Spectre Meltdown performance hit

[Nate152]

Hey everyone !

I'm doing a test with the Maximus IX Code and i7-7700k to see if there is a performance hit with the Spectre and Meltdown updates. My method of testing was to run some benchmarks with windows 10 FCU without the updates/patches and then run them again with the bios and windows 10 FCU updated. I made sure the patches were not installed by reverting to the anniversary update then updating to FCU and running the Spectre Meltdown cpu checker.

Bios 1009 Win 10 FCU not updated.



Bios 1203 Win 10 FCU fully updated.




Intel XTU - Bios 1009 win 10 FCU not updated.


Intel XTU - Bios 1203 Win 10 FCU fully updated.


Cinebench - Bios 1009 Win 10 FCU not updated.


Cinebench - Bios 1203 Win 10 FCU fully updated.


TimeSpy - Bios 1009 win 10 FCU not updated.


TimeSpy - Bios 1203 win 10 FCU fully updated.


FireStrike - Bios 1009 win 10 FCU not updated.


FireStrike - Bios 1203 win 10 FCU fully updated.



I also did a gaming test, the first video was done with the windows 10 anniversary update, bios 1009 and Nvidia driver 388.59.

Frames Per second in the upper right corner.

[Nate152]

The second video is with Bios 1203, win 10 FCU fully updated and Nvidia driver 390.65.

[Nate152]

For strictly gaming, I'm not noticing any performance hit.

[xeromist]

Probably a good thing we have so many people testing. Since the hardware combinations are so varied it's good to see various benches.

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Yeah...I like this!...good to know gaming is not affected....and benchmarks hardly....though I'd die if I got 10 points less in CB:cool:

[Heini]

Though not as thoroughly tested as yours my before/after notes show no real difference in performance on a Sabertooth Z170 Mk 1 + i7-6700K build.

edit to add: I'm on Win 10 Pro64 with latest build and updates.

[Brighttail]

I have my own testing results in the x299 forum. Simply put about a 5-6% hit on CPU benchmarks and REALBench. The biggest hits were the IOPS in low queue depths which took a 25-50% hit. In real day to day tasks like browsing and such, more tabs open is slower. Tasks that require me to load/read files from my computer is slower. Gaming tho does not seem to me to take a hit. However doing things like rendering a youtube video and other video editing the new patch adds time to the render.

At this time I have the MEI patch but I have gone back to the previous BIOS. I'm hoping there will be some tweaking but at this point, nope.