Happy New Year! Kicking off the new year in the world of PCs comes word of a pretty serious design flaw in Intel CPUs that apparently will require key re-designs to operating systems like Windows and Linux. And could lead to a performance hit across Intel CPU-based machines in the realm of 5 - 30%.

That is, according to this report. Which notes, "the flaw is in the Intel x86-64 hardware, and it appears a microcode update can't address it. It has to be fixed in software at the OS level, or go buy a new processor without the design blunder."

Yikes. Apparently AMD CPUs wont be affected, which means the our new gaming rig is safe for now. Due to the issue being directly related to security flaws, full details are scarce but seems to be prevalent across all Intel CPUs produced and manufactured in the last decade. So odds are, the CPU in your PC will be affected.

It's quite the fascinating revelation, so be sure to head here to read all about it.