Hardware & Technical Intel/Meltdown Benchmark Results

mp4x

mp4x
By now you will know about the apparent flaw in a wide range of chips. Those who don't can read about it here, and there's also a tool you can download to test if you're vulnerable.

The biggest problem that the news articles are reporting with the patch/fix, is that users will suffer "up to a 30%" loss in performance in that CPU once it's patched. I used the tool and I was found to be vulnerable. I wanted to know just how much the patch affected me so I ran a couple of pre and post bench marks, I recorded the results. I'm an overclocker and VR enthusiast, so losing 'up to 30%' would grind my gears.

I only took a few samples as initially I did this just for my own satisfaction and/or torture, but others might be curious so here's what happened. My PC was in the same state for both rounds of testing. The differences are insignificant and at some points CPU performance even increased - I don't actually think the patch increased performance, it's likely just random and environmental factors. I don't if know my results are typical, so I encourage you to try it on your own systems... I'm definitely glad I did, as the results have eased any worries I had.

System Specs:
CPU: i7 7700k @ 4800MHz
GPU: Asus Strix 1080 @ 2050MHz
RAM: 32GB @ 3200MHz

3DMARK Demo Results
Time Spy score: 1.22% drop in performance after patching
-Gfx score: 1.73% drop
-CPUscore: 1% increase in performance after patching

Fire Strike score: 1.66% drop
-Gfx score: 2.26% drop
-Physscore: 0.08% drop
-Comscore: 1.32% drop

CPU-Z Results:
-Single Thread: 0.05% increase
-Multi Thread: 1.11% increase



Full results:
Pre Update 3DMARK Results
Time Spy [Run 1]:7712
-Gfx score: 8100
-CPU score: 6068
Time Spy[Run 2]:7693
-Gfx score: 8077
-CPU score: 6061

Fire Strike[Run 1]:19447
-Gfx score: 24139
-Physscore: 15511
-Combscore: 9363
Fire Strike[Run 2]:19550
-Gfx score: 24267
-Physscore: 15559
-Combscore: 9432

CPU-Z [Run 1]
-Single Thread: 569
-Multi Thread: 2858
CPU-Z [Run 2]
-Single Thread: 570
-Multi Thread: 2866
CPU-Z [Run 3]
-Single Thread: 570
-Multi Thread: 2863

Post Update 3DMARK Results
Time Spy [Run 1]:7623
-Gfx score: 7966
-CPU score: 6130
Time Spy[Run 2]:7595
-Gfx score: 7933
-CPU score: 6121

Fire Strike[Run 1]:19215
-Gfx score: 23736
-Physscore: 15538
-Combscore: 9269
Fire Strike[Run 2]:19139
-Gfx score: 23587
-Physscore: 15507
-Combscore: 9278

CPU-Z [Run 1]
-Single Thread: 571
-Multi Thread: 2894
CPU-Z [Run 2]
-Single Thread: 569
-Multi Thread: 2890
CPU-Z [Run 3]
-Single Thread: 570
-Multi Thread: 2891
 
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Porina

Porina
Test system is gaming laptop MSI GE62 6QF: i7-6700HQ, 16GB ram (DDR4 2133, dual channel, dual rank), GTX 970M, Crucial MX300 525GB SATA SSD. Win10 FCU.

Bench, before, after, performance change

Cinebench R15: 684, 685, +0.1%
Firestrike: 6458, 6423, -0.5%
TimeSpy: 2360, 2355, -0.2%
FFXIV Stormblood bench, Laptop High 1080p: 10413, 10275, -1.3%
FFXIV Stormblood bench load time: 23.337s, 23.700s, 1.6% slower
CrystalDiskMark: no significant change, but I wont post individual results as I found some possible thermal throttling effects in "after" results which I had to eliminate, and can't easily repeat the "before" tests to double check they weren't also affected to some degree. Some of the optimised "after" results were higher enough to make me wonder if it was a real improvement, or if the "before" results were not as good as they could be.
Prime95 29.4b5: basically no change unless you test with tiny FFT size in multi-thread per task mode, where there was a hit of up to 10%. This doesn't matter as no one would sensibly do that and single thread per task mode is way faster in that scenario.

For CPU tests I did repeated measurements to find the best case in either scenario. For 3D benches I only did one run afterwards when it was obvious there wasn't any major change. The apparent small reduction may just be me not repeatedly running to get the best result like I did "before", but I don't view this as significant to be worth the time in doing.

