Showing posts with label Processor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Processor. Show all posts
Intel Core i3/i5 Dual-Core Processors and Mac OS X
Monday, April 26, 2010Posted by
Urvish Sohaliya
0 Comments
ntel's new Dual-Core Core i3 and Core i5 processors are currently (as of 10.6.2) not supported natively by Mac OS X. Furthermore, recent looks into the 10.6.3 developer build don't reveal any future support. This includes the following dual-core desktop and mobile processors:
Core i3-530
Core i3-540
Core i5-650
Core i5-660
Core i5-661
Core i5-670
Core i3-330M
Core i3-350M
Core i5-520UM
Core i5-430M
Core i5-520M
Core i5-520E
Core i5-540M
If you own one of these processors, and would like to try to install Mac OS X, you can try my Boot CD Method with the default tonymacx86-P55BootCD. It has the Qoopz 10.0.0 kernel which is patched to run on unsupported processors. Issue this command at the Chameleon prompt:
busratio=20
If you don't type this command, your computer may instantly reboot. Also, when you update to 10.6.2, you'll have to use a patched kernel.
METHOD FOR UPDATING TO 10.6.2
As of now the only Core i-series Intel processors that Apple has used in a Mac are the quad-core Core i5 750 and Core i7 860. Therefore these are the only ones that are supported natively by Mac OS X, and can therefore run the 10.6.2 Vanilla (default) kernel. Of course, Apple may release new Macs that run these processors, and at that point, they'll be supported.
EDIT: Here's a table of all of the actual bus/core ratios for every Intel Core i processor:
If you have had any success or failures using these new processors, be sure to let me know. Good luck!
Latest Intel processor security features
Posted by
Urvish Sohaliya
Intel has released an update version of their "Nehalem" processors, called "Westmere". The flagship processor, "Westmere-EP" has 6 cores running at 3.33 GHz, and can be purchased for desktops (Core i7 980x) or servers (Xeon 5600 series). Low-end Westmere variants are available for notebooks and desktops as well (Core i3).
Westmere contains several security features beyond what Nehalem had, so I thought I'd discuss them here.
AES speed
The press echoes Intel's claims that they speed up AES by 9 times over software implementations, but that's not completely true. It's complicated.
You only get that performance increase when you can encrypt (or decrypt) multiple blocks at a time. That is because the instructions have a high (6 clock cycle) latency. When encrypting a block, each instruction depends upon the results of the previous instruction, so the processor must stop and wait. When encrypting multiple blocks in parallel, the instructions for encrypting different blocks don't depend upon each other, and therefore the instructions can operate in parallel.
Some uses of AES "chain" blocks together. It uses data from the previous block in order to encrypt the next block of data. This prevents the CPU from executing the AES instructions in parallel, and is a huge performance loss. This is the default mode for SSL.
Disk encryption products typically don't chain blocks together, because software often reads from the middle of files ("random access"). You wouldn't want to have to decrypt the file from the start in order to read bytes from the end of the file.
Thus, if want use the new AES instructions for TrueCrypt or BitLocker disk encryption, you'll probably get around a 9 fold increase in encryption performance. However, if you want to use these new processors for SSL website hosting, you are only likely to get a 3 fold increase in encryption performance.
Note that in both cases, AES encryption is only part of the web hosting or disk encryption, so overall performance will not change as much.
AES security
A software implementation accelerates encryption by using lookup tables in memory. Each key causes a different pattern of memory lookups. Hackers can write software such that even though it's running on a different virtual machine, can still detect the pattern of memory access and thus recover part of the AES encryption key.
Intel's new AES instructions prevent this. It uses internal calculations in the CPU rather than lookup tables. The memory access pattern is the same, regardless of the key.
This is largely a theoretical attack. In the typical case of multiple customers sharing hardware for hosting websites, SSL generates a new key for every session, which are too short to make key recovery practical. However, in cryptography, "theoretical" attacks are frequently proven practical. Therefore, the new instructions are an important improvement.
SHA-3 selection
The government is currently looking for a new hash standard to replace SHA-1, which has proven to be weak.
Some have proposed algorithms that can be easily implemented in software, like Skein.
Other have proposed algorithms that are based on the same building blocks as AES. This means that while they may be slower on many processors, they will be faster on the latest Intel processors (and other processors that similarly contain AES features). Experiments with AES-like hash algorithms show that they can be sped up 5 to 10 times with the new Intel instructions.
Now that Intel is shipping these new processors, it might prejudice the SHA-3 selection committee toward one of the AES-based proposals.
Trusted Execution (TXT) and vPro
Intel added TXT features to the previous generation of processors (Core 2), but they were missing from the current generation (Nehalem, Core i7). The Westmere processor now includes the same TXT features as Core 2.
