Elite Bastards

This isn't 'new' news by any stretch of the imagination, but if you're the owner of an AMD Phenom B2 stepping CPU and are using Windows Vista Service Pack 1, then it's some very useful information to have - Indeed, the entire reason I've come across the issue is because we're currently testing an AMD-related product (which you'll find out all about next week) under this OS with a B2 stepping Phenom, seeing as we can't get any B3 parts out of AMD.

The crux of the issue is this - Windows Vista Service Pack 1 always enables the Phenom TLB fix on relevant CPUs by default, which can impact performance quite severely in some cases in the name of guaranteed system stability. Regardless of whether you disable this fix at BIOS level, or using AMD's OverDrive tool, it will always be over-ridden by the OS.

Thankfully, a member of the forum has created a way to ensure that the TLB fix is disabled with a little extra effort - If you're running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and an affected processor, be sure to check it out.