I've made a small correction to the text of this story. For more info, please see here:

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13764

Of course, just to compare, every single core2duo sold up thru April '07 had pretty serious errata, at least according to this link:
http://www.darknet.org.uk/2007/07/intel-core-2-duo-vulnerabilities-...

"Security guru and creator of OpenBSD Theo de Raadt recently announced he had found some fairly serious bugs in the hardware architecture of Intel Core 2 Duo processors:"

"...he warns that errata contained in the Intel processor is susceptible to security exploits that put users and enterprises at serious risk of being compromised."

I bet AMD CEO Hector Ruiz has been saying DAAMIT a lot over this TLB bug. All the AMD engineers too. AMD better get it in gear in a hurry or the 800lb gorilla, Intel, is going to maul them to death.

I want AMD to succeed. They've made good products in the past and they are keeping Intel on their toes as far as innovation goes. I'd love to see AMD get a 50% market share for mobile, desktop, and server CPUs. True competition like in the auto industry. The Toyotas and Hondas have sure made Detroit's auto companies more competitive I know that. Detroit is putting out some damn nice cars these days. Some of those new Cadillacs are winning a bunch of quality and innovation awards these days.

C'mon AMD. Retrench and keep on battling. Make a clearly better chip at a competitive price and people will buy them in droves. People know who AMD is. They know AMD can make good products. People aren't all that loyal to Intel. They just want the best performing CPU they can get their hands on at a reasonable price ... it's all about bang for the buck, quality, reliability ... and performance of course. Everyone wants a faster PC if there aren't too many downsides to it.

TR has been slashdotted:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/05/0149227&from=rss

looks like there is a kernel fix for users of Linux that only has a 1% penalty. So if you use Linux, it's fine

Why is there no Digg It! link on this article?

Great match news-wise for the 4GHz c2d overclocks.

They will be bought out within 18 months I'd say. Things are going terribly.

There's already a microcode update being prepared that will be applied in the near future.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/30/phenoms-feat...

Why have this L3 cache anyways? I mean I know why it's there and the purpose it serves, but it seems to be causing A LOT of problems for AMD. Increased latency, north bridge speed issues and now this. And from what I've been able to kinda piece together, it doesn't really offer any tangible performance benefits (at least none that I'm aware of). I can see where servers could use the extra L3, but is it really necessary for desktop use? Couldn't they just scrap it, release Phenom with no L3 cache, and at least get the desktop chips out?

I can't say I'm shocked considering that Opterons are the same things as the desktop chips plus a HT link or so....

Well, this sucks. Blow after blow. Good luck AMD, you guys need it.

Damm, this is AMD's equivalent of Intel's PDIV bug in the original batch of Pentiums. 0_0

At this rate they're going to be playing second fiddle until they release another architecture, as Hammer's looking pretty long in the tooth at this point. Considering how long it took them to finalize and release Hammer, it could be years before AMD can hope to reclaim the performance crown from intel.

Damn...DAAMIT can't catch a break.

This sucks.

Bloody Hell, the hits just keep on coming. How does TR get this information? This is really in-depth stuff I haven't seen anywhere else.

I guess they weren't going to ship these chips in much volume anyway, but this is still a bigger than average straw being added to the camel's back.

AMD is like a cargo ship that has taken two torpedo's, its on fire, and listing badly.

Now there is another torpedo on the way.

Man, the software for designing and simulating chips needs some work. This sounds like a mess.

Oh dear.

A BIOS-level fix to a problem related to the L3 cache which then gives a 10%-20% performance penalty. Could the fix be simply disabling the L3?

Whew, that sounds pretty damn bad.

Oh god. That's just what they need, a nerf stick.