Trusted Execution protects against some specific hacker attacks. For example, "full disk encryption" products require the user to enter a password before the system can boot from the encrypted disk. In theory, a hacker could change the bootloader to first steal the password before booting the system. TXT (in theory) prevents the bootloader from being changed.
Another attack is to hook up a hostile device to the Firewire port that reads the contents of memory to a flash drive, or installs a virus on a running system. In theory, TXT features (VT-d) prevent this by restricting the range of memory the Firewire hardware can access this.
Fiddling with hardware, such as the sound or video card, has been one way that software running on a virtual machine could break into another virtual machine. TXT makes this more secure, by doing a better job of isolating hardware.
A lot of this is "theory". While it certainly makes things harder for hackers, researchers have found ways around some of the technology.
Conclusion
Corporations should take a look at "vPro" laptops and desktops, in particular, with "full disk encryption" in mind. TXT will protect the bootup processor for BitLocker, and the new AES instructions will accelerate encryption.
Web-hosting providers will like the AES encryption acceleration and greater isolation of virtual machines. The 6 cores of "Westemere" over the 4 cores of "Nehelem" processors are also a clear benefit. These processors use the same sockets, so web hosters can easily swap out the old processors for the new ones.
Notes
Intel has a whitepaper called "Intel Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Instructions Set". It has good information, including sample implementations of AES using the new instructions.
DJB has a paper benchmarking optimized software AES "New AES software speed records". He gets 10.57 clocks-per-byte in his optimized software for the Core 2 processor, compared to (my guess) of 3.75 clocks-per-byte for the new AES instructions (in non-parallel modes like CBC). This implies a 3-fold increase for the new AES instructions.
The paper "The Intel AES Instructions Set and the SHA-3 Candidates" looks at how these new instructions might accelerate SHA-3 candidates. It also guesses that the core AES instructions have a 6-cycle latency. From this, I guess that the new AES instructions will encrypt data at 3.75 cycles per byte (each instruction executes a full AES round, each block requires 10 rounds, and there are 16 bytes per block, thus 6 * 10 / 16 = 3.75).
Security researcher Joanna Rutkowska has found several issues with TXT that are worth reading about. You should also look at the rebuttal to her points as well. Overall, it doesn't mean TXT is worthless; it still makes it harder to hack a system when deployed correctly.
Sniffing my Gmail connection, I see that it negotiates AES in chaining mode:
Secure Socket Layer
TLSv1 Record Layer: Handshake Protocol: Server Hello
Content Type: Handshake (22)
Version: TLS 1.0 (0x0301)
Length: 74
Handshake Protocol: Server Hello
Handshake Type: Server Hello (2)
Length: 70
Version: TLS 1.0 (0x0301)
Random
Session ID Length: 32
Session ID: F71EC579BD9E19F3EA64CAE5F78D3B2...
Cipher Suite: TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x0035)
Compression Method: null (0)
AnandTech and Tom's Hardware have benchmarks of the new AES instructions (using the "Clarksdale" desktop processor instead of "Westmere", but the performance should be essentially the same).
The press echoes Intel's claims that they speed up AES by 9 times over software implementations, but that's not completely true. It's complicated.
You only get that performance increase when you can encrypt (or decrypt) multiple blocks at a time. That is because the instructions have a high (6 clock cycle) latency. When encrypting a block, each instruction depends upon the results of the previous instruction, so the processor must stop and wait. When encrypting multiple blocks in parallel, the instructions for encrypting different blocks don't depend upon each other, and therefore the instructions can operate in parallel.
Some uses of AES "chain" blocks together. It uses data from the previous block in order to encrypt the next block of data. This prevents the CPU from executing the AES instructions in parallel, and is a huge performance loss. This is the default mode for SSL.
Disk encryption products typically don't chain blocks together, because software often reads from the middle of files ("random access"). You wouldn't want to have to decrypt the file from the start in order to read bytes from the end of the file.
Thus, if want use the new AES instructions for TrueCrypt or BitLocker disk encryption, you'll probably get around a 9 fold increase in encryption performance. However, if you want to use these new processors for SSL website hosting, you are only likely to get a 3 fold increase in encryption performance.
Note that in both cases, AES encryption is only part of the web hosting or disk encryption, so overall performance will not change as much.
AES security
A software implementation accelerates encryption by using lookup tables in memory. Each key causes a different pattern of memory lookups. Hackers can write software such that even though it's running on a different virtual machine, can still detect the pattern of memory access and thus recover part of the AES encryption key.
Intel's new AES instructions prevent this. It uses internal calculations in the CPU rather than lookup tables. The memory access pattern is the same, regardless of the key.
This is largely a theoretical attack. In the typical case of multiple customers sharing hardware for hosting websites, SSL generates a new key for every session, which are too short to make key recovery practical. However, in cryptography, "theoretical" attacks are frequently proven practical. Therefore, the new instructions are an important improvement.
SHA-3 selection
The government is currently looking for a new hash standard to replace SHA-1, which has proven to be weak.
Some have proposed algorithms that can be easily implemented in software, like Skein.
Other have proposed algorithms that are based on the same building blocks as AES. This means that while they may be slower on many processors, they will be faster on the latest Intel processors (and other processors that similarly contain AES features). Experiments with AES-like hash algorithms show that they can be sped up 5 to 10 times with the new Intel instructions.
Now that Intel is shipping these new processors, it might prejudice the SHA-3 selection committee toward one of the AES-based proposals.
Trusted Execution (TXT) and vPro
Intel added TXT features to the previous generation of processors (Core 2), but they were missing from the current generation (Nehalem, Core i7). The Westmere processor now includes the same TXT features as Core 2.
Trusted Execution protects against some specific hacker attacks. For example, "full disk encryption" products require the user to enter a password before the system can boot from the encrypted disk. In theory, a hacker could change the bootloader to first steal the password before booting the system. TXT (in theory) prevents the bootloader from being changed.
Another attack is to hook up a hostile device to the Firewire port that reads the contents of memory to a flash drive, or installs a virus on a running system. In theory, TXT features (VT-d) prevent this by restricting the range of memory the Firewire hardware can access this.
Fiddling with hardware, such as the sound or video card, has been one way that software running on a virtual machine could break into another virtual machine. TXT makes this more secure, by doing a better job of isolating hardware.
A lot of this is "theory". While it certainly makes things harder for hackers, researchers have found ways around some of the technology.
Conclusion
Corporations should take a look at "vPro" laptops and desktops, in particular, with "full disk encryption" in mind. TXT will protect the bootup processor for BitLocker, and the new AES instructions will accelerate encryption.
Web-hosting providers will like the AES encryption acceleration and greater isolation of virtual machines. The 6 cores of "Westemere" over the 4 cores of "Nehelem" processors are also a clear benefit. These processors use the same sockets, so web hosters can easily swap out the old processors for the new ones.
Notes
Intel has a whitepaper called "Intel Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Instructions Set". It has good information, including sample implementations of AES using the new instructions.
DJB has a paper benchmarking optimized software AES "New AES software speed records". He gets 10.57 clocks-per-byte in his optimized software for the Core 2 processor, compared to (my guess) of 3.75 clocks-per-byte for the new AES instructions (in non-parallel modes like CBC). This implies a 3-fold increase for the new AES instructions.
The paper "The Intel AES Instructions Set and the SHA-3 Candidates" looks at how these new instructions might accelerate SHA-3 candidates. It also guesses that the core AES instructions have a 6-cycle latency. From this, I guess that the new AES instructions will encrypt data at 3.75 cycles per byte (each instruction executes a full AES round, each block requires 10 rounds, and there are 16 bytes per block, thus 6 * 10 / 16 = 3.75).
Security researcher Joanna Rutkowska has found several issues with TXT that are worth reading about. You should also look at the rebuttal to her points as well. Overall, it doesn't mean TXT is worthless; it still makes it harder to hack a system when deployed correctly.
Sniffing my Gmail connection, I see that it negotiates AES in chaining mode:
Secure Socket Layer
TLSv1 Record Layer: Handshake Protocol: Server Hello
Content Type: Handshake (22)
Version: TLS 1.0 (0x0301)
Length: 74
Handshake Protocol: Server Hello
Handshake Type: Server Hello (2)
Length: 70
Version: TLS 1.0 (0x0301)
Random
Session ID Length: 32
Session ID: F71EC579BD9E19F3EA64CAE5F78D3B2...
Cipher Suite: TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x0035)
Compression Method: null (0)
AnandTech and Tom's Hardware have benchmarks of the new AES instructions (using the "Clarksdale" desktop processor instead of "Westmere", but the performance should be essentially the same).
Intel Xeon 7500 Eight-Core Processor Provides Average of Three Times Increase in Processing Speed
Posted by
Urvish Sohaliya
New Intel Xeon Processor Pushes Mission Critical into the Mainstream.
Intel Corporation today culminated the transition to the company's award-winning "Nehalem" chip design with the launch of the Intel Xeon 7500 processor series. In less than 90 days, Intel has introduced all-new 2010 PC, laptop and server processors that increase energy efficiency and computing speed and include a multitude of new features that make computers more intelligent, flexible and reliable.
Expandable to include from two to 256 chips per server, the new Intel Xeon processors have an average performance three times that of Intel's existing Xeon 7400 series on common, leading enterprise benchmarks, and come equipped with more than 20 new reliability features.
