Intel Skylake-U For Laptops Posts Solid Gains In Testing, Especially Graphics (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Intel's 6th Generation Skylake family of Core processors has been available for some time now for desktops. However, the mobile variant of Skylake is perhaps Intel's most potent incarnation of the new architecture that has been power-optimized on 14nm technology with a beefier graphics engine for notebooks. In late Q3, Intel started rolling out Skylake-U versions of the chip in a 15 Watt TDP flavor. This is the power envelope that most "ultrabooks" are built with and it's likely to be Intel's highest volume SKU of the processor. The Lenovo Yoga 900 tested here was configured with an Intel Core i7-6500U dual-core processor that also supports Intel HyperThreading for 4 logical processing threads available. Its base frequency is 2.5GHz, but the chip will Turbo Boost to 3GHz and down clocks way down to 500MHz when idle. The chip also has 4MB of shared L3 cache and 512K of L2 and 128K of data cache, total. In the benchmarks, the new Skylake-U mobile chip is about 5 — 10 faster than Intel's previous generation Broadwell platform in CPU-intensive tasks and 20+ percent faster in graphics and gaming, at the same power envelope, likely with better battery life, depending on the device.
Optimized code for Intel chips runs really well on Intel benchmarks
Less than 10% is a "solid improvement" these days?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
the new Skylake-U mobile chip is about 5 â" 10 faster than Intel's previous generation Broadwell platform in CPU-intensive tasks...
Yeah, well, I'll be impressed when it goes to 11.
Pounds or kilograms? Don't leave us hanging!
If only Moore's Law described the cost and performance of competent editing.
They've got over a dozen product lines going and numerous iterations underneath that. The overlap is insane. Aside from graphics speed, the chips don't get much faster. The performance of this cpu is still in the range of 5 year old i7 mobile processors. The only reason to upgrade to a newer computer is just features, speed isn't really there unless you have a celeron.
For some reason I get very nervous with an out of band remote proprietary management system baked into recent Intel chips, which operates below the OS, and has not been independently audited and reviewed by trusted 3rd parties (such as those not associated with mass surveillance).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Note that AMT is also in all Intel chips with vPro:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This posting from the FSF (Free Software Foundation) has a decent writeup about it:
https://fsf.org/blogs/communit...
It seems that we are now in the age of hardware backdoors.
Maybe AMD which cannot seem to compete with Intel on performance and low-power, can make a niche for itself as a secure (backdoorless) alternative.
These days, I would value my privacy over performance.
Yes processors run microcode.
But that is no reason to connect it to an antenna which allows a pc which is turned off to still be able to run wireless remote management commands.
In security one of the most critical consideration is to reduce the attack surface.
Intel vPro/AMT has such a large attack surface, that if we can assume there are no deliberate back doors, it is a safe bet that having it still introduces a wide range of new attack methods against us.
And for what? Just to help make corporate IT's job a bit easier? And remember those extra gates to support it does increase the chip's die size, power consumption, and cost.
Why not have AMT/vPro only in corporate PC's on request, and not have it in anything else.
And for what? Just to help make corporate IT's job a bit easier? And remember those extra gates to support it does increase the chip's die size, power consumption, and cost.
Why not have AMT/vPro only in corporate PC's on request, and not have it in anything else.
AMT is not enabled on most consumer hardware, however the underlying technology (Intel ME) is present in every chipset since it has other functions like *cough* DRM *cough* and fast-reacting power management. Basically the CPU can't function efficiently without it, but that's kind of beside the point. My point is that there are a lot of insecurities in the most popular architectures that are they are there by malicious (tinfoil hat NSA etc.) or performance-dictated (DMA in everything without IOMMU) reasons.
Yes processors run microcode.
But that is no reason to connect it to an antenna which allows a pc which is turned off to still be able to run wireless remote management commands.
You are aware that even if your PC seems "off" there's still a lot going on? For example network card can listen to WoL. What is a network card nowadays? A high performance CPU with RAM, ROM and DMA. It has a full-blown TCP and UDP stacks (used for offloading the main CPU by almost every OS). There have been attacks on Broadcom NICs that *remotely* overwritten the internal OS and put a rootkit there with full host memory access.
In security one of the most critical consideration is to reduce the attack surface.
Intel vPro/AMT has such a large attack surface, that if we can assume there are no deliberate back doors, it is a safe bet that having it still introduces a wide range of new attack methods against us.
Our computers have long since been a highly complex network of basically insecure parts stitched together over the years and bloated by backwards-compatibility. My UEFI "BIOS" can call it's manufacturer and update itself over the Internet for example. They are not secure, nor they will be in the foreseeable future. It's sad, I know...
>"In the benchmarks, the new Skylake-U mobile chip is about 5 - 10 faster than Intel's previous generation Broadwell platform in CPU-intensive tasks"
That is 5 to 10 *PERCENT* faster. Not a huge whoop. Of course, any improvement is an improvement. (At first I was reading it as "5 to 10 times faster")
Does anyone who cares about graphics use the Intel graphics card? Yes, the kids playing a flash game may see a difference, though they wouldn't care, but anyone who runs a game doesn't do so on an integrated card. Even the best integrated cards have trouble with modern games at relatively low levels. The latest generation had the i5/i7 difference be the mainly the integrated graphics. Worse generation "improvement" ever.
