Intel is that company that together with Microsoft made an alliance which many refer to as Wintel to dominate the PC sector. And they succeeded, as is evident, but it has been on the rocks lately. He doesn't seem to be raising his head and the worst has not yet come. It all started when the first vulnerabilities in its chips, such as Meltdown and Spectre, came to light. But that was only the beginning...
The image of the company and the trust of many of its partnersEspecially those who use their Xeon chips in servers and HPC were not very happy with these security problems. What they did not know is that, far from alleviating mistrust, what was done was to continue generating more mistrust with a veritable flood of vulnerabilities that affected their chips. How many are there already? The truth is that I would not even know how to count them.
Linus Torvalds himself had some very harsh words for Intel, claiming that they literally sold «mierda«. When the storm of vulnerabilities seemed to pass (although from time to time there is a new downpour with new vulnerabilities or those derived from the previous ones that are detected ...), the AMD nightmare arrived. I do not know if you have been aware of CES 2020, but Intel has not presented anything interesting, or very little for what it is used to. Instead, AMD has covered itself with glory with its novelties. Who would say a couple of years ago? No one would have imagined it, not even the most inveterate AMD fan in their best dreams.
Stalling with the issues they have with their 10nm isn't helping either, and every time they release chips with higher and higher TPD. How far will they go from not remedying? 300W, 600W, ... They will literally sell resistance stoves that are not efficient at all. Bad business! Perhaps those who criticized AMD, for shedding its factories (GlobalFoundries) and transforming itself into a fabless, should now be silent. It doesn't seem to have been a bad idea, giving you the freedom to choose foundries according to your interest, and getting the 7nm from TSMC that is working so well for you.
More Made in Intel vulnerabilities
That said, I have to add that not only your CPUs have vulnerabilities, but other systems are also taking the lead. Nothing new! You will surely remember what happened with Intel ME. And now they have been their graphic products, both for Windows and Linux, with some 6 vulnerabilities, one of them high risk. The others are of low danger, and 4 of medium risk.
Intel has been quick to release patches for them, but the affected systems have been exposed for a while. Furthermore, those who have not yet received the patch will remain vulnerable. If you are interested in knowing which systems are affectedWell, there would be the 3rd Gen Intel Core up to the 10th Gen, that is, the current ones too. For HPC, the Intel Xeon E3 family v2 to v6, and the E-2100 and 2-2000 are affected. Also the Intel Atom A, E, X and Z series, as well as various Celeron models.
Intel has insisted that all affected users should urgently update their Intel Processor Graphics driver for Windows and Linux i915 driver. But, the company cautions that there are no full mitigations for some chips. So you won't be safe if you have Ivy Bridge, Bay Trail and Haswell based rigs.
And for putting one humor note in this that is not funny: Well, one more to the list... As they continue like this, they will have to add more figures to the CVE numbers, because they will exhaust them by themselves (Meltdown, Specter, Foreshadow-NG, L1TF, Spoiler,…).
“Instead, AMD has covered itself in glory with its novelties. Who would say it a couple of years ago? No one would have imagined it, not even the most inveterate AMD fan in their best dreams. "
There you were wrong. For those of us who prefer AMD over Intel (they ripped me off with that nail they called MMX, I sent them to hell and happy with AMD ever since) is no surprise. AMD already has a history of taking advantage of Intel on occasion. If they did it again it was only a matter of time.
Hello,
As AMD was after the disaster of Fusion and its economy hurt by the purchase of ATI, in addition to all the brain drain it had ... The truth is that this was not expected. With an almost minuscule investment compared to what Intel invests in R&D.
If they have succeeded, it is due to the cancellation of many projects to focus only on Zen, to withdraw and start operating as a company 10 times smaller than it really is, and to bring back some greats (Jim Keller, Papermaster , Raja,…). A great sacrifice that has borne fruit ...
And still it was almost impossible were it not for the Intel problems that have helped.
I repeat, it was not expected comparing the expenditure on R & D & i of both companies.
A greeting.