So far there seem to be far more of these vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs.
Is that a reflection of engineering differences or a statistical byproduct of the market share of Intel CPUs?
I run AMD not because of the security implications but because I feel every dollar that goes to Intel competition will push Intel and thus the entire industry forward.
Market share is a good answer, in x86 space alone per https://www.extremetech.com/computing/291032-amd-gains-marke... which I found without putting much effort into it, AMD's share in servers is negligible and even dropped in the last quarter. On the other hand mobile and especially desktop are rising smartly, but still somewhat modest. IoT is excluded, and AMD could be doing well there to the extent anyone's using x86 for that, and there's also (quasi) embedded like network gear.
So the cloud vendors are 97% minimum Intel, they're exquisitely vulnerable both technically and reputationally to these bugs, the stakes are existential for them and they have a lot of money they can throw at the problem, whereas the users of notebooks and desktops are a much more diffuse interest.
As I've mentioned many times in these discussions today, everyone had Spectre issues, and everyone but AMD has Meltdown ones. The more recent vulnerabilities are Intel only because they're using what was learned from those first two to attack Intel specific features like the SGX enclave.
Probably both - AMD chips have lower market share because they have lower performance, and they have lower performance (maybe) because they speculate less aggressively. Intel did these optimisations for a reason after all; the market rewards them.
Is that a reflection of engineering differences or a statistical byproduct of the market share of Intel CPUs?
I run AMD not because of the security implications but because I feel every dollar that goes to Intel competition will push Intel and thus the entire industry forward.