Ubuntu plans to disable security mitigations for Spectre attacks on Intel GPUs, potentially boosting graphics performance by up to 20% on Intel-based systems.
Spectre, disclosed in 2018, exploits speculative execution—a CPU feature that predicts and executes instructions ahead of time—to access sensitive data via side-channel attacks. Although hardware flaws underlying Spectre cannot be fully fixed, CPU manufacturers implemented patches at the microcode and software levels, often reducing performance.
Ubuntu’s developers recently noted that these mitigations have lowered graphics processing speed by about 20%. In the upcoming Questing Quokka release scheduled for October, Ubuntu will integrate many Spectre mitigations directly into its kernel. After consultations with Intel’s security team, Ubuntu has decided to remove Spectre protections from the Intel Graphics Compute Runtime driver.
“After discussion between Intel and Canonical’s security teams, we are in agreement that Spectre no longer needs to be mitigated for the GPU at the Compute Runtime level,” said Ubuntu developer Shane McKee.
He added that since Spectre protections are now implemented in the kernel, the Compute Runtime mitigation causes a significant performance cost without providing meaningful additional security. Users can therefore anticipate up to a 20% improvement in GPU performance.