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The cat is out of the bag, you guys are evil, just fuck off with the lying.

The Intel backdoor is in all Core/i3/i5/i7/Xeon CPU/Motherboard that support, it is packaged under multiple names.

Intel ME is part of vPro, if your CPU has vPro, you have it, that means all Xeon, and most i3/i5/i7. It is also on all notebook CPUs and has WiFi capabilities under names such as "Anti-Theft Technology".

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-active-management-technology.html

Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) is a feature of Intel® Coreâ processors with Intel® vProâ technology1,2 and workstation platforms based on select Intel® Xeon® processors.

The rest is packaged as "Small Business Advantage":

Learn about Intel® Small Business Advantage

Intel® Small Business Advantage provides an out-of-the-box hardware-based security and productivity suite designed for small-business users with unmanaged IT.

Intel Small Business Advantage offers a server-like solution without a server. No special configuration is required to use Intel Small Business Advantage.

This piece of shit is everywhere and it is on by default. Intel actually say it is an "advantage" with a straight face.

Their website

Historically, Intel would never make a 6800K processor. The hated competition (Motorola) made the 6800, and later the Motorola 68K series. I feel like an old-guy for remembering this stuff.

Yeah, you probably should have just left it at that instead of trying to explain the optimal answer... Interviews are often performed by junior level guys who are out to prove are smart they are (open-minded senior devs are too busy and valuable to do the the initial screening pass). To get past the first tier, sometimes you just have to swallow your pride, pat them on the head, and congratulate them on how clever their "fastest possible" solutions are.

By the way, Intel supports a POPCNT instruction now (starting with Nehalem). Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and https://software.intel.com/en-...

Beware the hype train - And this is a hype train of the strongest degree. We're approaching No Man's Sky levels of hype here.

Keep in mind this is a soft launch. No launch silicon in reviewers hands.No objective reviews. Only "benchmarks" that came from AMD, which will always paint their product in a good light.

Intel isn't "stagnating" - They're responding to market forces. You really have not needed a faster CPU since the launch of Sandy bridge. What the market wants is more features, lower power. That is what Intel has been focusing on and delivering pretty well.

Lastly, remember that single thread performance is still king in the desktop space. Lots of cores are great for servers and some applications - But for user facing applications (Including games) the most heavily weighted cpu performance bottleneck is the top speed of your core(s). - Multi-threaded programming is hard and there is no magical compiler switch or library that will suddenly make lots of slow cores = One fast core. (For most applications)

We all want AMD to give Intel some competition and to push prices down.. But don't hold your breath until reviewers have shipping parts in their hands.

Reviewers have parts. Parts are up for preorder. Parts are going to be available worldwide on the same date. All signs point to it not being a "soft launch" or a "paper launch". We've seen photos over the past few weeks of people receiving trays of parts. Ryzen looks like it'll be out in volume.

The AMD-provided benchmarks are objective. They're showing multithreaded performance in a highly-multithreaded workload. They also show one single-threaded benchmark. Yes, the R7 1800X will lose out in single threaded performance against clock-for-clock Kaby Lake and Skylake parts.

Gamers should look at the Kaby Lake 7700k and the Ryzen 1700X.
People with highly-multithreaded workloads should look at the Skylake 6900k and 6850k, and the Ryzen 1800X and 1700X.
People concerned mainly with single-threaded performance shouldn't be looking at any recent part from anybody. For most people, the newer fab processes are simply too tight to allow for clocks high enough to justify replacing shit like the Sandybridge CPUs that have been running at 4.5 GHz - 4.8 GHz for 6 years.

Intel hasn't been doing SHIT for the desktop CPU market for the past 3 years. Look at http://ark.intel.com/#@Process.... There are a total of 16 SKUs in the i7/extreme class in the last 3 years of the Core products across gens 5-7. 4th gen i7 alone had about triple the number of SKUs. Today Intel shits out a few desktop SKUs and abandons the platform. Kaby lake doesn't even have its full stack out and they're already telling people to wait for Cannon Lake because the value proposition of Kaby Lake or Skylake vs Ryzen is a joke.

Sounds like you are buying the wrong parts.

You do know that Intel makes 6-core parts that don't have the GPU, right?

Don't just buy the package special from Newegg.

I hear you and appreciate your points. Respectfully, I think you have partially mischaracterised the memory problems on the MacBooks. According to Schiller, it came down not being able to use 32GB of low-power RAM, in order to save battery life. Although he didn't mention it, he means LPDDR RAM. Yes, the current standards are limited to 16GB. http://bgr.com/2016/11/21/macb... https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pr... Mobile Skylake does support 64GB: http://ark.intel.com/compare/8... But it depends on what kind of memory you use - with Apple's new battery technology, memory compression, app nap and other technologies - they could have made that work if thinness was more important to them than performance. You're absolutely right that later Intel chips do support more than 16GB for LPDDR. Likewise, yes - Xeon chips have not gotten faster. But graphics cards have! And I've currently got more solid state storage in my Mac Mini than the Mac Pro supports. Agreed on the chip development, as well, but their operating systems run very slowly on older devices - which is not necessary - it's a design decision. If they used better specs in their devices, this wouldn't be as much of a problem. I have an original iPadit had 256MB of RAM. What were they thinking? (Battery life, mostly.) You couldn't even have two tabs open in a web browser without reloading the whole page. Soyes, their developments DO increase performance, but they USE them to increase profitnot making high-performance, long-term investments for consumers. Just my $0.02.

Revisionist nonsense.. .Intel started the compact and efficient trend with the Centrino branding in 2003. It didn't take off, and Apple stole the idea for their Macbook Air---five years later, in 2008.

Speak for yourself. Centrino did not mean ultra thin as in the MacBook Air. You can read for yourself in Intel's own Press Release. Centrino was about integrating wifi into laptops. Before that, wireless cards were added mostly via PCMCIA. You also seemed to ignore that Apple specifically worked with Intel in reducing chipset size so that the Air could be thinner and more battery space freed.

Intel has parts that would work(albeit a bit light on GPIO); I've got a dreadful little tablet here based on the Z3735G, and they packed that CPU, a gig of RAM, 16GB of flash, a 1024x600 touchscreen, some sort of BT and wifi, and a battery together for under $50.

If they hadn't also burdened the device with some of the more agonizing firmware I've had the pleasure of dealing with(AMI's dysfunctional take on 32-bit UEFI, no compatibility support module, on a 64-bit platform? Sign me up!); it'd actually be a decent little Linux toy, since that Atom is supported by intel GPU drivers, not the freaky PowerVR stuff.

As best I can tell, though, the Z-series Atoms didn't attract all that much interest(they are comparable to ARM devices aimed as similar price performance niches; but not particularly superior); and vendors weren't exactly clamoring to buy the chips; and Intel doesn't really like selling parts that cheap. They'd much rather try to sell you on a Core M or the like.

There isn't a whole lot of reason to do it; or apparent interest; but it could be done.

To my view, much of IoT is a solution looking for a problem, and is compounded by ignorance on all levels. Corporations that are seeking it thinking it's the future don't understand Information Technology or Information Security.

If we must have smart tvs, then just making a slot for something like this:
Intel compute card(I'd also prefer to get rid of hdmi in favour of display port, but that is not happening.)

