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Bigdog9586

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 15, 2015
338
112
Has anybody thought whether to hold off on a new pro or regular IMac till the Intel chip problem works itself out?
 
Just my 2 cents, but the vulnerability is currently fundamental to how modern cpus are designed. While the next generation of chips will probably have some improvements to reduce this vulnerability, cpus will have to be redesigned completely to guard against these vulnerabilities (especially Spectre) completely in hardware, which won't be happening this year and probably not next year either. I guess it depends how long you want to hold out!
 
Has anybody thought whether to hold off on a new pro or regular IMac till the Intel chip problem works itself out?
Why, its been in the CPUs for sometime and a fix (in software) has been announced. Given the long lead times needed for developing CPUs the hardware fix won't see the light of day for quite some time
 
Has anybody thought whether to hold off on a new pro or regular IMac till the Intel chip problem works itself out?

Chips that can be designed to avoid this issue won't be made for at least 1-2 years. It is extremely unlikely that any hardware level fixes to come earlier than this. Chip design is hard and has long lead times, and the problems aren't the kinds of things you can patch in — they are pretty core architectural things.

If you want to wait it out, you will be waiting a long time. It's not worth waiting if you need to replace your hardware any time in the next 12 months.
 
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