A product catalog recently released by Bizgram, a retailer in Singapore, included several exciting additions which, naturally, has the industry buzzing.
AMD appears to have quite a few releases up its sleeve: including a brand-new Ryzen 9 16-core processor. Bizgram first published the leak as part of a catalog, before it was shared by Tom’s Hardware. Included in the leak was information about previously undisclosed Ryzen 3000 chips and pricing.
What We’ve Learned About The Ryzen Leak
Arguably the most notable portion of the leak is the information about the silicon. A 16-core/32-threads Ryzen 9 3850X is listed, with a reported 4.3GHz clock speed, a TDP of 135W, and a turbo boost of 5.1GHz. It will cost you around USD 500-550.
A slightly more humble Ryzen 9 3800X has the same core/thread count. But the 3800X has a clock speed of 3.9GHz, a TDP of 125W, and a turbo boost of 4.7GHz. The price for this option is a reported USD 450-500.
Then there is the Ryzen 7 3700X with 12-core/24-threads. It has a clock speed of 4.2GHz and a turbo boost of 5.0GHz. It will cost you USD 330-370.
With a marginally slower clock speed and a price of USD 300-330, there is the Ryzen 7 3700. This one has the same core and thread count as the 7 3700X.
Then, the bottom-most option is the 6-core/12-threads Ryzen 3 3300. This option has a clock speed of 3.2GHz with a turbo boost of 4.0GHz and will reportedly cost around USD 100-110.
It worth noting that based on AMD price trends in the past, there is a significant chance we could see a drop in the price of Ryzen 2nd generation processors. But this will remain to be seen whenever AMD decides to officially release their 3rd generation processors.
Intel Vulnerability
While this leak is by no means official, it hints at added pressure on Intel from AMD. Intel is already feeling quite a bit of heat after “Spoiler” was revealed by researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Lubeck.
“Spoiler” seems only to affect Intel CPUs. The vulnerability appears to go back to first-generation Intel Core CPUs, which means its impact is massive. “Spoiler” uses speculative loads and store forwarding used by contemporary CPUs. Essentially, vital data is leaked from a weak point in the address speculation that is only located in Intel’s own use of the technology.
According to the same researchers, Arm and AMD processor cores don’t have the same issue.
In simpler terms, the vulnerability allows certain attacks like running malicious JavaScript to do more damage. However, it’s necessary for there to be some kind of malware or “foothold in your machine” to exploit.
Since the release of this information, Intel has made a statement:
“Intel received notice of this research, and we expect that software can be protected against such issues by employing side channel safe development practices. This includes avoiding control flows that are dependent on the data of interest. We likewise expect that DRAM modules mitigated against Rowhammer style attacks remain protected. Protecting our customers and their data continues to be a critical priority for us and we appreciate the efforts of the security community for their ongoing research.”
Still, the researchers claim there isn’t a complete solution to the problem. None of Intel’s fixes work on the vulnerability because it isn’t a Spectre attack. There also likely isn’t a software fix because when it comes to the memory subsystem, it cannot be repaired with a microcode without taking a significant performance hit.
Awaiting The 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Release
The CPUs haven’t yet been announced in an official capacity, but AMD has said before that their new CPUs would be released “mid-2019.” The exposure of this major security flaw in Intel processors certainly makes the release that much more exciting.
How are you digesting this news? If you have been an Intel-loyal consumer, will the exposure of the Intel vulnerability lead you to consider an AMD processor? Are you confident a solution will be found? Share your thoughts in the comments.
