Performance after Spectre/Meltdown fix so much slower!

[JanCerny]

Modern "hyper-super-ultra" drives based on 3D TLC chips have higher leakage current.

@davidm71

@JanCerny

Check out the PM871a

100mw active power consumption!!!

Old Intel 320 have similar specifications.

[davidm71]

Leakage current??

So don’t replace the WD 3D Blue for a PM871?

[JanCerny]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leakage_(electronics)

In semiconductor devices, leakage is a quantum phenomenon where mobile charge carriers (electrons or holes) tunnel through an insulating region. Leakage increases exponentially as the thickness of the insulating region decreases. Tunneling leakage can also occur across semiconductor junctions between heavily doped P-type and N-type semiconductors. Other than tunneling via the gate insulator or junctions, carriers can also leak between source and drain terminals of a Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) transistor. This is called subthreshold conduction. The primary source of leakage occurs inside transistors, but electrons can also leak between interconnects. Leakage increases power consumption and if sufficiently large can cause complete circuit failure.

Leakage is currently one of the main factors limiting increased computer processor performance. Efforts to minimize leakage include the use of strained silicon, high-k dielectrics, and/or stronger dopant levels in the semiconductor. Leakage reduction to continue Moore’s law will not only require new material solutions but also proper system design.

[davidm71]

I know what leakage is but in regards to these TLC drives you are referring to situations like what happened with the Samsung 840 Evo and performance loss of those sectors that were never refreshed? Same thing?

[davidm71]

Got to give props to Dell once again. After 3 years and past warranty they released another bios update upgrading the microcodes, ME, and other items. Will have to run performance tests to see if theres a difference but its a Sata m.2 drive so the numbers will never be exciting.

[bibikalka]

@ygbsm

The slow down is caused by the fix for Meltdown on Westmere, Sandy Bridge, and Ivy Bridge Intel CPUs. Since the needed feature for a fast fix is not in the CPU, an inefficient fix (cache flushing) has to be implemented. Anything older than that can’t be patched at all, and anything newer (beginning with Haswell) has the CPU feature set which allows the fast fix.

Sorry to necro revive a very old thread!

But - I am a bit confused about the microcode business. I have a Sandy Bridge chip, and implemented pre-Meltdown microcodes into its BIOS. I also renamed mcupdate_GenuineIntel.dll to *.bak . So now my system is running for sure with the old microcodes, but benchmarks appear to be no different than before when I had the post-Meltdown microcodes which I thought were supposed to be slower. On the other hand, subjectively the system appears to be more responsive. Simple placebo?

So I tried the module to see what the system is doing from here:

SpeculationControl 1.0.18

Every mitigation is reported to be disabled. But - why do I not see any speed up in the CPUMark?

PS C:\extra\hw> Get-SpeculationControlSettings
For more information about the output below, please refer to https://support.microsoft.com/help/4074629

Speculation control settings for CVE-2017-5715 [branch target injection]

Hardware support for branch target injection mitigation is present: False
Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True
Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is enabled: False
Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is disabled by system policy: True
Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is disabled by absence of hardware support: True

Speculation control settings for CVE-2017-5754 [rogue data cache load]

Hardware is vulnerable to rogue data cache load: True
Windows OS support for rogue data cache load mitigation is present: True
Windows OS support for rogue data cache load mitigation is enabled: False

Hardware requires kernel VA shadowing: True
Windows OS support for kernel VA shadow is present: True
Windows OS support for kernel VA shadow is enabled: False

Speculation control settings for CVE-2018-3639 [speculative store bypass]

Hardware is vulnerable to speculative store bypass: True
Hardware support for speculative store bypass disable is present: False
Windows OS support for speculative store bypass disable is present: True
Windows OS support for speculative store bypass disable is enabled system-wide: False

Speculation control settings for CVE-2018-3620 [L1 terminal fault]

Hardware is vulnerable to L1 terminal fault: True
Windows OS support for L1 terminal fault mitigation is present: True
Windows OS support for L1 terminal fault mitigation is enabled: False

Speculation control settings for MDS [microarchitectural data sampling]

Windows OS support for MDS mitigation is present: True
Hardware is vulnerable to MDS: True
Windows OS support for MDS mitigation is enabled: False

Speculation control settings for SBDR [shared buffers data read]

Windows OS support for SBDR mitigation is present: True
Hardware is vulnerable to SBDR: True
Windows OS support for SBDR mitigation is enabled: False

Speculation control settings for FBSDP [fill buffer stale data propagator]

Windows OS support for FBSDP mitigation is present: True
Hardware is vulnerable to FBSDP: True
Windows OS support for FBSDP mitigation is enabled: False

Speculation control settings for PSDP [primary stale data propagator]

Windows OS support for PSDP mitigation is present: True
Hardware is vulnerable to PSDP: True
Windows OS support for PSDP mitigation is enabled: False

Suggested actions

 * Install BIOS/firmware update provided by your device OEM that enables hardware support for the branch target injection mitigation.
 * Follow the guidance for enabling Windows Client support for speculation control mitigations described in https://support.microsoft.com/help/4073119


BTIHardwarePresent                  : False
BTIWindowsSupportPresent            : True
BTIWindowsSupportEnabled            : False
BTIDisabledBySystemPolicy           : True
BTIDisabledByNoHardwareSupport      : True
BTIKernelRetpolineEnabled           : False
BTIKernelImportOptimizationEnabled  : True
RdclHardwareProtectedReported       : True
RdclHardwareProtected               : False
KVAShadowRequired                   : True
KVAShadowWindowsSupportPresent      : True
KVAShadowWindowsSupportEnabled      : False
KVAShadowPcidEnabled                : False
SSBDWindowsSupportPresent           : True
SSBDHardwareVulnerable              : True
SSBDHardwarePresent                 : False
SSBDWindowsSupportEnabledSystemWide : False
L1TFHardwareVulnerable              : True
L1TFWindowsSupportPresent           : True
L1TFWindowsSupportEnabled           : False
L1TFInvalidPteBit                   : 45
L1DFlushSupported                   : False
HvL1tfStatusAvailable               : True
HvL1tfProcessorNotAffected          : False
MDSWindowsSupportPresent            : True
MDSHardwareVulnerable               : True
MDSWindowsSupportEnabled            : False
FBClearWindowsSupportPresent        : True
SBDRSSDPHardwareVulnerable          : True
FBSDPHardwareVulnerable             : True
PSDPHardwareVulnerable              : True
FBClearWindowsSupportEnabled        : False