Basically this would be my ideal tv.
1) A few hdmi (or display port)
2) dot for dot displays in at least 24bpp color at at least 60Hz non interlaced, or better yet supporting that variable sync rate stuff graphics cards are supporting now to prevent tearing.
3) A single optical digital audio output, because do we really need to run speakers wirelessly and introduce those security issues?
4) A spot for a single replaceable compute card or similar. The card may connect to a lan port on the tv, but that just just wire routing. Basically you could swap the cards out in the mail if newer security was required. The card would also be used to help decode any video standards, and may actually be what decodes all compressed video.
5) A TV should not have a microphone, unless it goes to a closed system that can only be used to do trivial tv functions that clearly can never be routed to the internet. If you want to give up your privacy then you can add an additional microphone to the compute stick.
6) Similarly a tv should not have a camera. If a game absolutely needs one, it can add it on later
7) For add ons the compute stick may route wires to usb ports, but again these are just wires and have no security implications. Examples for USB would be game controllers, wired or wireless keyboards, direct connections to tv tuners, connects to portable blu-ray players, etc.

Over the air broadcasts, if used should be provided over the local network, wireless or wired. There is no point in dragging coax everywhere

https://communities.intel.com/...

Dude looks like a lady? Doesn't work and that's just one case. That Intel NUC support forum has dozens of topics like those. The ending is rarely solved, but rather a return to seller.

Intel has never been a "include legacy for those who need it" company. If it's 'legacy' it ain't gonna work if Intel can help it. Win7 (and USB2) are legacy by any mark.

I have a 2013 Mac Pro and a new 2016 MacBook Pro 13".
Whilst multi-thread performance is a different matter altogether, single core performance is pretty much on par (with a slight edge to the laptop) when comparing the two machines. The vast majority of software I run is single threaded, as I don't do video editing, 3D or gaming.

This is a Intel Xeon E5-1620 quad-core versus an i7-6567U

https://ark.intel.com/products...
https://ark.intel.com/products...

Power consumption is 130W to the Xeon versus 28W to the i7.

I have a 2013 Mac Pro and a new 2016 MacBook Pro 13".
Whilst multi-thread performance is a different matter altogether, single core performance is pretty much on par (with a slight edge to the laptop) when comparing the two machines. The vast majority of software I run is single threaded, as I don't do video editing, 3D or gaming.

This is a Intel Xeon E5-1620 quad-core versus an i7-6567U

https://ark.intel.com/products...
https://ark.intel.com/products...

Power consumption is 130W to the Xeon versus 28W to the i7.

http://www.intel.com/content/w...

A vending machine with HDD's that if it is an drop one likely will damage them and a coin slot so put in $1 $5 $10 $20 $50 $100's in and get back coins in change I hope it has dollar coins in there.

...totally passing the Turing test, there.

http://www.intel.com/content/w...

A vending machine with HDD's that if it is an drop one likely will damage them and a coin slot so put in $1 $5 $10 $20 $50 $100's in and get back coins in change I hope it has dollar coins in there.

If they are using the 7Y75, then it is only 4.5W TDP.
No fan needed for that.
http://ark.intel.com/products/...

Seems like a great CPU for that wattage.

That's precisely why I hate ARM SoC designs. Too many dark unknown legally blocked holes.

Point of reference

I just want a faster chip

New instructions seem dumb to me

That's exactly how they get faster chips with the 'same' clock speed.

Some embedded chips can only do int16 adds/multiplies in hardware and rely on software tricks to do floating point math, they're slow compared to a chip than can do the floating points adds/multiplies in hardware.

Compare LINPACK benchmarks using AVX2, AVX and SSE.

No Intel cheated at Handbreak and I doubt even a faster AMD Ryzen that is coming out can compare if the code slows down when an AMD cpu is detected.

OpenSource program gets paid by Intel to cripple AMD performance? This is your guess based upon poor performance of your CPU? Good grief....

Oh really?

Yes it is not a vast conspiracy that intel cheats with some popular benchmarks.

Intel makes it easy, i3 Basic, i5 mid range i7 high end.

First off, this information is useless without knowing the generation (Sandy Vagina or whatever) and even knowing the generation isn't nearly enough information. U (low power) variants are slower across the board, K variants mean overclockability or something, and if you actually care about specific features like AMT, Vt-d, Vt-x, AES-NI, etc. you pretty much *have* to head on over to Ark because there's no consistency whatsoever. I've seen i7s that didn't support Vt-d and goddamn 1.5ghz Celerons that did.

