Friday, February 04
Undecodable Chips
The third reason why I'm not typing this on a shiny new Sandy Bridge system (the first two being time and sharks) is that with the new CPU range, Intel have taken market segmentation to a whole new level.
The initial release of the desktop lineup includes 6 mainstream chips, 2 enthusiast chips (with unlocked overclocking), 3 low-power chips (65W) and 3 ultra-low-power chips (35-45W), in three general families: i3, i5, and i7.
The low-end i3 is a two-core, four-thread design. The high-end i7 is a four-core, eight-thread design. The mid-range i5 is a four-core, four-thread design... Except when it's not, as two of the three ultra-low-power i5 chips are actually two-core, four-thread versions.
New features in these chips include hardware encryption - built into all models except the high-end i3 (yes, the low-end i3 has it); VT-x virtualisation, available on the i5 and i7 only; and VT-d I/O virtualisation and TXT trusted execution, available on the non-enthusiast i5 and i7 except for the low-end i5, that is, it's missing on both the low-end and high-end models.
The new chip also has graphics built right onto the CPU die, unlike the previous version which was a two-die package, with CPU and GPU separate. Graphics comes in two versions: The HD 2000, with six EUs*, and the HD 3000, with twelve. Oh, and two different base speeds and three different turbo speeds, but that's not important right now.
If you're still with me, here's where it gets good, and by good I mean stupid:
The high-performance HD 3000 graphics are only available on the two high-end enthusiast models. However, we're talking Intel integrated graphics here, where "high-performance" equates to "barely adequate", and not something any enthusiast would touch with a barge pole.
But... The big feature of the enthusiast models is that they have unlocked overclocking. All the chips feature a turbo mode - if you're not running multi-threaded software, so that some of the cores are idle, the chip will automatically shut those cores off and use the increased power & heat envelope to speed up the remaining cores, by up to 400MHz. With the enthusiast model, you can do whatever the hell you like with the overclocking, with the usual proviso of you break it, you broke it.
Anyway, these overclocking features require Intel's P67 chipset to work.
The integrated graphics require Intel's H67 chipset.
So if you want the faster integrated graphics, you have to pay for the overclocking model, when you can't overclock it at all. And if you want the overclocking features, you have to pay for the faster integrated graphics, which will be completely non-functional.
And, for some bizarre reason, they turn off the I/O virtualisation as well.
As far as I can see, the only way to get a Sandy Bridge CPU which doesn't have one or more features disabled seemingly at random is to pick up the new (so new it's not out yet) Xeon E3. Here, while the 1220 and 1225 lack hyper-threading, the 1220L is a suprise two-core special with only 3MB of cache, the 1225 only has 6MB of cache, the 1260L only has the HD 2000 graphics, and the 1220, 1220L, 1230, 1240, 1270 and 1280 have no graphics at all, three out of eleven chips somehow survived with all their bits intact.
Those being the 1235, 1245, and 1275. There's only 200MHz between the low and high end there, so you might as well go for the cheapest option.
Of course, none of them are actually available; they're expected to be announced on the 20th of this month. But that's okay, because while they use the same Socket 1155 as the desktop parts, you can't get a Socket 1155 motherboard either.
* European Unions. Well, probably Execution Units or something like that.
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The third reason why I'm not typing this on a shiny new Sandy Bridge system (the first two being time and sharks) is that with the new CPU range, Intel have taken market segmentation to a whole new level.
The initial release of the desktop lineup includes 6 mainstream chips, 2 enthusiast chips (with unlocked overclocking), 3 low-power chips (65W) and 3 ultra-low-power chips (35-45W), in three general families: i3, i5, and i7.
The low-end i3 is a two-core, four-thread design. The high-end i7 is a four-core, eight-thread design. The mid-range i5 is a four-core, four-thread design... Except when it's not, as two of the three ultra-low-power i5 chips are actually two-core, four-thread versions.
New features in these chips include hardware encryption - built into all models except the high-end i3 (yes, the low-end i3 has it); VT-x virtualisation, available on the i5 and i7 only; and VT-d I/O virtualisation and TXT trusted execution, available on the non-enthusiast i5 and i7 except for the low-end i5, that is, it's missing on both the low-end and high-end models.
