Do The Meltdown and Spectre Patches Affect PC Gaming Performance? 10 CPUs Tested
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Page 1:Gaming With Meltdown And Spectre
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Page 2:Exploiting The Unexploitable
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Page 3:Test Setup
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Page 4:VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation
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Page 5:Civilization VI Graphics & AI, & Dawn of War III
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Page 6:Far Cry Primal, Grand Theft Auto V & Hitman
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Page 7:Shadow of War, Project CARS 2 & PUBG
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Page 8:Game On...For Now
Game On...For Now
Unfortunately, Intel and its partners pulled the microcode patch during our testing, and AMD still doesn't have a fix of its own. We've been told that Intel's updated update is undergoing rigorous validation, but we don't have a time frame for its release. The same goes for AMD's Variant 2 microcode. Of course, we'll add test results with the new patches once they are available.
For newer processors, it looks like the operating system patch won't affect gaming workloads much, if at all. Most games are confined to the user space and don't make frequent kernel calls, so it's possible that the impact on older CPUs could be minor as well (game testing on those is in-progress).
The current patch does have an impact on storage performance, at least when it's measured with synthetic benchmarks. A laggy hard drive would obviously affect level loading times and the storage subsystem's ability to feed the game engine, possibly resulting in choppy scene transitions. We scrutinized our load times and cut scenes closely, and while entry-level CPUs did take longer and were less smooth, it's hard to chalk that up to a security patch because slower processors are, well, slower. We didn't notice any dramatic changes in performance consistency or frame time variance, so any minor impact would likely be limited to storage-imposed symptoms, at least with the patches as they sit currently.
Most of the vulnerability-oriented storage testing we've seen is happening at high queue depths, or using pure read or write workloads that aren't the best indicator of operating system performance. Most real-world accesses occur at lower queue depths, and radical changes in SSD performance, either for better or worse, don't correspond linearly to application performance.
The Spectre Variant 2 patches still loom large for Intel and AMD. Hopefully, both companies can deliver solid updates with minimal impact. We've heard that some applications can be optimized to minimize overhead. And Intel has mentioned that existing patches will mature into more efficient implementations.
For now we remain vulnerable to Spectre Variant 2, and proof-of-concept code is already popping up in the wild, unfortunately. That leaves us exposed while we wait on Intel and AMD, not to mention the rest of the industry, to correctly patch what could be the greatest vulnerability of our time. At least we can enjoy some gaming while we wait.
MORE: CPU Security Flaw: All You Need To Know About Spectre
MORE: Best Gaming CPUs
MORE: Intel & AMD Processor Hierarchy
Last page, third paragraph:
"so it's possible that the impact on older CPUs could be minor as well (game testing on those is in-progress)."
3/4 of all personal computers in the world today are NOT running windows 10. I don't know the exact percentage of gaming systems that are NOT running windows 10, but surely it is substantial.
Why wasn't the performance hit measured on the operating system running 3/4 of all PC's in the world today published immediately? To date, it appears that these numbers are being withheld from the public; the only reason has to be that the performance hit is absolutely massive in many cases.........Oh, and out of the total number of PC's used world wide, "gaming" PC's are a very small percentage, again begging the question of why tests are only being published for windows 10....
I have a question.
I read originally that AMD Zen architecture had near-immunity to Spectre variant 2 because a CPU specific code (password if you will) (that changes with each CPU) was required in order to exploit the CPU. Which is why AMD was claiming that Zen was almost immune to Spectre variant 2. Is this not the case?
AMD continues to insist that Spectre 2 is difficult to exploit due to CPU architecture. You left this out, and you continually lumped AMD with Intel with respect to Spectre 2 vulnerability.
This is misleading to your readers, and portrays a bias towards Intel.
https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution
Global OS penetration for Win 10 and Win 7 is effectively tied.
From the AMD page (which you linked)
And...
AMD hasn't released the microcode updates yet, but to its credit, it's probably better to make sure it is validated fully before release.
