Honestly, as much as AMD's processors are often great value for money, I have never had a completely stable glitch-free AMD system.
But son of a bitcoin, my current PC has this exact stuttering problem! And all this time I just assumed it was Windows being stupid about normal I/O. But come to think of it, I did recently have a conversation with my even-hardware-geekier brother in which I said something like “How in the hell can Windows have become so sloppy that the mouse cursor can be regularly interrupted during normal use? That should be logically impossible by design.”
But now I bet it’s this motherboard thing preempting everything and it all makes sense.
Been AMD only for CPU in my desktop the past 15 years or so and haven't had these glitch/stutter issues.
All of this anecdotal, but I just find it odd you've never had a "stable glitch-free AMD system." But it might vary depending on motherboard, motherboard OEM and motherboard chipset. (Was on Asus X470, now on MSI X570.)
The computer failed to POST after I put in the dTPM, nothing to do with the OS. It's either an issue with the dTPM or the motherboard, but I couldn't figure out what the problem was and didn't want to keep spending money. The motherboard manufacturers provide very little information about how their dTPM interfaces work, and nowadays it can be difficult to find genuine OEM dTPMs due to Win11-related stock shortages.
For what it's worth, I also indirectly support quite a lot of corporate systems, and we've had a fair amount of flakiness with AMD Thinkpads. Not every laptop has issues, and not in every situation, but we get issues significantly more often for the AMD machines - this is visible clearly in the stats we keep. Anything involving docks seems to be particularly problematic. It could be that Lenovo are just making terrible devices and I'm unfairly blaming AMD - but the Intel ones are rock solid.
Also I've used TPM for years, possibly since Windows 7 I think, in order to get full disk encryption with Bitlocker. More recently I've been playing with remote attestation.
https://www.techpowerup.com/295821/amd-releases-agesa-v2-1-2...
"This particular version of AGESA gains importance to those on Windows 11, as it corrects a performance-stuttering issue caused due to frequent polling of the fTPM by the OS."
My high-end x570 board from ASUS initially exhibited this behavior, but it was rectified rather quickly with a BIOS update.
I still ended up putting in a real TPM module for convenience reasons. It's hard to experiment with bios settings when half of them end up wiping the fTPM, necessitating me to punch in my BitLocker key on next boot.
Maybe this fiasco combined with Windows 11 will finally push motherboard manufacturers to just build a real TPM into their products rather than relying on these janky fTPM/PTT solutions.
One was my glorious AXP1800 + Gigabyte GA-7DXR.
Ok so it -started- glitching eventually, but that was because capacitor plague and not the AMD-ness. But that was a workhorse machine of mine through most of college. The few crashes that I -did- have, were related to other components like video/audio(1) that were no better in a 'full intel' setup.
The other was an unsupported config; Tyan Tiger MPX with Dual 1.0Ghz Morgan Durons, Running Windows 2000. Fun little box.
(1) - At the start of the century, one of the best things I did for system reliability was ditch Creative Labs and their drivers for the Glorious Crystal/HTEnvy cards.
Keeping the key file on a USB drive isn't exactly safe either, as there's a high likelihood that flash drive is probably going to be near my computer when stolen. Also, that flash drive may be active and plugged when the system is running, exposing it to the machine directly. Having that key material easily accessible on a flash drive makes it less protected than using the TPM.
Using the TPM gives me a better experience and depending on how things are handled a far more secure way of handling the key. Its way easier to grab the key file off the flash drive than coaxing it out of the TPM without booting the trusted boot process.
And frankly, having to disable this bit of hardware that you paid for because it doesn't work properly is bullshit.
Besides Windows 11 requiring a TPM, which was known to be on the cards for a while now, storing the key on a USB drive is not functionally the same as the TPM. It means either the key material is stored in plaintext on the USB, which is pointless, or I still need to use a PIN. I need my computer to be able to boot without intervention, so that isn't an option.
I don't understand, since fTPM specifically isn't a requirement. Any TPM will work. If you had bought Intel you would have paid more for just the CPU alone, regardless of the cost of a discrete TPM.
> Besides Windows 11 requiring a TPM, which was known to be on the cards for a while now, storing the key on a USB drive is not functionally the same as the TPM. It means either the key material is stored in plaintext on the USB, which is pointless, or I still need to use a PIN. I need my computer to be able to boot without intervention, so that isn't an option.
With f/TPM and no PIN you're storing the keys in plain-text right next to the encrypted content. It's like hanging the keys to your door on the knob. This effectively cancels the point of full-disk encryption for your implied personal use. I cannot believe what I'm reading.
Also, your description of how an fTPM works is wrong. The fTPM on AMD is provided by the AMD PSP TEE, which measures your execution environment then seals the drive encryption key. The platform garauntees that it will not unseal the drive encryption key other than to the same combination of trusted hardware and cryptographically verified software that previously sealed the key. The hardware is tamper resistent and has a relatively good track record. dTPM vs fTPM is an active debate, but so far the most practical sniff attack on the TPM only works on dTPMs, though that's partially Microsoft's fault.
If a hard drive is stolen, it is useless without the CPU. If a whole computer is stolen, the data will only be accessible to a very advanced adversary. The list of people on earth who can tamper or trace a CPU to successfully exfiltrate an fTPM key is probably a short list, and nearly all of them will be security researchers, state-level adversaries or APTs. In fact, many government and other highly secure organisations rely on the security of the TPM for disk encryption.
Analogy wise, it's more like having a bouncer guarding your door who only lets you in once he's carefully checked all your biometrics. And if you try to push past him, he blows up the house so you can't get in.
However, would I trust a TPM in isolation if I was likely to be physically raided by the CIA? Probably not.
Not everyone's. I use the fTPM on a few different Ryzen systems and I don't seem to have any issues. Maybe I'm just lucky though.
Not true. If you change the boot parameters it won't release the key. If you were to try and boot a live OS to try and extract the data without respecting ACLs or something, you wouldn't be able to access the key. You also can't actively read the key from the TPM once the system has booted.
Sure, there might be some attackers who may be able to mess with the OS post-boot to have it give up its info, but even the above-average thief off the street isn't going to be able to access my data.
If they are glitchy how can they be great value?
I've had the same experience over the past decades - I will never be buying AMD again.