Their market segmentation strategy is chaos and the i3/5/7 thing is pretty much worthless, though admittedly Ark is nice saving grace that I really wish AMD would copy.

• Surface sold ~1.5 million/quarter in 2015
• MacBook sold ~5 million/quarter in 2015

• http://pocketnow.com/2016/02/0... https://www.statista.com/stati...

I had big time problems trying to use my Logitech bluetooth mouse and keyboard at the same time an external spinning disk was attached via USB 3. Apparently the interference is a known issue.

I also recently purchased a WeightGurus scale that uses lower-power bluetooth to transmit reading to a companion smartphone app. When this happens there's some sort of interference between the WiFi and bluetooth receivers on my phone and I have to turn off bluetooth, then turn WiFi off/on and finally turn bluetooth back on. If I don't do that I won't be able to reconnect to my WiFi router.

According to TLA, x86 compatibility is achieved through emulation. Emulating the x86 instruction set is a non-trivial exercise that almost invariably results in extremely disappointing performance. Why? The x86 instruction set is an accretion of the instruction sets of older Intel processors, beginning with the 8008. This yields a difficult (i.e., computationally expensive) instruction set to decode and execute. Over the years, Intel has implemented micro-architectures that address this problem through special purpose hardware. If you're so inclined, have a read here http://www.intel.com/content/w... for details. The takeaway is that simply emulating the x86 instruction set results in about a 100x slowdown for an equivalent clock rate. So, although this is an interesting technology demonstration, I seriously doubt it will prove useful outside of a small set of applications. It will certainly not be a satisfactory gaming platform.

For Nvidia (Support for 10-bit and up to 8k video):
https://developer.nvidia.com/n...

For Intel:
https://software.intel.com/en-...

"4th Generation Intel Core processors (Haswell CPU 2- 3.5GHz, 4 Cores): Includes an HEVC Software Decoder capable of real time decode of HEVC 4K streams.
5th Generation Intel Core processors (Broadwell): Supports HEVC 8-bit software/hybrid encode.
6th Generation Intel Core processors (Skylake) Supports hardware accelerated HEVC 8-bit decode and encode."

They don't have to. The support has been there for quite some time. And as Intel did, you can always optimize the software. An Intel Core 2 Duo from 10 years ago can happily decode 1080p VP9 video. The "no hardware" case is overstated.

STOP SAYING THIS

Why do you keep saying this?

READ THE FUCKING TEXT

"Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,400. This machine has a Quad-core Sklyake i7, "

The $2400 Macbook Pro 15" has: "2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz, with 6MB shared L3 cache"

It appears to be a i7-6700HQ: http://ark.intel.com/products/...

That's the baseline for the 15" Macbook Pro. NONE of the new 15" Macbook Pros are dual core.

NONE OF THEM

NONE

You are saying this bullshit in like three stories now. Holy moly.

I wondered when this was going to come up. It totally reminds me of this short story.

Did you miss the comment about 'small form factor pc'?

Why be satisfied with 28" when you can plug one of these into something bigger? http://www.intel.com/content/w...

Once you get to the "Nano-ITX or Pico-ITX sized devices, or just a single-board computer, USB or eSATA are your only expansion options.

So no, the upgradibility of this device is not much of a surprise, and likely not an issue for it's target market.

When you hold down the power key, some firmware somewhere, in a little microcontroller, starts a timer.

It's all done in hardware, no software nor firmware. Check out Intel's PCH datasheet:
http://www.intel.com/content/d...

5.13.8.1
PWRBTN# (Power Button)
The PCH PWRBTN# signal operates as a "Fixed Power Button" as described in the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, Version 2.0b. PWRBTN# signal has a 16 ms de-bounce on the input. The state transition descriptions are included in Table 5-32. The transitions start as soon as the PWRBTN# is pressed (but after the debounce logic), and does not depend on when the Power Button is released.

