It's been long enough, can we please just have Intel (YEAR) CPU as a reference rather than the eternally opaque codenames?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake</a><p>Intel 2017+ CPUs (Coffee Lake+).
For the BSDs and Linux, microcode updates can be loaded by the OS. What about Windows? Are microcode updates made available via Windows, or only via BIOS updates if the system manufacturer decides to make updates?<p>If the latter, what do people do when their system manufacturer doesn't provide updates?
A nice test would be to compare a "cpuid -1 -r" before and after applied microcode updates. To check if new bit(s) is set somewhere.<p>Worth might be to check if IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES contain new bits set as well on some platforms which would indicate they are not affected. Via the NO_xxx flag.
Phoronix certainly has strong technical background. However, I am not friend of their sometimes dramatic writing style. I call them the Linux yellow press :) Let's wait and see whether that SA comes and whether it brings something big.