ELI5 version: There is a huge vulnerability in Intel CPUs that makes it ripe for exploitation, and the abuse of it could be rather severe. This affects all Intel CPUs from the past 10 years.The only way to fix it requires a patch at the OS level that will by consequence permanently reduce performance from anywhere between 5-30% depending on the task and the processor. Putting this out there as a PSA in case you notice you are getting worse performance overall in game after we receive the Patch Tuesday update. This could potentially be huge as it affects overall system performance, not just games and benchmarks. And as I said, it's permanent. They may introduce some efficiency improvements in later patches, but the performance will never be the same as before the patch. Early Linux system benchmarks are not looking good: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-415-x86pti&num=2 Early Linux gaming benchmarks show this may not have a noticeable hit in games for the average user, but this isn't too indicative of how it'll be with Windows: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=x86-PTI-Initial-Gaming-Tests HowToGeek article on it: https://www.howtogeek.com/338269/a-huge-intel-security-hole-could-slow-down-your-pc-soon/ Other good read: https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/ Another good read: https://hothardware.com/news/intel-cpu-bug-kernel-memory-isolation-linux-windows-macos Biggest Intel blunder of the decade for sure. Oof.