I feel like a class action law suit is in order.
This might prove difficult. A 2.66GHz processor will still run at 2.66GHz. It's only the caching that's being borked, and although that is a major factor in processor performance....
LAMBY'S 5 minute DIY puter building crash-course
- Pick a processor, make sure it has good cache speeds.
- Get a motherboard that supports it ......
.... caches are generally described by size and/or transfer rate - both of which are still technically unaffected. However now because of the way operating systems will be forced to use them, much of the benefit will be negated (for certian processors) but I doubt that this would invalidate any specific claims Intel would have made when advertizing their processors.
IIRC specific benchmarking comparisons etc. are usually done by 3rd party sites, not by Intel themselves, they don't actually make much in the way of specific claims about what their products will do. Probably any lawsuit would have to be based on rhetoric like "with our new supa-pwnage cache technology" or something like that. I think Intel's lawyers would have pleanty of firm ground to stand on.
IMO the only big danger for a lawsuit would have been if there were major security breaches and people/companies sued for huge damages, but as it looks like the patches will at least be available before the malware hits, they have probably dodged that bullet.
I also doubt that the US courts would be predisposed towards supporting an attack on an American icon over what is simply a genuine technical glitch that has done no real damage to anyone. I havn't really researched all of this, but that's my first impression
--------------------------------
Afterthought:
Over time, running the fix will chew gigawatts of extra power worldwide that would never have been used if the CPU caching was stiil being allowed to work correctly....