The new chip also has graphics built right onto the CPU die, unlike the previous version which was a two-die package, with CPU and GPU separate. Graphics comes in two versions: The HD 2000, with six EUs*, and the HD 3000, with twelve. Oh, and two different base speeds and three different turbo speeds, but that's not important right now.
If you're still with me, here's where it gets good, and by good I mean stupid:
The high-performance HD 3000 graphics are only available on the two high-end enthusiast models. However, we're talking Intel integrated graphics here, where "high-performance" equates to "barely adequate", and not something any enthusiast would touch with a barge pole.
But... The big feature of the enthusiast models is that they have unlocked overclocking. All the chips feature a turbo mode - if you're not running multi-threaded software, so that some of the cores are idle, the chip will automatically shut those cores off and use the increased power & heat envelope to speed up the remaining cores, by up to 400MHz. With the enthusiast model, you can do whatever the hell you like with the overclocking, with the usual proviso of you break it, you broke it.
Anyway, these overclocking features require Intel's P67 chipset to work.
The integrated graphics require Intel's H67 chipset.
So if you want the faster integrated graphics, you have to pay for the overclocking model, when you can't overclock it at all. And if you want the overclocking features, you have to pay for the faster integrated graphics, which will be completely non-functional.
And, for some bizarre reason, they turn off the I/O virtualisation as well.
As far as I can see, the only way to get a Sandy Bridge CPU which doesn't have one or more features disabled seemingly at random is to pick up the new (so new it's not out yet) Xeon E3. Here, while the 1220 and 1225 lack hyper-threading, the 1220L is a suprise two-core special with only 3MB of cache, the 1225 only has 6MB of cache, the 1260L only has the HD 2000 graphics, and the 1220, 1220L, 1230, 1240, 1270 and 1280 have no graphics at all, three out of eleven chips somehow survived with all their bits intact.
Those being the 1235, 1245, and 1275. There's only 200MHz between the low and high end there, so you might as well go for the cheapest option.
Of course, none of them are actually available; they're expected to be announced on the 20th of this month. But that's okay, because while they use the same Socket 1155 as the desktop parts, you can't get a Socket 1155 motherboard either.
* European Unions. Well, probably Execution Units or something like that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
02:19 AM
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1
That's advanced douchebaggery. Apologies for the rough language.
Posted by: RickC at Friday, February 04 2011 04:21 AM (YB9ey)
2
I am completely in awe.
Is this the result of some bizarre cross-training initiative at Intel? Â Have the marketers do the engineering work, the engineers do the finances, and the MBAs do the marketing?
Posted by: Mikeski at Friday, February 04 2011 10:43 AM (GbSQF)
3
The server models mostly make sense: There's a cheap entry-level version, a couple of low-power models for densely-packed racks, and the option to run with or without integrated graphics depending on the chipset used and management needs. If your chipset has built-in graphics, or you don't need a GUI console, no need for the integrated GPU.
The desktop range, though, that's just the marketing department being petty.
One thing I really like about AMD is that they don't play these games. Within a product family, the only differences are the obvious ones - number of cores and clock speed.
The desktop range, though, that's just the marketing department being petty.
One thing I really like about AMD is that they don't play these games. Within a product family, the only differences are the obvious ones - number of cores and clock speed.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, February 04 2011 12:55 PM (PiXy!)
4
Dave Jones, the kernel maintainer for Fedora, told me at FUDcon this past weekend that IOMMU is pretty much useless across the board. Chips have bugs, and BIOSes have many more bugs, so basically nothing works, even on server systems. I think we're going to see it disabled a lot, just to remove the temptation of random crashes due to DMA over something useful.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Saturday, February 05 2011 07:37 AM (9KseV)
5
Oh yeah, and AMD IOMMU worked just fine since 2001. Well, it is GART etc. but it did work fine within its limitations.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Saturday, February 05 2011 07:38 AM (9KseV)
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