Do you know anything about the AMD Spectre variant 2 relating to the CPU code which is required beforehand in order to exploit AMD CPU's using variant 2?
I'm gathering that the answer is no.
As AMD didn't mention why they think they're less susceptible to variant 2 in the white paper, I'll assume that what I had was old news and no longer applies. I'm still curious though.
Win7 is dying out so soon that putting efford to win10 is something that is just sensible. Win7 is popular, so Yep. But end of the support is next year, so most likely not much efford is put in that Front.
'Nearly immune'? You mean the same as 'not immune'? 'Difficult to exploit' is PR for 'exploitable'.
This is AMD PR pushing a 'Spectre/Meltdown don't affect us... Much!' People wanted to hear that, so they read it in a positive light, rather than the practical light that AMD was also impacted. The simple fact they are releasing patches as well should tell you *everything* you need to know.
PR versus reality, AMD was impacted too. They are not immune, as they have said.
That 3/4 estimate is close for gamers though.
According to the most recent Steam Hardware and Software surveys,
56% of gamers using Steam are still on Windows 7 64Bit, and 35.4% of users are on Windows 10 64Bit.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
Tests should really be repeated with CPUs that lack PCID and/or INVPCID flags. I recall these flags and some newer commands are leveraged heavily to protect against Spectre and Meltdown while minimizing performance impact. Not having these CPU features means a more significant impact in gaming. As an i7-4930k user, I've noticed a huge hit to Civilization VI.
I'm pretty sure the performance difference between Windows 7 and actual Windows 10 are negligible.
That being said, I'm still on Sandy Bridge (2600k) and I too, would like a comparison of older generations, even though they "think" there's only a negligible effect for older gens too.
If they get performance and instability impact, so be it...is their fault using the hacked mods.
To try and turn this into a binary issue where every product is either "impacted" or "immune" is a drastic oversimplification of an extremely complex issue. After months of study the top experts still don't fully understand the full range of possibilities with Spectre, so outside of CPUs without branch prediction, no one can responsibly claim absolute "immunity". You'll note that Intel's early round of patches were released with the promise of "immunity" to Spectre but plenty of independent experts argued that they only actually reduced the vulnerability. The patches made the vulnerability much more difficult to leverage, but theoretical exploits remained. This is the problem with claiming "immunity", you only need one example, however unlikely or infeasible in the real-world, to disprove your claim.
In just about all forms of security there are degrees of vulnerability. For example, a home network running an unsecured wifi network is "exploitable", while the network at an NSA office is (I assume!) "difficult to exploit". There will doubtless be an array of security measures in place on the NSA network to make it extremely difficult to exploit... but history tells us the network and their data is not immune to being compromised. To characterise both networks as "exploitable" might be technically correct, but it's not an accurate representation of the situation.
Press Releases should absolutely be scrutinised and I'm not suggesting we just take AMD's word for this. It may well turn out to be PR nonsense and AMD every bit as vulnerable as Intel. But that needs to be determined by experts through testing. This issue is much more complicated than a simple "vulnerable/not vulnerable" equation.
AMD is preparing an OPTIONAL microcode update, that will insert some instructions to keep branches "in their own lanes" so to speak, as a precaution. But, they are NOT going to implement the main instruction that has the performance hit to the Intel chips. Maybe, someday, someone may get Spectre 2 to run on Zen, but as of now, it's a non issue. To imply that there are proof of concept programs in the wild affecting the Zen cpus by omission is just not right. Near zero risk of Spectre 2, and a vulnerability to both Specter variants are NOT different statements. Near zero means a remote chance of vulnerability. Still, since there are NO examples......
Intel makes quick references to memory. so it's easy to mark a set of memory you want to look at. AMD doesn't.
so if the information you want is the eiffeltower. on AMD you start in the middle of spain with a set of binoculars ducttaped to your eyes. also you don't have a map. with Intel you still start with the binoculars, but you can pretty much choose your spawn location making it alot easier to get the data.