Present State: S0-S4
Event: PWRBTN# held low for at least 4 consecutive seconds
Action: Unconditional transition to S5 state and if Deep Sx is enabled and conditions are met per Section 5.13.7.6, the system will then transition to Deep Ss
Comment: No dependence on processor (DMI Messages) or any other subsystem.

Those intel chips in the macbook pro retina as of 2015 were from 2013...

Not all that ahead of the curve.

Don't make this so easy Core i7 4980HQ was released Q3 2014 and is in the 2015 MBP.

Some more comments on your replies: .............. so you cut corners and probably made a deal with Intel. Do you really think Intel would make a deal with us? We are applying the most open design practices we can think off, while still staying in business. We publicized the product definition, the SOW for contractors we work with, the code for the several Firmware developments we did and have contracted out will be available as soon as it is in Beta release. the Hardware design is open to the public and ready for anyone's scrutiny. Do you really think we would do all that to "make a deal with Intel"? I invite you to read up on this article from Bruce Byfield on open hardware development. http://www.linux-magazine.com/... .............. You cannot minimize the reach of ME because it load before everything else. If you believe that you have then you are either ignorant or you have deluded yourself. I cannot guarantee to which extend we will be able to minimize the ME implementation or reach, initial discussion with out BIOS implementer Eltan, showed there are choices we can make choosing different TyanoCore Payloads to get the system up ==> minimizing ME capabilities. Then there are a number of other options which we are still investigating, more on this as soon as we know. ............... no they don't because anything with ME is not actually secured. I want to point you to the Intel website where they advertise for POS systems based on their chipset. http://www.intel.com/content/w... Thanks

Depending on specific implementation, RAID 0 and RAID 1 (and JBOD) can happily run on a single disk. Obviously you don't get any advantages of multiple disks, the data is still striped or mirrored across all n drives in the array...there just happens to be 1 drive.

Some feature implementations also require RAID setups to function. Intel's Smart Response Technology for instance requires the controller to operate in RAID mode for a SSD drive to be used as a cache for a HDD. The SSD would operate as a RAID-0 array of a single drive. See the note under step 4 in the Enabling Intel Smart Response Technology section.

In a processor, the inputs and outputs are finite and all the combinations of interactions easily modelled and tested. Even with a billion transistors, it is possible to test the design. That said, Intel regularly fixes the processor firmware. Here is an example:

Core i7-900 "Specification Update"

In a smart phone, the number of app combinations and interactions scale incredibly fast, and sometimes even expose hardware bugs that were not caught during design. It is impossible to model or test all the possible cases.

http://www.intel.com/content/w...

Intel forces their new chipset to run in XHCI mode despite USB 3's backwards compatibility. XHCI is not supported in the Windows 7 installers, not the Gold/RTM, not the SP1 release, and not the later "media refresh" release.

Uh, that's precisely what they do. They have their Custom Foundry, where one can have any agreement w/ them. And if it's a non-US company that needs them manufactured outside the US, they can have Intel make their parts in Israel

Have you been living under a rock ?

In the system to my left, an 8 years old Q9550 ( http://ark.intel.com/products/... ) which while running Windows 10 will only put out 4000 points on cpubenchmark.net (and it shows!). To my right, a 1 year old i7-6700K ( http://ark.intel.com/products/... ) using less power than the Q9550, yet dishing out 11000 points in cpu benchmark. Then, there's this year i7-6850k, handing out a Q9550 more performance over the already performing i7-6700k (got 15500 points!). That's an improvement of 288% over something that was considered top of the line 8 years ago.

Have you been living under a rock ?