While my limited testing doesn't prove that no one will be significantly impacted, it does at least also help indicate that at least in these scenarios there is no significant change. The caution I have looking forward is the MS patch is only the first step in mitigating potential attacks. I understand for better coverage, a microcode update will follow later, so we would have to repeat testing once available to see if that has any further impact. It may also be the case that given more time to work on it, areas seeing a performance drop now may be improved on to negate some or all of that loss.
 

mp4x

mp4x
marx said:
That's the wrong link though. It refers to an earlier flaw with Intel's backdoor system, the Management Engine, and not the Meltdown flaw of their CPUs. Are you sure you applied the correct update to mitigate that?
Click to expand...
Yup, all Windows updates were also applied at the same time as the ME update. Apologies for the confusion
 

GJ51

GJ51
http://markets.businessinsider.com/...-its-fixed-spectre-cpu-flaw-2018-1-1012526721

Information is all over the place.

Add to that the fact that Gen 7 Intel chips won't install Win 7 combined with the confusion on new high end motherboards and the whole hardware upgrade path has never been more confusing.

It's going to take a lot of time before we start to see some clarity on what's going to be a good option going forward.

Clearly M$ is determined to kill Win 7/8 asap and force all software on Win 10 to be bought through the Store.

Bad time for do-it-your-selfers

You also now have to wonder how long it will take for Intel to produce a new CPU that doesn't have the native hardware flaw. Are CPU prices on current inventories going to tank? Why build now with a faulty CPU?
 
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mp4x

mp4x
It certainly doesn't help that Intel CEO Brian Krzanich sold a bunch of his Intel stock after the flaws were found and before they were made public. I read that there's multiple class action suits against Intel, already, and undoubtedly Intel will take a big hit in the pocket for this... Fortunately the reported loss of CPU performance, at least in the home user space, seems to be hype driven. There's a few YouTube channels that are posting benchmarks now and it's not really showing any noteworthy loss in performance What do you mean by "Bad time for do-it-your-selfers" ?
GJ51 said:
http://markets.businessinsider.com/...-its-fixed-spectre-cpu-flaw-2018-1-1012526721 Information is all over the place. Add to that the fact that Gen 7 Intel chips won't install Win 7 combined with the confusion on new high end motherboards and the whole hardware upgrade path has never been more confusing. It's going to take a lot of time before we start to see some clarity on what's going to be a good option going forward. Clearly M$ is determined to kill Win 7/8 asap and force all software on Win 10 to be bought through the Store. Bad time for do-it-your-selfers You also now have to wonder how long it will take for Intel to produce a new CPU that doesn't have the native hardware flaw. Are CPU prices on current inventories going to tank? Why build now with a faulty CPU?
Click to expand...
 

mp4x

mp4x
User space/End user PC's and Servers are being affected differently. Everything I've been posting is about our PCs... which as you said - information is all over the place - including right here, indicating that it's not an issue. Servers and server farms are another issue, the link you posted is about back-end server performance... which isn't my concern
GJ51 said:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/6/16857878/meltdown-cpu-performance-issues-epic-games-fortnite Again - information is all over the map [h=1]"Epic Games blames Meltdown CPU performance issues for Fortnite downtime"[/h]
Click to expand...
 

GJ51

GJ51
mp4x said:
What do you mean by "Bad time for do-it-your-selfers" ?
Click to expand...

I build my own PC's and my current desktop runs great but is getting a bit dated. It's a Core i7 - 950 24GB ram, SSD, Nvidia 980Ti - very stable and dependable and still runs very nicely, but it's getting to that age where I know I need to build again before I start getting hardware failures.

For me, the big dilemma is moving off Win 7 as I find it to be the best OS MS has ever done and I have years of customizations integrated into it. Today's state-of-the-art hardware won't be supported on Win 7/8 and forces Win 10 on you, which will take lot of effort to get working well. Additionally, there's a lot of research one needs to do to be sure that you match the right CPU to the right motherboard as some board/CPU combinations don't take full advantage of memory slots available and/or PCIe lanes available on one or the other. I understand it, but it's still too easy to make a mistake if you're not careful.

Add to that the fact that you can't currently buy a CPU that isn't flawed and it just isn't the right time to sink a ton of money into a new system.

And I'm not even going to go into any detail on M.2 and Intel Optane and the complexities of getting the performance you're looking for without Intel trying to make you pay an additional $100 for activating features.

