Re:Intel Performance Hit 5x Harder Than AMD After Spectre, M...
by chillee on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @11:45AM
(#19971255)
A timer simply reports the current time. In this context, people are using timers to calculate how long an operation takes.
Resolution is the precision that the timer reports the time. For example, it could report seconds elapsed (e.g: 8 seconds), it could report milliseconds (8.432 seconds), it could report microseconds (8.432389 seconds), etc.
Attackers want high resolution timers so that they can distinguish cache hits from misses (8.432389 seconds vs 8.432367 seconds, for example).
Resolution is the precision that the timer reports the time. For example, it could report seconds elapsed (e.g: 8 seconds), it could report milliseconds (8.432 seconds), it could report microseconds (8.432389 seconds), etc.
Attackers want high resolution timers so that they can distinguish cache hits from misses (8.432389 seconds vs 8.432367 seconds, for example).