I'm thinking of building an AMD dev box. For enterprise consumers, if they're using 1U or blade servers, they could make the choice to switch to AMD for future nodes.

I strongly recommend that you go AMD. I went all-in on AMD - I agonized over the choice between 8-core Ryzen and 8-core ThreadRipper: ended up with a 12-core TR thanks to steep holiday-season discounts that lowered prices one rung down. TR4-socket motherboards a way more expensive compared to Ryzen ones (same-old AM4 socket).

I know my box is overkill for my needs now, but upgradeability is a big plus for me; I'm only using 16GB of RAM, but could up that to 128GB, and maybe I might swap out the CPU for a 64-core Zen4+ in 2022. For reference, my last dev box is from 2010[1](!) which I upgraded over time and this strategy has served me well. YMMV.

1. Westmere - 1st Gen 'Intel Core'

I have a Ryzen developer box at work and it is awesome, paired with 32GB of RAM and SSD's it absolutely screams.

My next home PC will be Ryzen 2 at some point this year.

Linux or Windows? I've been doing dev on a large React app recently and the thought of running npm install on Windows makes me anxious about the performance vs my Mac - wondering if Windows has gotten better of late with lots of tiny file I/O.

As an avid fan of AMD going back to the late 80s they have always been a cheaper and better alternative. I am still bitter about rdram in regards to Intel

They really haven't. AMD was so far behind Intel they were in danger of going extinct in data centers. Only very recently have they caught up again to be a credible competitor.

This bug and Intel's response is very good timing for AMD though.

It was Intel’s anti-competitive and illegal actions that prevented AMD from owning the market during the several year period when Opteron was not only the best CPU but the only 64-bit x86 CPU.

Unfortunately the legal process was far too slow and the penalties were a pittance compared to the profits.

It benefits all of us to have a competitive market for x86 CPUs.

They have been in a similar position before. It took Intel a while to respond to x64/Opteron. AMD was soaring for while back then.

They are literally no better.

AMD and ARM also has vulnerabilities similar to Spectre and Meltdown. For example http://fortune.com/2018/01/11/amd-chips-vulnerable-to-both-v... switching to AMD or ARM won't save you.

Many CPUs are vulnerable to Spectre, but Meltdown is much more severe and far easier to exploit. Meltdown is fairly specific to Intel.

AMD is vulnerable to Spectre, but nothing like Meltdown.