Tag: Intel

Recently discovered Downfall and Inception vulnerabilities in Intel and AMD processors are also affecting Mac computers built with Intel CPUs.

This vulnerabilities could lead to security keys leakage to unprivileged code. There are no known exploits using this vulnerability at the time of writing.

AMD and Intel have both already released OS-level microcode software updates to address both issues. Both companies have also said that they're not aware of any active in-the-wild exploits of either vulnerability. Consumer, workstation, and server CPUs are all affected, making patching particularly important for server administrators.

Ars Technica

CVE: CVE-2022-40982

Ars Technica: “Downfall” bug affects years of Intel CPUs, can leak encryption keys and more

References:

• Downfall vulnerability may affect Intel Macs; usual precautions recommended
• Latest Intel and AMD vulnerabilities a gentle reminder to switch to Apple silicon

Team behind OpenCore Legacy Patcher is working on bringing support for macOS 13 Ventura. This might allow running it on platforms that are not officially supported by Apple.

macOS Ventura limits generations of Intel CPUs it supports. OCLP team was able to successfully run it on older processors. While support is not complete yet, but some progress is already there.

Project page: OpenCore Legacy Patcher

GitHub: OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

Reference: Developers have been working on a tool to run macOS Ventura on unsupported Macs

Benchmarks confirm that new Intel Adler Lake Core i9 chip is actually faster than Apple's M1 Max. By 4 (four) percent.

Geekbench 5 results show that the GE76 Raider with the Core i9-12900HK processor has an average multi-core score of 12,707, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip has an average multi-core score of 12,244. This means the Core i9 processor is around 4% faster than the M1 Max chip in this particular comparison.

MacRumors

Moreover, comparison also show that Intel's chip taking 100 watts with spikes up to 140 watts and spinning cooler fans quite loudly, while M1 Max MacBook takes only 40 watts.

However, it is needed to be mentioned that tests also show that discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti card actually significantly outperforms M1 Max's integrated graphic.

Reference:

• Core i9-12900HK review: Intel ‘Alder Lake’ laptops crush the competition
• Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights
• Benchmarks Confirm Intel's Latest Core i9 Chip Outperforms Apple's M1 Max With Several Caveats
• Intel’s Alder Lake Core i9 processor actually is faster than the M1 Max*