In the system to my left, an 8 years old Q9550 ( http://ark.intel.com/products/... ) which while running Windows 10 will only put out 4000 points on cpubenchmark.net (and it shows!). To my right, a 1 year old i7-6700K ( http://ark.intel.com/products/... ) using less power than the Q9550, yet dishing out 11000 points in cpu benchmark. Then, there's this year i7-6850k, handing out a Q9550 more performance over the already performing i7-6700k (got 15500 points!). That's an improvement of 288% over something that was considered top of the line 8 years ago.

The advantage of silicon photonics is to integrate the optical elements (lasers & PIN diodes) into the silicion drivers and amplifiers, theoretically reducing cost.

There are already 100 Gbps CWDM4 QSFP28 (4 wavelengths of 25 Gbps on 2 fibers) and 100 Gbps PSM4 QSFP28 (single 25 Gbps wavelength on 8 parallel fibers) transceivers out there, but they need discrete lasers & PIN diodes in InP or GaAs, not silicon.

So we will see how Intel's silicon photonics 100 Gbps CWDM4 QSFP28 and 100 Gbps PSM4 QSFP28 transceivers end up being priced.

My impression is that 50 Gbps wavelengths are coming soon (using 4-level PAM), so two of those will be 100 Gbps. But the holy grail is the one wavelength 100 Gbps, likely some kind of high-order modulation (HOM). AppliedMicro has demonstrated a 100 Gbps single-wavelength PAM4, but no word on distance.

The advantage of silicon photonics is to integrate the optical elements (lasers & PIN diodes) into the silicion drivers and amplifiers, theoretically reducing cost.

There are already 100 Gbps CWDM4 QSFP28 (4 wavelengths of 25 Gbps on 2 fibers) and 100 Gbps PSM4 QSFP28 (single 25 Gbps wavelength on 8 parallel fibers) transceivers out there, but they need discrete lasers & PIN diodes in InP or GaAs, not silicon.

So we will see how Intel's silicon photonics 100 Gbps CWDM4 QSFP28 and 100 Gbps PSM4 QSFP28 transceivers end up being priced.

My impression is that 50 Gbps wavelengths are coming soon (using 4-level PAM), so two of those will be 100 Gbps. But the holy grail is the one wavelength 100 Gbps, likely some kind of high-order modulation (HOM). AppliedMicro has demonstrated a 100 Gbps single-wavelength PAM4, but no word on distance.

Their promotional literature says the following:

"Because the Intel Joule platform is based on an Intel® Atom SoC, transitioning a product design to high-volume production can be done with modest engineering expense, providing a mature platform for companies who require the option to scale down the road."

That suggests that the asking price, even in volume, is going to be at least modestly higher than the cost of stuffing the same parts onto your board; unless compactness is the only reason a customer would care about cutting the module and connector out of the design; but they probably care more about moving CPUs than about charging a markup on that specific packaging option, so I'd assume that they would offer the same deal for the SoC and wifi module whether purchased for your own board or integrated onto their board; with the cost of the rest of the assembly not being given away; but not being something it would make sense to mark up too much.

ARK doesn't list either of those Atom parts, though, so I don't know what the SoC itself would be expected to cost.

It's been a while since Apple upgraded its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models. Four years, one month, and twenty-four days, to be exact, in case of the MacBook Pro.

Way to go with the half-truths.

The obsolete 2012 Macbook Pro is indeed still on Apple's books -but Its long been banished from the main MacBook Pro page on Apple's website and tucked away at the bottom of the "Buy" page. Presumably because some big customers still want a spinning rust hard drive and an optical drive. Nobody who has done 5 minutes of research would buy one unless that's what they wanted.

Meanwhile the flagship Retina Macbook Pro range got new processors and unique haptic touchpads just over a year ago, and the (probably to be discontinued) MacBook Air got a minor bump this spring. The MacBook got Skylake in the spring and the 27" iMac got Skylake last November.

