I think the bigger issue here is that microsoft has decided to depend on intel's nasty microcode hack, rather than implement retpoline, which for all intents and purposes appears to have a much smaller to no performance hit and mitigates spectre on basically everything except skylake(and newer) without a microcode update, you just have to recompile everything unfortunately, a pain yes , still a better solution for now and the future. anything that doesn't get replaced is going suffer a sizable perf hit on wondows .

Quite frankly i have a really hard time believing anything Intel says right now...

It's a shame Intel are were not as quick off the mark to fix and make secure all these security issues that millions of intel CPU users now know they have because of a flaw in intels hardware, as their ceo and other high ups in the company were as to quickly dump their shares before these issues were made public. 😡

kegastaMmer:

On a fantastical thought, if intel replaced all devices with compromised cpu for lets say, tier 4 i3 2 core, tier 3 i3 quad, tier 2 i5 quad, and tier 1, i7 hex , and refunded irreplaceables like i9 ir decacores , intel would lose a lot of money, but the market would be overrun and it could easily monopolise the whole world market. I'd say," go for it , intel. Show us you can! "wishful hat off"

Meanwhile at intel , ok well 8300 and 8200 i5's are about to enter the market because they made em already , and the bug is still there!

So when exactly are these “fixed” CPU’s going to land is the question...

drac:

So when exactly are these “fixed” CPU’s going to land is the question...

Given past time frames for fixing cpu bugs, looking at ~5-8+ months depending on how big of a change it is, and how fast intel spins new silicon for a fixed revision. If intel finishes the new revision in the next month or 2, i would expect to see new chips in q3. Could be longer than that for consumer chips however, since server chips are going to be priority. May not be worth it for intel to fix the coffeelake chips, when icelake is just around the corner... which btw is probably on a new chipset/socket, yet again lmao. z300 chipsets might already be a dead end. ryzen has really screwed with intel's roadmap, really hard to tell whats going to launch when, It would be in intel's best interested to get new stuff out ASAP, but at the same time, they have all this crap in the pipeline thats already done.

Fox2232:

You will not know if intel made new asic which no longer has this security hole. Or if they simply launch next generation with initial microcode already "patched".

Meltdown is probably fixable, but spectre i would be surprised if there was anything meaningful they could do until they make some big changes to the uarch, that one will be around for a while. The "patched" mircocode isn't even really a fix it just allows software to use some pretty nasty expensive hacks to deal with it. Worst part about the microcode is that its not even clear yet if the current implementation of the microcode is sufficient to block it completely. very messy thats for sure

fantaskarsef:

Sure it's unrealistic. Because they made an error and can't make up for it. That's how it goes when you are in Intel's market position. Apparently Intel hired a firm that's specialized in taking care of such a "crisis". On reddit one user said that Intel hired Sard Verbinnen (google it, but you'll have a hard time finding anything about their contract), which is specialized in taking care of large PR desasters. Seems they are afraid about what people think about them...

As they should be - Intel's success is almost wholly driven by their public reputation. Even at times where they had an inferior product (not just compared to AMD, but also IBM, ARM, and arguably Cyrix) they pushed their marketing hard. Intel knows they really screwed up 2017, but they sure are doing a good job at keeping sales going.

I mean, it's nice that they are working on microcode updates. They have been doing so for the better of 2017, or not? I guess Intel has not gotten any microcode engineers free to take care of something like this seven months after.

Yeah I don't really get why they decided to work on this at what seems to be last-minute. It shouldn't have been that hard to at least experiment with microcode while they were still trying to figure out what to do about this issue.

I would have gotten the upgrade itch to be honest, but right now I don't trust any CPU until things are really taken care of. It's upsetting that this looks like a middle schooler's take on fixing this, it feels like Intel is acting like a chicken with it's head chopped off, running around flapping their wings with no direction at all...

Part of me feels that's because they're trying to scare people into upgrading. Intel could fix this appropriately, but it's more profitable to toy with people's emotions. Due to their name, people will upgrade with them, even if begrudgingly. A lot of companies work this way. Food companies advertise to your cravings. The NRA exploits people's fears. PETA shows the cruelest activities toward animals. News networks embellish the terrible stories. Emotions are an easy way to override logic, so these companies know what they're doing.

schmidtbag:

As they should be - Intel's success is almost wholly driven by their public reputation. Even at times where they had an inferior product (not just compared to AMD, but also IBM, ARM, and arguably Cyrix) they pushed their marketing hard. Intel knows they really screwed up 2017, but they sure are doing a good job at keeping sales going. Yeah I don't really get why they decided to work on this at what seems to be last-minute. It shouldn't have been that hard to at least experiment with microcode while they were still trying to figure out what to do about this issue. Part of me feels that's because they're trying to scare people into upgrading. Intel could fix this appropriately, but it's more profitable to toy with people's emotions. Due to their name, people will upgrade with them, even if begrudgingly. A lot of companies work this way. Food companies advertise to your cravings. The NRA exploits people's fears. PETA shows the cruelest activities toward animals. News networks embellish the terrible stories. Emotions are an easy way to override logic, so these companies know what they're doing.

Indeed, indeed... catering to emotions is the only way to market things during the current times. Argueably the world has changed after 2001 because of a constant emotional assault of fear... It's just that in this situation, if you think it through, there will be no winners, and certainly not the customers. The companies just do whatever they want, and we have to take it. The great idea of the free market regulated by offer and demand is an illusion 😀 There's basically no way how as a customer you can't be upset about how this "crisis management" turns out in particular. And there's little you can do about it, except if people are willing to buy Ryzen systems in the future, or from a professional point of view, things like clouds and supercomputers that are not based on Intel products. They just made a mistake, that's true. But what's my problem here is they are making "mistakes" over "mistakes" when it comes to fixing this issue, and they know it. They are already hiring world leading crisis management PR companies, their CEO sold their shares (insider trading), and now they are cutting us all down in performance so that we do feel an additional urge to upgrade. And nobody punishes them... during my next life I want to become a big company too so I can take dumps on everybody's heads and still get richer by the minute 😀

end of the week -> end of the month (january) -> end of the year -> ??? (new cpu? xD)

GxCx:

Today is the Day. Whats the response?

Not sure the consumer will ever get to read Intel's answer unless it's leaked by a "whistleblower".