[Update] Security flaws discovered in AMD zen processors : AMD's meltdown?

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Stock market swings are ruled by the big boys, large investment banks.  They really don't look at the rumor mill for information, that is a sure way to make a loss.

High frequency traders very much do. They are computer automated and look at things like news article postings and twitter trends, all sorts of thing.

[Razor01]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

High frequency traders very much do. They are computer automated and look at things like news article postings and twitter trends, all sorts of thing.

 

 

Oh yeah I agree as even the system I helped prototype  13 years back did too lol, but the weight was so small, they need to be justified to make big changes.  Also the traders have control over these systems too, so if they see something going crazy, the first FU to come across the phone, is to the programmers of the system, and let me tell ya something, I have not heard that many four letter words in a one sentence in my life before lol.

[Mira Yurizaki]

24 minutes ago, Energycore said:

That's right! It's a bit different but it's definitely obnoxious. So that's 2 cases now.

At the risk of sounding like an NVIDIA fanboy, there's:

• The RX 480 power draw issues
• Release 8GB RX 480 cards as 4GB (good for people who can mod it, bad for people who wanted an 8GB card)
• Accusations of press release cards that were binned to give better performance. (I think this was the RX 200 series)

ATI/AMD also has more of a history releasing last gen hardware as current gen models, but you often have to scrape below midrange to find them. Though the RX 560 being a rebadged RX 460 doesn't surprise me since that's about where they'd do it.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Razor01 said:

I have not heard that many four letter words in a one sentence in my life before lol.

Send them a thesaurus for Christmas. 

And Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, etc. 

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Release 8GB RX 480 cards as 4GB (good for people who can mod it, bad for people who wanted an 8GB card)

That's still running the assumption that those cards had a fully functional 8GB of VRAM.

[hobobobo]

12 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

 

 

An unknown company with the ability to manipulate stock, is kind of unheard of.  The reason why meltdown and specter did was because the people that found those are well know, there was no second guessing.

 

Stock market swings are ruled by the big boys, large investment banks.  They really don't look at the rumor mill for information, that is a sure way to make a loss.

 

While I worked at Credit Suisse many years go, we were making a prototype AI trading system, before AI on a GPU was mainstream.  We took their automated pricing models and used them to teach the AI system, one of the variables was rumor mill but it had such a low weight it was inconsequential really.  The pricing models were done by the traders, so its what they use to trade on a day to day basis.

Tbh, even participating in trading myself, i dont really put much considiration into ai trading, i just consider it as following basic economic laws. Imo, psycological factors are as important and are harder to quantify, and amd stock having alot of individual investors, a good attack on the mindshare could pull ai trading after it

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

That's still running the assumption that those cards had a fully functional 8GB of VRAM.

Sure, but if the card still has the advertised bandwidth and data width, then the assertion falls flat. Either the RAM chip works or it doesn't. And the entire VRAM setup works like n-channel RAM. So if half the chips are bad, then it's only going to operate at half the memory performance.

[mr moose]

43 minutes ago, Sauron said:

At least Torvalds doesn't disclose security flaws on day one for attention ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@mr moose I wouldn't say it's hypocritical, he may be loud and obnoxious but he only throws companies under the bus when he believes they deserve it, and not without giving them a chance.

 

His historical attitude toward Nvidia/Intel has been nothing short of childish while the first hint of something wrong with AMD and he's guns blazing.   I'd call that hypocritical.

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Sure, but if the card still has the advertised bandwidth and data width, then the assertion falls flat. Either the RAM chip works or it doesn't. And the entire VRAM setup works like n-channel RAM. So if half the chips are bad, then it's only going to operate at half the memory performance.

Half size chips? Did someone do a tear down and check?

 

Also add to the list what ever card it was that exceeded the 75W PCIe spec.

[Drak3]

Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

Sure, but if the card still has the advertised bandwidth and data width, then the assertion falls flat. Either the RAM chip works or it doesn't. And the entire VRAM setup works like n-channel RAM. So if half the chips are bad, then it's only going to operate at half the memory performance.

Not sure with GDDR, but with older types of RAM, it's possible to disable register banks without completely disabling a RAM module. The ZX Spectrum is a fine example of this.

 

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Half size chips? Did someone do a tear down and check?

 

Also add to the list what ever card it was that exceeded the 75W PCIe spec.

RX480.

 

And the chips can still be the same modules, just defective ones.

