the Windows 10 Meltdown patch but it’s not yet possible to test the impact of the big one, Spectre. For this we need BIOS updates for the older motherboards supporting those CPUs. When and if we will get them at all, is a bit of an unknown at this stage. We haven’t found a motherboard maker willing to give us the inside scoop yet.

Since I'm a Sandy Bridge owner, I can make a safe bet, I will not see a BIOS update.

Honestly, I don't think the performance penalty would be worth it anyways. I'd just wait until intel releases newer CPUs with fixed hardware and then upgrade.

BTW, is it safe to say Ice Lake will miss out on the revised CPU fixes?

Yes, it is going to miss out.

I think as consumers we should not reward Intel for artificially boosting its IPC. Perhaps we should switch to Ryzen for at least 1 generation, and see what the competition does to the market.

P.S. To TechSpot staff, perhaps you can add AMD CPUs to the benchmark, so we can make sure Windows is also not throttling them as well?

 

[illusio13]

Good article @Steven Walton.
Just one question; if you know, my understanding is that the :
Meltdown:
Variant 3: rogue data cache load (CVE-2017-5754)
: requires both a microcode firmware update ( bios patch ) as well as OS and Application level patches. Probably better to over-emphasis the temporary nature of these benchmarks and update again when microcode/ firmwasre update are confirmed installed and active.

 

[Steve]

Good article @Steven Walton.
Just one question; if you know, my understanding is that the :
Meltdown:
Variant 3: rogue data cache load (CVE-2017-5754)
: requires both a microcode firmware update ( bios patch ) as well as OS and Application level patches. Probably better to over-emphasis the temporary nature of these benchmarks and update again when microcode/ firmwasre update are confirmed installed and active.

Firstly thank you. Microsoft's Speculation Control says it's fully patched, it's variant 1: CVE-2017-5753 - Bounds check bypass, that's yet to be addressed.

In any case we did note that more updates are to come...

"One thing is for sure, this is a big mess that's still in the making. We'd expect further OS and BIOS updates."

 

[mojoba]

Glad to hear the world's most powerful GPU is not effected. Maybe it's because there is so much spare power at 1080p? My 980ti is badly effected at 1440p on very high settings on Assassin's Creed Origins. I have a i7 4790k (4th gen) running at up to 90% usage. Even Lego Batman 3 has stuttering now at 1440p! These are the only games I've played so far. I have blocked Windows Update in Services and uninstalled this "emergency patch" and all is well again. I'd rather be hacked than have to go back to 1080p gaming.

Maybe try benchmarks where the GPU and CPU are being pushed to its limits? For a 1080ti try comparing Assassin's Creed Origins at 4k. Get it running on a stable benchmark pre patch at the maximum graphics settings you can have whilst getting a steady and smooth FPS, then install the Windows 10 patch and try again. Any stuttering where there was non before?

 

[Per Hansson]

Please note that only Haswell and later support the INVPCID instruction, the SpeculationControl PowerShell script lists this as the last entry: "Windows OS support for PCID optimization is enabled:" True or False.

Sandy Bridge does support PCID but not INVPCID, I have a Server 2016 system and on it this line is listed as "False" hence I believe Microsoft is actually looking for the INVPCID instruction here and not PCID as listed.

I also have a Windows 7 system with a Haswell CPU and that also gets "False" here, so this instruction is either not supported or simply not enabled under Windows 7. On my Thinkpad W540p running Windows 8.1 it is supported. Actually the PS picture here is from that system: https://www.techspot.com/news/72576-massive-cpu-flaws-get-name-meltdown-spectre-what.html

It's well worth mentioning that systems that lack the INVPCID instruction (So predating Haswell) are expected to take a higher performance hit from the patch!

P.S: The patch can be disabled using the registry keys for Windows Server listed here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-to-protect-against-the-speculative-execution

 

[noname]

Good and informative article , seems the bios update is adding the performance penalty.

 

[BSim500]

These are the kind of articles we like on Techspot. Good job Steve. One suggestion though - everyone testing games so far has done just in-game performance (fps) after it's loaded, but given the significant impact on SSD's (especially random operations), what's the impact on game load-times (especially for games like say, SOMA whose file structure consists of +40,000 very small files which involves far more random operations than sequential reads of one large "packed" file)?

 

[YossarianPl]

If you're looking for interesting test subjects, I suggest looking at Planetside 2. Not sure if this is a crazy coincidence, but it seems that the game took a massive hit on my rig (same setting dropping down from 120-140 FPS to 20-25) after applying the OS update. Applying the BIOS update for my ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E seems to have gotten the performance back on track.

 

[Nobina]

by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update

So a BIOS update is required?

But what about older CPUs? Your Wells, Bridges and older 45nm models? As it stands right now we can’t test those. It’s possible to test the impact of the Windows 10 Meltdown patch but it’s not yet possible to test the impact of the big one, Spectre. For this we need BIOS updates for the older motherboards supporting those CPUs. When and if we will get them at all, is a bit of an unknown at this stage. We haven’t found a motherboard maker willing to give us the inside scoop yet.

Since I'm a Sandy Bridge owner, I can make a safe bet, I will not see a BIOS update.

Honestly, I don't think the performance penalty would be worth it anyways. I'd just wait until intel releases newer CPUs with fixed hardware and then upgrade.

BTW, is it safe to say Ice Lake will miss out on the revised CPU fixes?

Performance penalty absolutely sucks, but if your **** gets jacked the cons could be much worse. I will wait until the dust has settled and then decide.

Now the reasonable thing to do is to avoid Intel unless you think it's ok for them to have these kind of practices where they sell you garbage and then "fix" it by selling you more garbage over and over again. You like being exploited, then go ahead, support them.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I will keep my eye on this topic. My loyalties may switch to manufacturers that do patch their aging systems. This is not an issue that should be overlooked by any and all, for the sole purpose of selling new hardware. This issue should not be the sole purpose in finding a need to upgrade. These patches should be made mandatory for at least the last 8 years of hardware. It is also my opinion that the manufacturers should be held to the 8 years from the date the vulnerability was discovered. Their silence and neglect was an attempt to ignore aging systems, if not all systems affected.

 

[penn919]

Now the reasonable thing to do is to avoid Intel unless you think it's ok for them to have these kind of practices where they sell you garbage and then "fix" it by selling you more garbage over and over again. You like being exploited, then go ahead, support them.

That would be my preference, but techies tend to be a bit tribal. I assumed (possibly incorrectly) that his preference was to remain on the Intel platform; That's why I recommended he wait, but yes switching to Ryzen would clearly suffice as well.

For full disclosure I should note that I'm an AMD user. All my PC's run AMD CPUs. Desktop: R7 1700X, HTPC: FX 8300, Notebook: A8-6410.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Maybe try benchmarks where the GPU and CPU are being pushed to its limits? For a 1080ti try comparing Assassin's Creed Origins at 4k. Get it running on a stable benchmark pre patch at the maximum graphics settings you can have whilst getting a steady and smooth FPS, then install the Windows 10 patch and try again. Any stuttering where there was non before?

I was really looking forward to seeing frame times myself, since we're not entirely sure what's affected.

 

[pey to]

Did the manufactures for hardware confirm that meltdown and spectre are are completely fixed ? or these could be first batch of patches ?

 

[treetops]

Good to know, with all my passwords as an open book I will definitely update. There really is no other choice unless your one of the few people who only use your computer for gaming. Actually even then, I would think your steam account is at risk.

 

[Evernessince]

by applying the OS-level patch and a firmware update

So a BIOS update is required?

But what about older CPUs? Your Wells, Bridges and older 45nm models? As it stands right now we can’t test those. It’s possible to test the impact of the Windows 10 Meltdown patch but it’s not yet possible to test the impact of the big one, Spectre. For this we need BIOS updates for the older motherboards supporting those CPUs. When and if we will get them at all, is a bit of an unknown at this stage. We haven’t found a motherboard maker willing to give us the inside scoop yet.

Since I'm a Sandy Bridge owner, I can make a safe bet, I will not see a BIOS update.

Pretty much. At least you might get $20 from one of the three class actions.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Pretty much. At least you might get $20 from one of the three class actions.

Might break even after collecting.

 

[Ray Depp]

I worked for a major PC manufacturer for several years in the BIOS organization. More than likely the BIOS patch is nothing more than loading a new firmware update from the processor manufacturer, I.e. Intel or AMD. BIOS has no control over instruction speculation. The new firmware load from Intel or AMD has all the controls to disable the problem speculation. The problem is that neither Intel or AMD will go through the required testing to do the old processors. Same with the BIOS developers, too much testing to insure nothing else got messed up, the BIOS teams will only test a few of the recent boards. I still haven't seen enough details to try and figure out what is the real problem.

 

[Chaiwallah]

What about an effect on boot speed? My boot seems to have slowed considerably since the patch.

 

[Moh335467]

If you're looking for interesting test subjects, I suggest looking at Planetside 2. Not sure if this is a crazy coincidence, but it seems that the game took a massive hit on my rig (same setting dropping down from 120-140 FPS to 20-25) after applying the OS update. Applying the BIOS update for my ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E seems to have gotten the performance back on track.

hi. can you do some benchmark with new Bios update and microsoft update to see the diffrence?especially about nvme ssd?

 

[swill37]

I am currently setting up a Lenovo T570 Intel Core i7 vPro with a mini 256GB SSD drive - Microsoft patch KB4056894 installed 1-4-18 (Win7 Pro). Have not done anything about these vulnerabilities in the bios - the customer is rushing the order - usually I don't jump to flashing unless issues arise.

How woriied should I be? These are heavy sensitive data managers - not gamers - very secure firewalls, etc. However, that being the case, all the more reason to be concerned - open to recommendations or comments.

 

[ddferrari]

@ Steve Walton Great article as always, Steve. Thank you!

"Also for those wondering the GTX 1080 Ti, an insanely overpowered GPU for a Core i3 CPU, it’s used to try and remove the GPU as a potential bottleneck and this gives us a better idea of the impact the CPU has on performance when gaming."

Love the preemptive strike against the "Who uses a 1080 Ti at 1080p?" comments.