Errata prompts Intel to disable TSX in Haswell, early Broadwell CPUs

[zalbard]

Errata of this magnitude aren't often discovered this late in the life of a CPU core.

As is customary in such cases, Intel will disable the TSX instructions in current products using a CPU microcode update delivered via new revisions of motherboard firmware. Disabling TSX should ensure stable operation for Haswell CPUs, but those chips will no longer be capable of supporting TSX's features, including hardware lock elision and restricted transactional memory.

Source: TechReport

Remember SATA failure? While this feature isn't used by many software products, many more hardware units are affected: all Haswell, Haswell-E, and first revision of Broadwell CPUs.

[SoulsCollective]

Well, damn. From the article update:

The launch of Intel's high-volume Haswell-EP processors is rapidly approaching, and the TSX errata apparently won't delay that product launch. Instead, a spokesman for the firm informs us that TSX will be available for software developers to enable "for development purposes" on Haswell-EP, so that their code will be "ready for production" once the higher-end Haswell-EX processors arrive at a later date.

In other words, we expect Haswell-EP to ship on schedule with the TSX erratum still etched into its silicon and TSX instructions disabled via a microcode patch. Those who wish to risk working with TSX in Haswell-EP will have the option to enable it via a firmware menu, but Intel recommends waiting for Haswell-EX before using TSX in production systems.

Since the single-socket, enthusiast-oriented Haswell-E processors are based on the same silicon as the lower-end Xeon EP parts, I'd expect the upcoming Core i7 Extreme CPUs to have TSX disabled in microcode, as well.

TSX isn't just pie-in-sky type stuff either, there are real-world performance gains to be had at all levels of operation - see eg SiSoft on the topic. Seriously hoping that consumer -E parts will see a hardware revision before launch!

[darkage]

its not only the sata faillure, there are more, in more platforms, but they are allone and people are hunger for new things allways so ;-)

[zalbard]

Seriously hoping that consumer -E parts will see a hardware revision before launch!

No chance of that - release is less than a month away. Many CPUs have already been manufactured.

Intel has no ETA for the fix, either.

[PatRaceTin]

Ahhh this remind me like first time mmx introduced.

[STEvil]

Source: TechReport

Remember SATA failure? While this feature isn't used by many software products, many more hardware units are affected: all Haswell, Haswell-E, and first revision of Broadwell CPUs.

P67 SATA failure? Still exists in the V2 boards as well, just dont tell Intel that, they'll deny it.