Well, let’s all hope the performance impact has been over-egged, in theory lots of i/o and lots of threads means a lot of context switches - as I said before, DAWs are all about context switches which is why I was pessimistic about performance, but if in the big scheme of things this only adds a couple of percent of CPU load, most of us probably won’t notice. (fingers crossed!)
Similarly, I updated with the patch earlier today on a Win 7 Pro machine. There was no perceivable performance degradation, in my case with Nuendo version 8.1.
Anyone know what’s the name of the windows update/patch?
Ditto. And is there a way to limit the patch update on my W10 Pro system to security patches only - excluding MS from slipping in things like Fall Creators Edition?
I’m still looking for definite recommendations, but as far as I currently understand it I’m not sure that a simple OS patch solves the vulnerability. A firmware/microcode update may be necessary via a BIOS update or whatever, and that could make additional performance losses happen.
Also discussed on GerarSlutz, if anyone cares.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/1195758-intel-cpus-have-major-security-flaw-fixing-causes-huge-performance-hit.html
For Win 10, It’s called KB4056892. For Win 7 it’s called KB4056897.
Thanks!
However I don’t know the result of installing the Win 10 update manually from the Microsoft Catalog page. My Cumulative Win 10 KB4056892 was installed automatically on my Win 10 Creators Edition with automatic updates. If you’ve turned off updates completely, you’d probably want the Delta edition from the Microsoft Catalog page but I’m not really sure, maybe someone else does.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4056892/windows-10-update-kb4056892
If you’re not using automatic updates in Win 10, there are different update/patch versions for earlier versions of Win 10:
Microsoft is rolling out updates automatically (you will automatically receive the update soon via Windows Update)
but you can manually download the update now if you want to:
1709: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4056892
1703: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=kb4056891
1607: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4056890
1511: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4056888
1507: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4056893
Update any anti-virus software you are using before installing the security patches from Microsoft
In Win10, to see which version you are running, type winver in a command prompt
The OS patch will only protect against Meltdown. You will need a BIOS update to protect against Spectre.
I read a report that the MS patch is preventing boot up on AMD machines, and so MS has withdrawn the W10 patch for machines running AMD.
This was over at the gearslutz thread (in the “Music Computer” section), I can’t swear to it’s veracity, but figured it was worth mentioning …
MS has issued an official statement on it. It affects older AMD CPUs as far as I know, not the latest generation. MS shouldn’t patch for AMD CPUs to begin with until it’s known they’ve been “hacked” as well.
Some more real info.
Great link, just not the content 
Having a Xeon E3-1231v3 system the outlook with the patch in regards of performance loss is concerning!
I read already in another forum about significant performance loss on Win7 system witn such a CPU when using VM…
May Intel spend me some dollars for a decent AMD system?! 
Also wondering if Steinberg wants to comment on the mess Intel made?!
Well, so far I haven’t really seen any reports of decreased performance by DAW users, with the exception of someone essentially getting a broken system after an update. But that’s a bit of a different issue I think.
Anyway, I doubt they feel it necessary to spend the time to test it right now, and I’d be inclined to agree with that. It’d be more valuable if a company such as Scan audio ran benchmarks again since they’ve run through DAWbench on a bunch of different CPUs and could then provide a more specific picture of any degradation.
It’s to early to predict, all I can say is I have not run into performance problems after the patch, and the cpu utilization looks the same. But none of the projects I work on right now are that big that it would matter.
Time will tell, I’m holding off buying a new computer right now till there are more facts/benchmarks on the table.
Too optimistic standpoint, I’m afraid.
Reading the latest details in the German Heise.de website, performance degradation is already mentioned to be @20% !
Where forum users report even with Xeon v6 CPU -40%!
The performance degradation is all about the specific task you are using your computer for. Many Xeon CPUs sits in servers that have to read large databases and such, those will be affected quite a bit. Normal desktop applications such as gaming, DAW, office and such will not suffer any noticeable difference, at least with a newer CPU generation from Skylake and forward.
https://betanews.com/2018/01/11/intel-meltdown-patch-benchmarks/