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Friday Random Stuff…

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2nd Gen Ryzen
“2nd generation AMD Ryzen processor lineup offers world’s highest multithreaded performance desktop processors in its class; immediate pre-order availability from more than 150 retailers and boutique PC manufacturers”
Full specs and release info from the AMD PR Department.

It’s gonna be a great weekend. I’ll be out there pedaling somewhere. Hope y’all have a great weekend!

WD Black 512GB Performance M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe SSD
Price: $169.99 Free Shipping for Prime Members
You Save: $30.00 (15%)

Samsung 960 EVO Series – 500GB NVMe – M.2 Internal SSD
Price: $199.99 Free Shipping for Prime Members
You Save: $50.00 (20%)

AMD Spectre Mitigation Update

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“Today, AMD is providing updates regarding our recommended mitigations for Google Project Zero (GPZ) Variant 2 (Spectre) for Microsoft Windows users. These mitigations require a combination of processor microcode updates from our OEM and motherboard partners, as well as running the current and fully up-to-date version of Windows. For Linux users, AMD recommended mitigations for GPZ Variant 2 were made available to our Linux partners and have been released to distribution earlier this year…
Microsoft is releasing an operating system update containing Variant 2 (Spectre) mitigations for AMD users running Windows 10 (version 1709) today. Support for these mitigations for AMD processors in Windows Server 2016 is expected to be available following final validation and testing.
In addition, microcode updates with our recommended mitigations addressing Variant 2 (Spectre) have been released to our customers and ecosystem partners for AMD processors dating back to the first “Bulldozer” core products introduced in 2011.
AMD customers will be able to install the microcode by downloading BIOS updates provided by PC and server manufacturers and motherboard providers. Please check with your provider for the latest updates.”
Spectre Mitigation Update – Mark Papermaster, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer

AMDFLAWS.com

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So this is a thing: https://amdflaws.com/
Slashdot links to this article: AMD has a Spectre/Meltdown-like security flaw of its own
They say, “13 Critical Security Vulnerabilities and Manufacturer Backdoors discovered throughout AMD Ryzen & EPYC product lines.” Apparently they only gave AMD a 24 hour heads up.
Just you break out the popcorn, sit back, put your feet up and watch what comes of this.

2 News SSDs

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Intel and Samsung released new SSDs and Anandtech benchmarked them.
Intel 760p NVMe M.2:
“Compared to other NVMe SSDs, the 760p is clearly not a high-end drive…but Samsung’s recent NVMe SSDs are often far faster than the 760p…The Samsung 960 EVO is currently a bit more expensive than the 760p but largely justifies that price.”
Samsung 860 Pro SATA:
“Ultimately the Samsung 860 PRO is a commendable technical achievement; Samsung has pushed the SATA III interface to its limit by having it serve such a powerful SSD, and it’s entirely possible we won’t see a better desktop SATA SSD ever made. But as SSDs get faster and faster and the SATA interface does not, I would argue that the 860 PRO isn’t a very good product”

Meltdown & Spectre Updates Benchmarked

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My system benchmarked after KB4056892 and CPU Microcode update (BIOS).
Full system specs here: My New PC – 2017
CPU: Intel i7-8700k
Mobo: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
GPU: Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 AMP! Edition (Nvidia)
Ram: 32GB
Drives: x2 Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2
OS: Win10 Pro

 

***UPDATED 23JAN2018

My motherboard manufacturer released another BIOS update for this issue.
New scores on PCMark10.
[Read more…] about Meltdown & Spectre Updates Benchmarked

Windows Performance Impact Of Meltdown And Spectre

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Microsoft exec Terry Myerson lays out what he expects the performance impact of the Meltdown/Spectre patches.
– With Windows 10 on newer silicon (2016-era PCs with Skylake, Kabylake or newer CPU), benchmarks show single-digit slowdowns, but we don’t expect most users to notice a change because these percentages are reflected in milliseconds.
TH – Skylake released 2015. Kaby Lake 2016.
– With Windows 10 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), some benchmarks show more significant slowdowns, and we expect that some users will notice a decrease in system performance.
TH – Haswell released 2013.
– With Windows 8 and Windows 7 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), we expect most users to notice a decrease in system performance.
TH – Haswell released 2013
– Windows Server on any silicon, especially in any IO-intensive application, shows a more significant performance impact when you enable the mitigations to isolate untrusted code within a Windows Server instance. This is why you want to be careful to evaluate the risk of untrusted code for each Windows Server instance, and balance the security versus performance tradeoff for your environment.
TH – You’re attached to another object by an incline plane wrapped helically around an axis.

Conveniently left out is any reference to Microsoft bricking AMD machines.
I will repeat my advice to not update Windows machines right now. Certainly you need to have a full image backup before you do.
I recommend Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition.

To find your CPU family.
Those odd names are CPU Family or CPU Code Names (Haswell, Skylake, Kabylake…).
Download Speccy PORTABLE and run it.
Click the CPU tab. Find the line Code Name, that is your CPU family.
Google it or, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors