Tag Archives: intel

Intel Confirms Decline of Server Giants HP, Dell, and IBM

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But just four years later, Bryant says, the landscape has completely changed. Today, she explains, eight server makers account for 75 percent of Intel’s server chip revenues, and at least one of those eight doesn’t even sell servers. It only makes servers for itself. “Google is something like number five on that list,” Bryant told us on Monday evening, during a dinner with reporters in downtown San Francisco.

That’s right, Google is likely the world’s fifth largest server maker.

via Intel Confirms Decline of Server Giants HP, Dell, and IBM | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.

Intel immerses its servers in oil — and they like it!

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The idea of immersing servers in oil to keep them cool isn’t entirely new — passionate gamers have been housing their systems in vegetable oil for years. But it’s time to take notice of this trend when Intel starts singing its praises as a potentially revolutionary method for slashing the price of running a data center.

via Intel immerses its servers in oil — and they like it! — Cloud Computing News.

Most servers today follow design principles for optimal airflow, but “we could throw some of those rules out,” he said, and maybe build a better server. The obvious steps are eliminating anything to do with fans, sealing hard drives (or going to solid-state drives) and replacing any organic materials that might leech into the oil. A redesign of the heat sink probably would be in order, as would a rethinking of where things sit on the motherboard.

US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#649219 – SYSRET 64-bit operating system privilege escalation vulnerability on Intel CPU hardware

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A ring3 attacker may be able to specifically craft a stack frame to be executed by ring0 (kernel) after a general protection exception (#GP). The fault will be handled before the stack switch, which means the exception handler will be run at ring0 with an attacker’s chosen RSP causing a privilege escalation.

via US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#649219 – SYSRET 64-bit operating system privilege escalation vulnerability on Intel CPU hardware.

Details from Red Hat

RHSA-2012:0720-1 & RHSA-2012:0721-1: It was found that the Xen hypervisor implementation as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 did not properly restrict the syscall return addresses in the sysret return path to canonical addresses. An unprivileged user in a 64-bit para-virtualized guest, that is running on a 64-bit host that has an Intel CPU, could use this flaw to crash the host or, potentially, escalate their privileges, allowing them to execute arbitrary code at the hypervisor level. (CVE-2012-0217, Important)

AMD launches Trinity processors: the Ivy Bridge alternative

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Trinity is being aimed at ultrathin notebooks (not to be confused with Intel Ultrabooks), smaller form factor desktops and All-in-Ones, though traditional mainstream laptops and desktops will also see Trinity APUs. AMD will be launching five APUs today. The A10-4600M, A8-4500M, and A6-4400M are aimed at larger, mainstream notebooks, while the A10-4655M and A6-4455M are destined for sleeker ultrathin models.

AMD’s Trinity APUs will mark the debut of the company’s Piledriver microarchitecture, the successor to the ill-received Bulldozer. Trinity is still based on a 32nm process — Intel, by contrast, recently moved to 22nm with Ivy Bridge. Trinity’s die size is actually a bit larger than Llano’s: 246 square millimeters, compared to the first generation APU’s 228 square millimeters. Trinity also features a higher transistor count at 1.3 billion, but dials the TDP for its notebook variants down to 17W for dual-core CPUs, and 35W for quad-core CPUs, the same as Ivy Bridge — Llano APUs required 35W and 45W for dual- and quad-core, respectively. Desktop Trinity remain at the same 65 to 100W of its Llano predecessors. AMD claims that the dual-core Trinity APU will perform at the same level as the dual-core Llano APU, effectively doubling the performance per watt with the new generation. AMD also claims that Trinity notebooks can expect as 12 hours of battery life (when idle) on their energy efficient Piledriver cores.

via AMD launches Trinity processors: the Ivy Bridge alternative | The Verge.

Intel Core i7-3770K Review: A Small Step Up For Ivy Bridge : Ivy Bridge: Was It Worth The Wait?

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Intel built Sandy Bridge-based chips in three different configurations: one quad-core and two dual-core designs. The most complex implementation included 995 million transistors in a 216 mm² piece of silicon. In comparison, the biggest Ivy Bridge die incorporates 1.4 billion transistors on a 160 mm² die.

via Intel Core i7-3770K Review: A Small Step Up For Ivy Bridge : Ivy Bridge: Was It Worth The Wait?.

All told, Ivy Bridge is yet another highly integrated processor design from Intel. Its pieces were constructed by independent teams throughout the world—engineers in Israel are responsible for the IA cores, a team in Folsom, CA built the graphics engine, and a second team in Folsom implemented the interconnects, cache, and system agent. Of course, a process development group up in Oregon made sure it’d all come together on the new 22 nm node.