I'm glad to see the Linux creator agrees with exactly what I've been saying/thinking ever since I heard about this processor vulnerability bullshit and how we're FORCED to use the patch(es), so in other words, forced to experience the performance loss.

Mr. Torvalds said this recently: Also, too, at least three class action lawsuits have been filed against Intel. You go guys. And then there's the bullshit where the CEO sold all of his shares (except the 250,000 he's required to own as part of his employment agreement) and made millions of dollars after he learned of this design flaw and before it became public. Then he had the audacity to claim it was part of planned sale under 1 0b5-1 (this is a plan that CEO's and some government employees use to have sell offs be "automatic" so as to appear clear of insider trading). However, what he didn't mention regarding this planned sale was the plan was put in place in OCTOBER 2017. AFTER Intel learned of the vulnerability.

There is so much shit here it's unbelievable. I will be applauding those three class action lawsuits (which will likely be combined into 1) and hoping the SEC looks into insider trading knowledge. Because this is a case of it being OBVIOUS. He learned of the flaw in June... he created a plan in October, and sold his shares in November... with a gain of about $25 million.

And Linus Torvalds is right. Which of the two will it be Intel?

I'm going to try and return all of the items I just bought for my self build. And I expect to be rejected. But that will just be another lawsuit. I (and any others that recently bought processor and the stuff that goes with them) didn't spend that money only to suffer a significant performance loss. It's part of the public record now that Intel knew of this problem at least by June (I suspect it was actually before that) so they knowingly sold processors that were basically false advertising as they knew once the fix was applied they would not perform the way they were being marketed.

EDIT: Links fixed.

But what are you going to buy if you return your hardware? Because there's another vulnerability that affects Intel, AMD, and ARM - and some industry analysts are saying in the long term that will be worse than the one that's currently in the spotlight affecting Intel.

As to Intel's CEO: just another example of the rich using their knowledge/power to get richer. Sure, he may be fined; might even do jail time. But the end result is he'll still end up richer than he was before all this was discovered.

it's a great old world we live in, ain't it?

Buying AMD would help, as they're not hit by the Meltdown problem.
Sure, they're hit by the Spectre (as are most CPU's) but that's a lot harder to get into your systems.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/meltdown-spectre-exploits-intel-amd-arm-nvidia,36219.html

Not to mention that the performance loss is grossly exaggerated. There has been so much misinformation about this. For the most part, the issue only concerns Kernal I/O operations such as transferring files to an SSD, HDD or network. It has never been an issue of every Kernal call as some have claimed.

File load and transfer times are impacted and is a serious issue for Cloud services. If all your processors are doing is moving files from one place to another, the performance loss is significant and estimated at 30%. But as it works for gaming (or really any typical desktop use), the games and levels may take longer to load, but it really shouldn't affect the game play at all. I've seen tests of the patches which seem to prove this is true. Maybe there might be some effect to online play, but since most games rely more on the GPU than CPU, I'd expect no speed loss, just maybe higher CPU loads but if there is an effect, it might increase server latency. That might be an issue for those playing competitive online games.

I haven't yet seen any report about IBM's POWER platform. I'd love to get a Talos II workstation, but they're a bit too expensive for my current budget, with just a motherboard and basic 4-core CPU with cooler for US$ 2400 (and then there's memory, storage, case, but those are rather cheap in comparison).

EDIT: Spectre affects POWER9 as well. Oh, well, would still like to have one of those machines. https://securityboulevard.com/2018/01/meltdown-and-spectre-vulnerabilities-what-you-need-to-know/

Sorry, an assumption on my part. I just thought you'd still want to have a computer and do some gaming.

Couldn't agree with you more, OldFatGuy, and Linus Torvalds. Not buying Intel again; the least they should do is recompense everyone. Their lazy testing, rushing things through to try to beat the competition, has resulted in this, and, with a CEO this corrupt, deliberately not caring about customers, I just do not know how anyone could give them more money (considering IME also). People need to be really angry and act on that very strongly. There's no better time to make Intel pay, tbh. AMD are dropping prices, and have no history of doing what you've detailed, so, if CPU-intensive art software takes too much of a hit (on Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.3), I'll be looking to replace the system in the next few months, after seeing what AMD do and which system would be best.

Hey Intel! I can be bought. Just sell a processor to me at 20% or more better value than AMD and I am ready to close my eyes.

Seems a good thing I did not get a new computer last autumn.

Who else thought from the title that OldFatGuy had finally had enough with Windows 10 and decided to switch to Linux? :P

I did. :D

*raises hand*

I went to several sites, and saw some claiming there is little to no performance loss while others were talking about 20% performance loss. So, I decided sleep was overrated and stayed up last night reading. A lot. Too much. My head and eyes hurt. lol

Bottom line is I hope you're right.... I'm kind of leaning in the direction that you're right, and even better there is rumblings that they will be able to "fix" whatever performance loss there is. And then the other bit of good news was how the new 8700k should be impacted less (and that's the processor I bought) because of some damned technology is has that I've now forgotten the name of PTIT or some such crap.

To sum... I'm not returning my stuff and am going to hope you're right and/or that whatever performance loss there may be will be fixed.

Still believe Intel deserves to be sued as I would bet every dollar I ever had and every dollar I ever will have that they knew about this vulnerability before June. I would bet my life. These guys absolutely knew their processors better than anybody at Google or anywhere else. Plus, while it does appear gaming doesn't take a big hit performance wise, there were some things that did take a significant performance hit. It's for those folks I'm hoping the class action lawsuits will be successful.

Is it still okay to wear the PC Master Race t-shirt, or should I put it away for a while?

; )