There are just too many complexities and uncertainties at the moment to waste money on hardware that may not turn out to be cost effective. It actually looks like maybe a Z270 chipset with a Core i7-6700K may be the best available option at present if Win 7 is used, but then you are paying for "old" tech that you could have bought quite a while ago without much savings compared to newer hardware available.

Right now, there's just no clear great option to get good bang for the buck on a system that I know I can get 5 - 10 years out of. Every option seems to have drawbacks or compromises.

It's just not a good time for hardware upgrading. I probably should have done the Z270/6700K upgrade a couple years ago.
 
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mp4x

mp4x
Ah, ok yes, similarly the first family computer was an Apple ][e and its the only PC I didn't build. I've never been without a computer since. I'm glad I updated my current rig when I did, although technically flawed the 270e/i7 7700k combo should get me through most of the next year with a GPU update. If i WAS due for an upgrade, it would bother me to buy something I know is flawed, but as someone who already has that flawed tech and did a small pre/post patch benchmark - I know that flaw is irrelevant to MY computer performance. I posted those results so people looking at upgrading/patching(yourself?) can see some real end user results. It seems to only be affecting the server line of chips, to any real degree. Regarding windows 7, it was my favorite but Windows 10 doesn't really have a downside for me, Vs 7.
GJ51 said:
I build my own PC's and my current desktop runs great but is getting a bit dated. It's a Core i7 - 950 24GB ram, SSD, Nvidia 980Ti - very stable and dependable and still runs very nicely, but it's getting to that age where I know I need to build again before I start getting hardware failures. For me, the big dilemma is moving off Win 7 as I find it to be the best OS MS has ever done and I have years of customizations integrated into it. Today's state-of-the-art hardware won't be supported on Win 7/8 and forces Win 10 on you, which will take lot of effort to get working well. Additionally, there's a lot of research one needs to do to be sure that you match the right CPU to the right motherboard as some board/CPU combinations don't take full advantage of memory slots available and/or PCIe lanes available on one or the other. I understand it, but it's still too easy to make a mistake if you're not careful. Add to that the fact that you can't currently buy a CPU that isn't flawed and it just isn't the right time to sink a ton of money into a new system. And I'm not even going to go into any detail on M.2 and Intel Optane and the complexities of getting the performance you're looking for without Intel trying to make you pay an additional $100 for activating features. There are just too many complexities and uncertainties at the moment to waste money on hardware that may not turn out to be cost effective. It actually looks like maybe a Z270 chipset with a Core i7-6700K may be the best available option at present if Win 7 is used, but then you are paying for "old" tech that you could have bought quite a while ago without much savings compared to newer hardware available. Right now, there's just no clear great option to get good bang for the buck on a system that I know I can get 5 - 10 years out of. Every option seems to have drawbacks or compromises. It's just not a good time for hardware upgrading. I probably should have done the Z270/6700K upgrade a couple years ago.
Click to expand...
 
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GammaZ

G
I've installed win7 on kaby lake systems at work (because as usual - some crucial software does not work on Win10) and it works just fine, as expected. The only thing that caused issues are iGPU drivers, but... does it actually matter in terms of building home PC?
All those "win7 will not run on this CPU" nonsense is just a part of Microsoft's attempts to migrate everyone to Win10, which is TBH unusable in corporate environment with how updates work.

As for patch/performance loss - as was stated from the beginning - it will be highly workload dependent by its nature, and very noticeable in some cases, just not on home pc or synthetic CPU benchmarks. Also it is not a fix, it is just a workaround for intel-specific issue. Other two require cpu microcode update and the worst part - every application update. Which means that it is not as simple as installing OS patch, one will have to update ALL software once/if developers update it, or just replace CPU once fixed ones will be available.
 
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Porina

Porina
GJ51 said:
Add to that the fact that Gen 7 Intel chips won't install Win 7 combined with the confusion on new high end motherboards and the whole hardware upgrade path has never been more confusing.
Click to expand...

Win7 runs fine on Ryzen and Coffee Lake. The only problem is that MS have stated they wont support it. That means they have added CPU detect in Windows Update, and it will refuse to update those systems.

You're over-thinking it on high end systems. Basically stick a Skylake-X on X299 mobo, and apart from the 28 vs 40 PCIe lane thing which has been a theme for past generations also. The only confusion were the Kaby Lake-X parts, which is pretty much a niche dedicated to competitive overclockers and should otherwise be ignored.

