diff --git a/docs/about/deprecated.rst b/docs/about/deprecated.rst
index 8565644..6e2f557 100644
--- a/docs/about/deprecated.rst
+++ b/docs/about/deprecated.rst
@@ -36,22 +36,6 @@
 The replacement for the ``nodelay`` short-form boolean option is ``nodelay=on``
 rather than ``delay=off``.
 
-``-smp`` ("parameter=0" SMP configurations) (since 6.2)
-'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
-
-Specified CPU topology parameters must be greater than zero.
-
-In the SMP configuration, users should either provide a CPU topology
-parameter with a reasonable value (greater than zero) or just omit it
-and QEMU will compute the missing value.
-
-However, historically it was implicitly allowed for users to provide
-a parameter with zero value, which is meaningless and could also possibly
-cause unexpected results in the -smp parsing. So support for this kind of
-configurations (e.g. -smp 8,sockets=0) is deprecated since 6.2 and will
-be removed in the near future, users have to ensure that all the topology
-members described with -smp are greater than zero.
-
 Plugin argument passing through ``arg=<string>`` (since 6.1)
 ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
 
diff --git a/docs/about/removed-features.rst b/docs/about/removed-features.rst
index 417a0e4..f9cf874 100644
--- a/docs/about/removed-features.rst
+++ b/docs/about/removed-features.rst
@@ -489,6 +489,21 @@
 and given a name that better reflects what it actually does.
 Use ``-accel tcg,one-insn-per-tb=on`` instead.
 
+``-smp`` ("parameter=0" SMP configurations) (removed in 9.0)
+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
+
+Specified CPU topology parameters must be greater than zero.
+
+In the SMP configuration, users should either provide a CPU topology
+parameter with a reasonable value (greater than zero) or just omit it
+and QEMU will compute the missing value.
+
+However, historically it was implicitly allowed for users to provide
+a parameter with zero value, which is meaningless and could also possibly
+cause unexpected results in the -smp parsing. So support for this kind of
+configurations (e.g. -smp 8,sockets=0) is removed since 9.0, users have
+to ensure that all the topology members described with -smp are greater
+than zero.
 
 User-mode emulator command line arguments
 -----------------------------------------
diff --git a/hw/core/machine-smp.c b/hw/core/machine-smp.c
index 25019c9..9653388 100644
--- a/hw/core/machine-smp.c
+++ b/hw/core/machine-smp.c
@@ -105,8 +105,9 @@
         (config->has_cores && config->cores == 0) ||
         (config->has_threads && config->threads == 0) ||
         (config->has_maxcpus && config->maxcpus == 0)) {
-        warn_report("Deprecated CPU topology (considered invalid): "
-                    "CPU topology parameters must be greater than zero");
+        error_setg(errp, "Invalid CPU topology: "
+                   "CPU topology parameters must be greater than zero");
+        return;
     }
 
     /*