Are microcodes written to a writable part of the CPU? I have always assume it re... | Hacker News

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Laforet on Feb 10, 2016 | parent | context | favorite | on: Intel to shut down renegade Skylake overclocking w...

Are microcodes written to a writable part of the CPU? I have always assume it resides in the BIOS or equivalent on the motherboard.

throwaway7767 on Feb 10, 2016 [–]

The CPU has a burned-in microcode. It can be updated after the CPU is booted, but the updates are only written to RAM and lost on shutdown.

Usually the system firmware will include a recent-ish microcode and automatically update on boot. Many OSs also bundle microcode updates and install them on boot.

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