Now, Apple do have a problem - 15-month old computers still aren't sexy - but its partly due to Intel's woes with the various configurations of Skylake chips which have been trickling out gradually over the last year. E.g. the 15" Retina Macbook Pro really needs the i7-6x70HQ chips with Iris Pro which weren't launched until Q1 this year, the i7 version of the 13" rMBP needs the i7-6567U which, according to Intels ARK site, hasn't been launched yet. The architectural speed-up with Skylake isn't that huge, so using a chip with lower TDP or inferior GPU just for the sake of "Skylake" can easily end up as a downgrade.

Dell, HP et. al. have a million models and are happy to build systems around whatever chips are available today - they have some pretty tempting MacBook-killers but you do have to look carefully at the power rating & GPU of the processor before declaring a winner. Meanwhile, Intel have started the hype for Kaby Lake before finishing the Skylake range - its possible that Apple will wait for that, since it has Thunderbolt3 on-chip and Apple are presumably going to standardise on TB3.

Not completely defending Apple here - the Mac Pro is nearly 3 years old, the Mac Mini 2 years. Both of those were also affected by Intel delays but there ought to be something Apple could have done to maintain interest. Chances are, the Mac Pro (basically a dedicated Final Cut X machine and a waste of money if you don't run OpenCL software) just isn't selling. The Intel delays aren't exactly new and its within Apple's power to maybe design some new Macs around available chips. Unfortunately, Tim Cook has been doing a very good impression of someone more interested in watch straps than full-featured computers, so people are worried.

But, no, folks: the flagship Retina MacBook Pro is not starting kindergarten this year, and the rumor sites are flagging them "don't buy" because they're expecting new models by the end of the year.

At first I was scratching my head because I know for a fact Intel didn't create Vulkan, at least not on its own. It seems what actually happened is that a while back Intel added Vulkan API support to its open source driver for its own graphics chips, and that is what has been integrated into Mesa.

Go read Intel's forums support forums. Performance is shit on the newer i5s. Many have accused them of gimping it via the drivers. They're buggy as hell, too.
The 5000 and 6000 series processors have TRASH video on the i5s.

https://communities.intel.com/...

Go through a few pages and CTRL+F i5.

I first began digging into this after struggling to get a triple display configuration working. The hardware has the bandwidth to run 3x1920x1080@60, but it's not officially supported on my 5th gen i5 while it was on my 4th gen i5. I was able to get it working with a specific driver, but the thing is turd slow. There's no reason it shouldn't work and work well - the GPU is better than the previous gen specwise in every way. But Intel is fucking shit over on the driver side.

Mod me down all you want, clowns. I'm not the only one who knows that the newer i5s have gimped graphics.
https://communities.intel.com/...

Go read Intel's forums support forums. Performance is shit on the newer i5s. Many have accused them of gimping it via the drivers. They're buggy as hell, too.
The 5000 and 6000 series processors have TRASH video on the i5s.

https://communities.intel.com/...

Go through a few pages and CTRL+F i5.

I first began digging into this after struggling to get a triple display configuration working. The hardware has the bandwidth to run 3x1920x1080@60, but it's not officially supported on my 5th gen i5 while it was on my 4th gen i5. I was able to get it working with a specific driver, but the thing is turd slow. There's no reason it shouldn't work and work well - the GPU is better than the previous gen specwise in every way. But Intel is fucking shit over on the driver side.

Mod me down all you want, clowns. I'm not the only one who knows that the newer i5s have gimped graphics.
https://communities.intel.com/...

The E3 series, the most recent versions released in mid 2012. Use the link you provided and select View All E3. Notice the 2011-12 launch dates.

No, that's the first generation E3's. You'll note the page I actually linked you to shows E3 v5, the "View All" link takes you to the database which can only show one generation at a time and defaults to the oldest.

v5 launch dates are Q4'15 through Q2'16.

Editor's note: The summary is written with inputs from an anonymous reader, who also shared the story. We've been unable to verify the claims made by the author.

Uh, the claims are quite true. I've been using these features at work for about a decade to perform remote OS installs and HD re-imaging at remote locations, where the on-site staff only pop in a new blank HD.