Twenty Old Servers – To One New One:
The combined scalable performance, advanced reliability and total cost of ownership advantages of the Xeon 7500 series will further accelerate the shift from proprietary systems to industry-standard Intel processor-based servers. These new capabilities enable IT managers to consolidate up to 20 older single-core, 4-chip servers onto a single server using Intel Xeon 7500 series processors while maintaining the same level of performance. In doing so, they could also see up to a 92 percent estimated reduction in energy costs and a return on their investment estimated within 1 year due to reductions in power, cooling and licensing costs.
"The Xeon 7500 brings mission critical capabilities to the mainstream by delivering the most significant leap in performance, scalability and reliability ever seen from Intel," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president of the Intel architecture group and general manager of Intel's data center group. "This combination will help users push to new levels of productivity, and accelerate the industry's migration away from proprietary architectures. We are democratizing high-end computing."
New Standards in Reliability and Scalability:
Mission-critical workloads run by customers that simply cannot afford unscheduled downtime such as hospitals or stock exchanges can take advantage of more than 20 new features that deliver a leap forward in reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS). These reliability capabilities are designed to improve the protection of data integrity, increase availability and minimize planned downtime.
For example, this is the first Xeon processor to possess Machine Check Architecture (MCA) Recovery, a feature that allows the silicon to work with the operating system and virtual machine manager to recover from otherwise fatal system errors, a mechanism until now found only in the company's Intel® Itanium® processor family and RISC processors.
The Intel Xeon processor 7500 series offers unique scalability through modular building blocks enabled by Intel® QuickPath Technology (QPI) interconnect. With QPI, cost-effective and highly scalable eight-processor servers that don't require specialized third-party node controller chips to "glue" the system together can be built. Intel is also working with system vendors to deliver "ultra-scale" systems with 16 processors for the enterprise, and up to 256 processors and support for 16 terabytes (one terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes) of memory for high- performance computing "super nodes" running bandwidth-demanding applications such as financial analysis, numerical weather predictions and genome sequencing.
Large-Scale Virtualization:
The Intel Xeon processor 7500 series meets the growing trend of IT organizations virtualizing large mission-critical workloads for applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning. With up to eight times the memory bandwidth of the Intel Xeon processor 7400 series and four times the memory capacity with 16 memory slots per processor, the Xeon 7500 series can support one terabyte (or 1,000 gigabytes) of memory in a four-socket platform. Intel Virtualization Technologies, which include new I/O virtualization capabilities and Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) FlexMigration, enables live VM migration across all Intel Core microarchitecture-based platforms to ensure investment protection for administrators seeking to use pools of virtualized systems to facilitate failover, disaster recovery, load balancing and optimal server maintenance and downtime.
Two-Chip and Cost Optimized Servers:
New two-chip expandable class platforms with large memory capacity based on the Intel Xeon processor 7500 series are ideal for memory intensive databases and virtualization environments. The Intel Xeon processor 7500 series is available in quad, six and eight core versions with twice the number of threads thanks to Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. The Intel Xeon processor 6500 series provides a lower cost solution for 2-chip servers with large memory requirements.
Product Details:
The Intel Xeon processor 7500 series supports up to eight integrated cores and 16 threads, and can scale up to 32 cores and 64 threads per 4-chip platform or 64 cores and 128 threads per 8-chip platform, and is available with frequencies up to 2.66 GHz, and 24 MB of Intel® Smart Cache memory, four Intel QPI links and Intel Turbo Boost technology. Thermal Design Point (TDP) power levels range from 95 watts to 130 watts.
The Intel Xeon processor X7560, with eight cores and 24MB cache size, is built for highly parallel, data demanding and mission-critical workloads, whereas the Intel Xeon processor X7542 is a frequency-optimized 6-core option at 2.66 GHz targeted for super node high-performance computing applications in science and financial services.
Pricing and Availability:
The innovative modular scaling of the Xeon® 7500 processor works with the Intel 7500 Chipset and Intel 7500 Scalable Memory Buffers to enable unique OEM system designs and brings a wide range of socket, memory and I/O, form factor, and reliability feature sets never before available to the mainstream server market. Enterprise software vendors expected to support the high-end features of Intel Xeon processor 7500-based platforms, include Citrix*, IBM*, Microsoft*, Novell*, Oracle*, Red Hat*, SAP AG* and VMware*. System vendors are lining up to take advantage of the high-end Intel Xeon processor 7500 series capabilities and deliver highly innovative solutions at much lower costs than older proprietary solutions. With more than double the amount of designs versus the previous generation Intel Xeon processor 7400 series, system manufacturers were expected to announce systems based on the Intel Xeon processor 7500/6500 processor starting today.
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