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Intel Announces Xeon Scalable Processor Family (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Intel unveiled information regarding a new Xeon processor family today, some of which will be based on the company's Skylake-SP architecture. Intel will have four levels of Xeon processors that scale with respect to feature support and core counts. Intel is calling it the Xeon Scalable Family with Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum processors. Today, Xeon model names follow a fairly easy-to-understand format. Take for example the Xeon E5-4640 v4. "E5" in this case means that it is in the middle of Intel's current stack in terms of features and capabilities, where the "4" signifies use in a 4-socket system. Finally, the "v4" represents the architecture. With this change, a model like the one above would become Intel Xeon Gold 4640, as an example. Regardless, the chips will include support for AVX-512 instructions, QuickAssist and Volume Management Device (VMD) technologies that will take advantage of NVMe solid-state drives. The platform will also support complementary processing engines and IO technologies like Intel FPGAs, Xeon Phi accelerators and Silicon Photonics connectivity. Intel notes the processors will be arriving to market this summer.
When the last one is always zero.
Does it have a brand new NSA backdoor in it ?
This sure sounds like a crock to me. Similar to when they created the "486SX" which was a 486DX in which the math coprocessor did not pass quality control, so they disabled it & sold the chip as an SX instead of throwing it in the bin.
They're probably doing QC testing on the chips & "downgrading" the ones that don't work... either that or they're charging you a LICENSE FEE for features and cores in the CPU and making their hardware "by subscription" which would be a truly horrific turn of events!
This reminds me of something happening on supermarket shelves everywhere.. Brands expand their offerings from 1 or 2 to half a dozen or more just to take up more shelf space and drive smaller brands out. The world needs a viable server competitor to Intel, be it AMD or someone else.
Intel didn't "unveil" anything -- they accidentally posted a "product change notification" that listed model numbers for upcoming Skylake Xeon processors, then quickly took it down. What we've learned is that the model numbering system will change, maybe in a way that keeps a similar organization but renames things, and maybe in a way that means substantive changes. We can't tell. In other words, this is semantics. If there's more to be gleaned from the leak, I haven't heard it here.
The naming scheme wasn't convoluted enough so far?
The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.
What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:
TL;DR version
Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.
The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.
30C3 Intel ME live hack:
@21m43s, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.
[Video Link] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
[Quotes] Vortrag:
"DAGGER exploits Intel's Manageability Engine (ME), that executes firmware code such as Intel's Active Management Technology (iAMT), as well as its OOB network channel."
"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker. Our presentation consists of three parts. The first part addresses how to find valuable data in the main memory of the host. The second part exploits the ME's OOB network channel to exfiltrate captured data to an external platform and to inject new attack code to target other interesting data structures available in the host runtime memory. The last part deals with the implementation of a covert network channel based on JitterBug."
"We have recently improved DAGGER's capabilites to include support for 64-bit operating systems and a stealthy update mechanism to download new attack code."
"To be more precise, we show how to conduct a DMA attack using Intel's Manageability Engine (ME)."
"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."
Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.
Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.
If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).
Useful links:
The Intel ME subsystem can take over your machine, can't be audited
REcon 2014 - Intel Management Engine Secrets
Untrusting the CPU (33c3)
Towards (reasonably) trustworthy x86 laptops
30C3 To Protect And Infect - The militarization of the Internet
30c3: To Protect And Infect Part 2 - Mass Surveillance Tools & Software
1. Introduction, what is Intel ME
Short version, from Intel staff:
Re: What Intel CPUs lack Intel ME secondary processor?
Amy_Intel Feb 8, 2016 9:27 AM
The Management Engine (ME) is an isolated and protected coprocessor, embedded as a non-optional part in all current Intel chipsets, I even checked wit
I gave up trying to understand chip names and model numbers a long time ago.
GPUs and CPUs are the worst - I have absolutely no clue whether a particular number / model is better / worse than any other.
I let my suppliers deal with it - I tell them what I want, they send me a spec, I google to ensure the chip numbers do what I want in terms of core-speed, number of cores, etc.
It's not hard to come up with a sensible numbering / naming system, but if Intel didn't have a page for every chip that just says number of cores, speed, etc. then I'd have absolutely no clue. Changing it to colours isn't helping matters either - that just reeks of marketing where everyone thinks they need to have "Gold" rather than "Silver" when there's probably little gain for most people.
For the same reason, I stopped buying separate CPUs and motherboards many years ago and nowadays I don't even tend to buy PSUs etc. separately. Because the combination needs to be correct and I'm not going to waste my time and effort only to get it wrong.
Everything from CPU sockets, to PSU power draw (don't forget to check the 12V rail!), to PCIe speed,to card profile height - after a while it just gets so boring, and I'm paying people to supply me the gear, so I let them do the legwork.
But the situation for consumers is actually completely the flip of that. People ask me about buying laptops. I say "check it has the ports you want". No point paying a fortune for a laptop that doesn't have enough USB, and if you buy enough USB or whatever you want for it, it'll be fast enough to do what you want nowadays. Even the cheapest gaming laptops are stupendous in specification and able to play anything I have on my Steam account (if my 6-year-old laptop can do it, too!).
Don't care about the numbers, or the exact model of chip, or anything like that. If you want a cheapy thing just for office, buy a cheapy thing just for office. If you want a gamer's thing for high-end gaming, buy something that's pitched at gamers and comes with the Razer gaming mice or whatever. Pretty much, that's a better indicator than faffing with all the statistics - which although I could understand, nobody else does and I just don't have the time to be bothered to do the research.
Don't even get me started on "does AMD graphics card X perform better than nVidia graphics card Y?"
Intel does not want to have so many models. Their 14nm yields in particular are so poor without the binning that they have to have so many models.
"His name was James Damore."
Not a big deal for Intel. When they see the confused look on your face they'll just hand you an i3 because they've got to get rid of those somehow.
I hate this shit. This is going to become such a nightmare in three to five years when these CPUs begin to hit the resale market. Typing "Xeon E5" into eBay proved too damn useful, so now this.
I'm trying to imagine myself typing "gold + anything" into eBay, and failing miserably.
Or any other search bar, without requiring "Coinage Act of 1792" peril impervious sunshades.
Intel is lately taking a sharp turn back to their Edward "RoDRAM" Hyde persona. You see this with Optane and Optame Memory. And now this, too.
Any margin we want = Intel behaves like "gentleman" Jekyll (those steady royalty cheques from the British East India Company have a salutary, soothing effect).
Competitive reality = Intel behaves like Hyde on bath salts in a Dutch bordello.
The thing about precious metals, linguistically, is that it anchors into a one-dimensional pyramid of extreme greed.
Exclusivity is well-ordered. Exclusivity doesn't trade RPM for towing capacity (well, it does, but that was resolved by the six-car ocean-frontage garage). But in terms of the human metaphorical reflex, the greed anchor flattens the ordering relationship. It's no longer horses for courses (unless, of course, one has so many horses the course no longer matters, and the debate is really blondes vs. redheads over cigars and cognac, because one also has so many blondes and redheads).
Under this new naming system, Intel will inevitably become less of an engineering company as the marketrons ride again.
It's a thoroughly bad omen.
Awesome, but how will this affect my ridiculous Oracle licensing?
It's not even so tough. Pick a handful of levels (number of cores, amount of cache, whatever). If not all the features work for one level, try again at the lower level, and repeat. You could then bin again on clock frequency, but the simple solution would be market them based upon the clock frequency and level only. So as long as you're in the same level, you would have the exact same feature set, so higher clock = faster. Between levels, it may not be so clear, but you could check benchmarks and what is best would likely depend on what you're using them for too.