You also now have to wonder how long it will take for Intel to produce a new CPU that doesn't have the native hardware flaw. Are CPU prices on current inventories going to tank? Why build now with a faulty CPU?
Click to expand...

My original thought on this was that it'll probably be the 2019 generation before we get a fix, as this isn't something you can drop in at the last minute, and whatever is going to drop in 2018 would be too far down the path to change course. Then the news came in about how far back Intel were notified about the attack, and I dunno if that extra time meant they ha a chance to implement even a partial fix for the next release.

GJ51 said:
Add to that the fact that you can't currently buy a CPU that isn't flawed and it just isn't the right time to sink a ton of money into a new system.

And I'm not even going to go into any detail on M.2 and Intel Optane and the complexities of getting the performance you're looking for without Intel trying to make you pay an additional $100 for activating features.

There are just too many complexities and uncertainties at the moment to waste money on hardware that may not turn out to be cost effective. It actually looks like maybe a Z270 chipset with a Core i7-6700K may be the best available option at present if Win 7 is used, but then you are paying for "old" tech that you could have bought quite a while ago without much savings compared to newer hardware available.

Right now, there's just no clear great option to get good bang for the buck on a system that I know I can get 5 - 10 years out of. Every option seems to have drawbacks or compromises.

It's just not a good time for hardware upgrading. I probably should have done the Z270/6700K upgrade a couple years ago.
Click to expand...

You could go the AMD route, which while still vulnerable to Spectre, at least doesn't have the meltdown headache. Rumours point to the Ryzen refresh to drop this year. It will be interesting if they have raised their clock limit as that would help negate the performance gap to Intel in use cases where clock still matters more than cores.

The "$100" VROC feature is largely irrelevant to home users. I'm struggling to see a home use case that really needs it. There are only two weak reasons for it: people with more money than sense (given the SSD limitations), and competitive benchmarkers. It really is a niche feature.

Optane you're going to have to be more specific. Optane cache is a weak value solution. Any have serious system would have a boot SSD, and if you do that, there isn't a need for Optane cache. If you mean the Optane 900p, that's something else. Best single device consumer storage currently, but it does come at a price premium even over high end flash SSDs. I got one to play with, but to be honest while I can see the improved benchmark performance, I can't say I can feel it in actual use. For mainstream users, a high end flash SSD like the 960 Evo or Pro will be practically as good but much easier on the wallet.

I also wouldn't play too heavy on the Win7 card. You have near enough 2 years of security updates left from MS. Then you'll have to change again regardless.

If I were buying a general system today, I'd probably got for a 8700k even with Meltdown concerns. My main is currently still 6700k based, and I think the extra cores would be nice, without the clock penalty from going AMD. Note I also dabbled with overclocked 1700 and 7800X systems. I keep thinking I should swap to the 7800X as my main but like you, I have two years of software installs and customisation that'll be a pain to try to copy over. Why not pick the 7800X over 8700k? At least for mainstream uses, the 8700k is probably faster overall. The 7800X has a new L3 mesh cache structure that is causing some performance problems as most software seems to expect the ring structure used for a long time now. The 7800X does have more potential ram bandwidth and AVX-512 instructions, so it could do more heavy lifting once software is updated to use it.
 

Zeeman

Zeeman
GammaZ said:
I've installed win7 on kaby lake systems at work (because as usual - some crucial software does not work on Win10) and it works just fine, as expected. The only thing that caused issues are iGPU drivers, but... does it actually matter in terms of building home PC?
All those "win7 will not run on this CPU" nonsense is just a part of Microsoft's attempts to migrate everyone to Win10, which is TBH unusable in corporate environment with how updates work.
Click to expand...

I would argue that it is near unusable period, due to how updates work. A bit of reg editing helps, though.

Z...
 

GammaZ

G
Zeeman said:
I would argue that it is near unusable period, due to how updates work. A bit of reg editing helps, though.

Z...
Click to expand...
The issue is not even auto update itself (which can be disabled by multiple ways, from editing registry to banning every microsoft-related IP and domain in router), but the fact that they release "service packs" (which are totally crazy, basically doing OS upgrade like those between different versions, breaking many things from drivers to software compatibility along the way) from time to time and then release security fixes only for latest "service pack". So if you disable auto update and then want to install security fix for a specific issue (like for example one we are discussing here), it is often easier to install from scratch than following update path from installed version to the latest one (which will almost certainly break something).
Had a lot of issues with that at work back when SMB hole was discovered, rolled everything back to Win 7 (we were testing Win10 at that point and had only few PC-s running it), started looking into different options and at this point have ~10% workstations running RHEL and things seem to be going smooth so far, with excellent tech support and much more friendly community...
Looking at how redhat, for example, is releasing fixes for every minor version of 2 latest major versions of RHEL, so that people who want to use specific minor version for some reason are protected too, Microsoft's decisions really look strange...
 
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StiTch

StiTch
mp4x said:
It certainly doesn't help that Intel CEO Brian Krzanich sold a bunch of his Intel stock after the flaws were found and before they were made public. I read that there's multiple class action suits against Intel, already, and undoubtedly Intel will take a big hit in the pocket for this... Fortunately the reported loss of CPU performance, at least in the home user space, seems to be hype driven.
Click to expand...

Aye, silly prat. Of the issues that came to light, not even both of them were attributable to intel only, and the other...well it's a relatively unprecedented flaw. They could have handled this with poise and come out alive.

And yet if you act guilty...
 
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Zeeman

Zeeman
GammaZ said:
The issue is not even auto update itself (which can be disabled by multiple ways, from editing registry to banning every microsoft-related IP and domain in router), but the fact that they release "service packs" (which are totally crazy, basically doing OS upgrade like those between different versions, breaking many things from drivers to software compatibility along the way) from time to time and then release security fixes only for latest "service pack". So if you disable auto update and then want to install security fix for a specific issue (like for example one we are discussing here), it is often easier to install from scratch than following update path from installed version to the latest one (which will almost certainly break something).
Had a lot of issues with that at work back when SMB hole was discovered, rolled everything back to Win 7 (we were testing Win10 at that point and had only few PC-s running it), started looking into different options and at this point have ~10% workstations running RHEL and things seem to be going smooth so far, with excellent tech support and much more friendly community...
Looking at how redhat, for example, is releasing fixes for every minor version of 2 latest major versions of RHEL, so that people who want to use specific minor version for some reason are protected too, Microsoft's decisions really look strange...
Click to expand...

Yeah, am very tempted to trial something non MS (ie - Linux based) at our office, though going to Win 7 actually seems like the best solution in a lot of ways.

Luckily, my exposure to Win 10 is minimal, I use it for games, of course, and the odd work specific piece of software, and then use OSX for general day to day stuff. Never thought I'd actually say Apple produced a less invasive/less dumbed down OS than M$. Yet, here we are...

Z...
 

ChopperGreg

ChopperGreg
Zeeman said:
Yeah, am very tempted to trial something non MS (ie - Linux based) at our office, though going to Win 7 actually seems like the best solution in a lot of ways.

Luckily, my exposure to Win 10 is minimal, I use it for games, of course, and the odd work specific piece of software, and then use OSX for general day to day stuff. Never thought I'd actually say Apple produced a less invasive/less dumbed down OS than M$. Yet, here we are...

Z...
Click to expand...

If Apple would ever get off their , and make it so their computers could be built or upgraded as easy as a PC, I suspect that Apple would be much more competitive with MS.
As it is, I don't have the time to learn Linux to be tweaking it, every time I want to install another program, when all I really want to do is play a limited number of games and participate on a limited number of websites.

So far, everything I am hearing about Meltdown and Specter, is that the casual user is unlikely to be affected by either...so unless further information shows them to be a problem for casual users, I'm going to hang with Windows ( although to be honest, I had less problems with Win XP, than any other version and as such I'm considering running XP in VM, for my retro games, if I can ever figure out how ).
 

GammaZ

G
Zeeman said:
Yeah, am very tempted to trial something non MS (ie - Linux based) at our office, though going to Win 7 actually seems like the best solution in a lot of ways.

Luckily, my exposure to Win 10 is minimal, I use it for games, of course, and the odd work specific piece of software, and then use OSX for general day to day stuff. Never thought I'd actually say Apple produced a less invasive/less dumbed down OS than M$. Yet, here we are...

Z...
Click to expand...

Yes, Win7 still works fine and is the easiest/most sensible solution at this point. The issue is - one cannot stay on specific outdated version of windows forever, it will cause a lot of security and compatibility issues over time, so there has to be some way forward, and from my experience Win10 is not an option...
It is better to search for this way now, when there is still some time available, than later when it will become urgent...
I still hope that microsoft changes their mind and makes something sensible out of next version of windows though...
 
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