All Core i7 CPUs have this in them standard, and many i5's too especially at the higher end.

[PDF] Datasheet on the MEBX management engine:
http://download.intel.com/supp...

[PDF] How to enable and use the AMT active management engine:
http://www.intel.com/content/d...

And here is the SCS software used on another computer to control an AMT enabled computer:
http://www.intel.com/content/w...

RealVNC works with an AMT enabled computer out of the box too and with all the normal features you would expect like remote keyboard/video/mouse control, redirected drives, etc. But isn't a free program.

Other VNC clients seem to be hit or miss but even when they work you only get remote KVM, you'd have to use the built-in AMT web server to configure drive redirection and issue power on/off/reboot commands.
There is a similarly limited VNC client included in the SCS software link above, and a second web browser window will let you do the rest, even if slightly clunky, but still for free.

Editor's note: The summary is written with inputs from an anonymous reader, who also shared the story. We've been unable to verify the claims made by the author.

Uh, the claims are quite true. I've been using these features at work for about a decade to perform remote OS installs and HD re-imaging at remote locations, where the on-site staff only pop in a new blank HD.

All Core i7 CPUs have this in them standard, and many i5's too especially at the higher end.

[PDF] Datasheet on the MEBX management engine:
http://download.intel.com/supp...

[PDF] How to enable and use the AMT active management engine:
http://www.intel.com/content/d...

And here is the SCS software used on another computer to control an AMT enabled computer:
http://www.intel.com/content/w...

RealVNC works with an AMT enabled computer out of the box too and with all the normal features you would expect like remote keyboard/video/mouse control, redirected drives, etc. But isn't a free program.

Other VNC clients seem to be hit or miss but even when they work you only get remote KVM, you'd have to use the built-in AMT web server to configure drive redirection and issue power on/off/reboot commands.
There is a similarly limited VNC client included in the SCS software link above, and a second web browser window will let you do the rest, even if slightly clunky, but still for free.

Editor's note: The summary is written with inputs from an anonymous reader, who also shared the story. We've been unable to verify the claims made by the author.

Uh, the claims are quite true. I've been using these features at work for about a decade to perform remote OS installs and HD re-imaging at remote locations, where the on-site staff only pop in a new blank HD.

All Core i7 CPUs have this in them standard, and many i5's too especially at the higher end.

[PDF] Datasheet on the MEBX management engine:
http://download.intel.com/supp...

[PDF] How to enable and use the AMT active management engine:
http://www.intel.com/content/d...

And here is the SCS software used on another computer to control an AMT enabled computer:
http://www.intel.com/content/w...

RealVNC works with an AMT enabled computer out of the box too and with all the normal features you would expect like remote keyboard/video/mouse control, redirected drives, etc. But isn't a free program.

Other VNC clients seem to be hit or miss but even when they work you only get remote KVM, you'd have to use the built-in AMT web server to configure drive redirection and issue power on/off/reboot commands.
There is a similarly limited VNC client included in the SCS software link above, and a second web browser window will let you do the rest, even if slightly clunky, but still for free.

Well that and Linux isn't exactly a great Windows alternative. The Windows 10 silliness really would be a grand opportunity for Apple to release a cheaper Mac Mini.

WTF? $500 isn't cheap enough???

You haven't priced Intel CPUs lately, have you? The MSRP of the lowest-end CPU offered in a Mac mini (1.4 GHz i5), is almost 2/3 the luster price of the ENTIRE machine!!! Of course, Apple doesn't pay that; but I would be willing to bet that they pay around 60% of that, maybe more.

And before you whine about the $500 model, realize that 95% of Applications typically run on corporate desktops can EASILY be comfortably run on a machine of its specs. Easily.

OS X is not Windows. It is not NEARLY as RAM- Hungry, nor resource-hungry. Not having to run three layers of A/V helps...