[mr moose]

50 minutes ago, Energycore said:

That's right! It's a bit different but it's definitely obnoxious. So that's 2 cases now.

The issue is not really individual cases but how people treat them.  Here we have substantiated claims from more than 3 sources and people are trying to dismiss it as anything other than a rort.  While on the same news page is the GPP thread that has one reporter making unsubstantiated claims with zero support and people are ready to hang draw and quarter Nvidia for being guilty of everything.  

 

I am in no way trying to make a case for or against the legitimacy of these exploits, just pointing out the hypocrisy of some users.  

[Mira Yurizaki]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Half size chips? Did someone do a tear down and check?

I mean, if AMD shipped a 4GB card with 8GB, then it has to be the full compliment of memory chips and they all have to work. The firmware is blocking access to half of each chip's memory space.

 

I think the original founder was at https://tweakers.net/nieuws/113169/eerste-rx-480-gpus-met-4gb-hebben-8gb-geheugen-waarvan-helft-actief.html who found some cards were shipped with 8Gb chips by confirming the model of the chip itself.

 

7 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Not sure with GDDR, but with older types of RAM, it's possible to disable register banks without completely disabling a RAM module. The ZX Spectrum is a fine example of this.

 

RX480.

 

And the chips can still be the same modules, just defective ones.

The fact that people soft modded 4GB RX 480s to 8GB ones points more to AMD or its AIBs shipping 8GB models with 4GB firmware.

[Energycore]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The issue is not really individual cases but how people treat them.  Here we have substantiated claims from more than 3 sources and people are trying to dismiss it as anything other than a rort.  While on the same news page is the GPP thread that has one reporter making unsubstantiated claims with zero support and people are ready to hang draw and quarter Nvidia for being guilty of everything.  

 

I am in no way trying to make a case for or against the legitimacy of these exploits, just pointing out the hypocrisy of some users.  

But that's why we're here to make sense of the stuff and hopefully stand out among the crowd of people who react viscerally and leave it at that

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

But that's why we're here to make sense of the stuff and hopefully stand out among the crowd of people who react viscerally and leave it at that

Lest we get labeled fanboys

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I think the original founder was at https://tweakers.net/nieuws/113169/eerste-rx-480-gpus-met-4gb-hebben-8gb-geheugen-waarvan-helft-actief.html who found some cards were shipped with 8Gb chips by confirming the model of the chip itself.

Yea that's what I was wondering, if the chips were smaller capacity or not.

[ARikozuM]

Thread about AMD became derailed by mods and turned into an Nvidia thread... 

 

#NotSurprised

[DoctorWho1975]

Don't worry, this won't even be discussed on the WANk show.

[Drak3]

8 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The fact that people soft modded 4GB RX 480s to 8GB ones points more to AMD or its AIBs shipping 8GB models with 4GB firmware.

No shit.

 

It's the 'Why.'

 

And I am a firm believer that it was either that, or toss cards in the bin unnecessarily.

[Arika]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Lest we get labeled fanboys

I've been called an Intel shill before by someone here

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

No shit.

 

It's the 'Why.'

 

And I am a firm believer that it was either that, or toss cards in the bin unnecessarily.

If yields were that good, just lower the price $10. Seems needless in the grand scheme of things to have a 1060 3GB competitor when you can decimate the 6GB and 3GB with a single SKU. 

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Sierra Fox said:

I've been called an Intel shill before by someone here

Ninetails tells me you're an AMD shill. 

[Drak3]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

If yields were that good, just lower the price $10. Seems needless in the grand scheme of things to have a 1060 3GB competitor when you can decimate the 6GB and 3GB with a single SKU. 

Sell the RX 480s that physically only have 4GB of VRAM.

 

That could also have worked.

[Blademaster91]

3 minutes ago, DoctorWho1975 said:

Don't worry, this won't even be discussed on the WANk show.

You're referencing them not discussing the Nvidia thread from last week? Nothing aside from speculation on that,probably not this week on this thread unless we get more than 1 source that can confirm these security exploits and have a proof of concept.

[Arika]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Ninetails tells me you're an AMD shill. 

it's the red eyes right? shit i knew that would get out.

[DoctorWho1975]

Just now, Blademaster91 said:

You're referencing them not discussing the Nvidia thread from last week? Nothing aside from speculation on that,probably not this week on this thread unless we get more than 1 source that can confirm these security exploits and have a proof of concept.

This thread is about the AMD security flaw bullshit, not NVidia.