Learn to love Alaska
For some reason I get very nervous with an out of band remote proprietary management system baked into recent Intel chips, which operates below the OS, and has not been independently audited and reviewed by trusted 3rd parties (such as those not associated with mass surveillance).
What is known isn't good either. All you need is a valid certificate purchasable from any CA in AMTs root list to totally own any system with default configuration if your ever in a position to broadcast DHCP...oh and the computer doesn't even need to be turned on to do it.
It seems that we are now in the age of hardware backdoors.
It can be disabled from bios in some systems and effectively nerf'd in others by disabling I/O virtualization needed to "share" hardware such as your NIC with the operating system.
Maybe AMD which cannot seem to compete with Intel on performance and low-power, can make a niche for itself as a secure (backdoorless) alternative.
These days, I would value my privacy over performance.
It is a good idea to check with vendor to make sure AMT can be disabled before purchasing.
mobile i7 = desktop i3, gotta love lack of competition :(
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
So now, after 18 months in development, a 15% gain is "solid". Not worth changing your laptop over this.
Oh, sure, the graphics on these chips is worlds better than previous generations, and the power savings is great. BUT, if you can run their drivers without constant crashes and kernel panics it's not really a step forward. Most of the U series laptops and tablets our there are having a myriad of problems - hue shifts, sleep power drain, failure to wake up, driver crash/restarts and - yes - straight up kernel panics/BSOD that require a reboot. It looks like they hires a bunch of amateurs to code this round of drivers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Not everyone plays games. The graphics matter because it means running every day applications with reasonable responsiveness on laptops which don't have space for a spare card. A 2 pound laptop running both an internal screen and an external desktop at 7680x2160 with a 60Hz refresh and it still gets 6 hours of useful battery life? Fucking fabulous, let me tell you. FPS in games doesn't even make the top ten in 90% of laptop users want lists.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
AMD does fine at low power, at least after Carrizo release:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/...
E.g. in HP EliteBook 725 G3, 7+ hours on battery:
http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/...
Maybe AMD which cannot seem to compete with Intel on performance and low-power, can make a niche for itself as a secure (backdoorless) alternative.
Don't bet on it; I recall credible reports of backdoors in AMD chips over a decade ago...
I'm still rocking a Phenom II x6, and in Linux when I have the CPU governor set to 'conservative' or something similar, it'll drop to 800 Mhz like it's nothing, and shed 40 watts of power consumption. Stock clock for it is 2.4 Ghz, but it'll go up to 3.5 Ghz just fine if I don't put it into sleep mode. How, then, is this such a big deal? Just because it's mobile?
"NOD32 detects a trojan in APK's HOSTS bullshit." - by Khyber (864651) on Saturday August 22, 2015 @01:02PM (#50370415)
VirusTotal & NOD32 shows it COMPLETELY CLEAN
https://www.virustotal.com/en/...
&
https://www.virustotal.com/en/...
+
http://f.virscan.org/APKHostsF...
There's only 2 exe's & 5 text files in it - The exe's are proven clean as shown above in the 2 links from VirusTotal, the installer's a SFX rar (keeps it 2mb smaller on download) - that's NO virus!
(Unless YOU know of a way that .txt files are "viruses")
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"he's tying to get your fucking information." - by Khyber (864651) on Saturday August 22, 2015 @01:02PM (#50370415)
My program doesn't transmit outward ONLY intake of data from 10 reputable sources in the security community!
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"APK is apparently too fucking stupid to do this at the ROUTER level where it's most effective" - by Khyber (864651) on Saturday August 22, 2015 @01:02PM (#50370415)
You believe in "eggshell security" which fails per -> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
A TRULY COMPETENT NETWORK ADMIN WOULD DO FAR MORE THAN MERE PERIMETER LEVEL SECURITY @ ROUTER LEVEL!
Routers get bushwhacked ALL THE TIME in DNS hijacks lately too, lol!
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"Windows 10 has hardcoded IPs and bypasses HOSTs." - by Khyber (864651) on Saturday August 22, 2015 @01:02PM (#50370415)
Windows ONLY bypasses hosts files for Windows update (Win8 & below) & for the tracking "telemetry" in Windows 10 (this is going to KILL Windows 10, mark my words - nobody likes tracking -> http://localghost.org/posts/a-... - test it yourself.
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"Browsers can bypass HOSTs as well." - by Khyber (864651) on Saturday August 22, 2015 @01:02PM (#50370415)
WTF? They'd be bypassing the IP stack itself, hosts are part of it - since that's impossible? You've proven yourself a moron, again.
APK
P.S.=> "EAT YOUR WORDS"... apk
If only the previous microarch were done as well! Had a friend buy a new Asus laptop (one of those ridiculously light and thin ones, no discrete graphics) with a Broadwell-U i5. About 2 weeks after he got it, it randomly decided to permanently power down all of the sudden while being used (and while connected to the A/C charger). Attempts to make the system do *something at all* (including hours of googling and trying various things) yielded no results; the system instantaneously transitioned from being a functional computer to a flimsy doorstop.
Not saying it's Intel's fault, but it can't be a software issue if the system won't even POST.
Yes, the graphics are likely better, but sadly if you want a powerful dual-core, there isn't much to cheer about.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM