Microsoft is currently deploying the Spectre and Meltdown fixes via its Windows Update app and has just detailed the performance impact users can expect from them. As we’ve reported, these security fixes are now available only for Intel’s systems as AMD’s configurations experience some booting issues after applying them.
Microsoft claimed that with Windows 10 on newer silicon (2016-era PCs with Skylake, Kabylake or newer CPU), benchmarks show single-digit slowdowns. As such, the company does not expect users to notice any significant performance changes after applying the Spectre and Meltdown fixes.
On the other hand, those with Windows 10 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), may experience some performance decreases. According to Microsoft, some benchmarks show more significant slowdowns on those machines (though the company did not reveal the benchmarks it used to measure performance).
Last but not least, those with Windows 8 and Windows 7 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), will most likely notice a decrease in system performance.
Regarding Windows Server on any silicon, companies will experience a significant performance impact, especially in any IO-intensive application, when they enable the mitigations to isolate untrusted code within a Windows Server instance. This may explain the CPU server issues that Epic Games and Housemargue have experienced these past few days.
All in all, those with weaker CPUs and older operating systems will undoubtedly notice a performance decrease, and that’s coming directly from Microsoft!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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lol
Jesus, what a clusterf*ck this whole thing has been.
2018 is a pile of sh*t so far . . . .
What’s next ? CPUs that explode after few years unless you buy a new one every year or two ?
Don’t give them ideas.
Exploding phones is more so a speciality of Samsung.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that happens!
Great way to force you to upgrade.. make your perfectly fine CPU (or phone ;p) slower. Just great.
Upgrade to what ? Ex-Intel employee(Joe Fitz) wrote in twitter..
”Come 2019 and 2020, other products in the pipeline will have more involved fixes that again improve performance over the software and quick fixes.
The solution everyone wants is a full fix with no performance impact. I can’t imagine that coming any sooner than 2021”
And if i want to take my chances and dont want to update?
You would be at risk, especially if you own an Intel CPU. Once the patches are deployed and the details of the vulnerability made public, there will be a scramble in malware comunities to code exploits for the flaw.
You’ll get demolished by black hats pretty quick lmao
if im willing to take the risks…i have nothing important on my gaming pc reinstalling an os the worst case scenario is not such an hassle unless im missing something…
besides i dont think im such an attractive target to black hats
I agree, you are probably not a target for black hats and you should have the decision to stall the updates if you choose to take the risk.
But it’s probably not the best course of action.
They should introduce a worldwide trade in option depending on your cpu you will get a reduction in a new cpu price thats the least they should do for weakening existing cpus
Again Dear Micro..
Amd is immune to meltdown.. STOP PUSHING THE DAMN MELT UPDATE TO AMD
They are pushing Spectre.
What panic and chaos this ‘Spectre and Meltdown’ fixes have created !
A pity, Windows 8 and 7 OSs are gonna suffer more, as if the so-called Windows 10 OS has been a Gamer’s dream so far ?
Since Windows 10 has come out, it has been finicky as hell. On top of that, MS trying to force updates and upgrades on customers, which isn’t a fair practice, to be honest.
Don’t get me wrong though, as I own a LEGIT copy of both Windows 7 and 8.1 pro 64 bit OSs, but thankfully I haven’t bought Windows 10 OS yet, despite the forced update.
Just don’t like the user interface, and I don’t see any point in using Win 10 OS, unless you wanna play pure DX12-only GAMES ?
I could be wrong though. NOT complaining here, but all this is getting out of hand now. I wonder if I should start “Pirating” Windows copy now, so as to avoid all these fixes and updates ?
I own an INTEL i7 4790 CPU, and I have disabled the automatic updates on my Windows 7/8.1 copy for the time being, until this is fully patched by MS and INTEL. I just wonder how DENUVO, and Windows STORE games are gonna perform, after all this ?
.
Dude how did you disabled auto updates cause I did all two options available. Through “manage” and “services” to disable automatic updates and through group policy object through console but when I go to windows updates I get the message that in some cases they will automatically force download and install updates in order to run the system smoothly!!!! WTF??
Are you using Windows 10 OS, or 7/8.1 ? I think some of the updates cannot be fully disabled, if using Windows 10, IMO.
Which version of Windows do you actually have ?
Haven’t checked Windows 8.1 settings yet, but in Windows 7 OS, we can select the option “Never check for updates” via the control panel.
Windows 10 Pro.. wow I believe you are right. There are some updates that are going to be forced down on win10 users! And I get a pretty good guess that spectre updates will be one of those. I cant find the words to describe the situation. I own the 4790k and it looks like I need to upgrade my mobo cpu and ram at the time I didnt even have to! Maybe when I will do that it will be the first time to try Amd..
That sucks. I’m not sure why MS is forcing Windows 10 updates on their customers ?
We all can understand that updating any operating system, keeps it safe from threats, bugs and attacks, but at least MiscroSoft should give the end users some sort of freedom to choose when they want to update their OS.
Apart from that, not everyone has an unlimited internet/broadband access as well, apart from the monthly limited DL bandwidth.
I am so angry about this man. This forced updates thing is so wrong and there is nothing we can do about it! Well unless the vast majority of people would stop buying their products but hey if the vast majority was conscious about various things in life we would live in a better society!
Windows 10, Haswell i5 4690K
TimerSpy: GTX 1070
Old driver, GPU overclocked: Score – 5605
CPU, boost enabled Score: 3219
New driver, GPU overclocked: Score – 5750
CPU, boost enabled Score: 3342
Do you guys understand how bad this is. Let me explain.
suppose 8th Gen i5 get 100fps without patch.
then it get 90 fps with patch or 80 with future patch.
so we lose 20%
but the 9gen will be slight better and perform as always like 20-25%. so with the 9th gen cpu we might get 110 or 115 fps.
it may looks like we got huge bump from 90 fps to 115 fps but we are not. this is actually good for intel in a way and we gamers are screwed unless we get a good AMD cpu or a decent 9th gen.
I really don’t see a 10~20% reduction in FPS happening in games buddy, more likely it will be around 1~4%.
Digital Foundry did some tests on Witcher 3 with Coffe Lake in 1080p using a 1080 Ti. If the game was getting 140 fps before with an i7 8700k in Novigrad (the most CPU dependent zone in the game as well as the most I/O intensive, given it’s streaming a ton of assets all the time), performance dropped by either 20 or 30 fps, I can’t remember exactly. This was with the both Spectre, Meltdown patches and the BIOS micro code update.
Dude, that’s a hefty decrease. I really did’nt expect that much loss in performance.
While true, most of the time, most people are GPU bound, not CPU bound. And most games as well aren’t really that hard on I/O operation, except for big open world games when you travel with a vehicle.
So these kind of performance impact won’t be there for most people.
Lol did you read it ? See again and what it says, AMD isn’t vulnerable to the Meltdown. Rest every processor apart from RISC and Raspberry Pi are susceptible to the Spectre.
I havea feeling this was all intentional!
But seriously in any case….THIS IS F***ED UP!!!
Actually, AMD said that while it’s highly highly unlikely anyone could exploit variant 2 of Spectre on their CPUs, it’s theoretically possible so they did issue a BIOS micro code update for it.