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Lowball speculation lacking any semblance of supporting data aside, remember that this doesn't require a new product line, or any new features, just removing an
by anonym29 4y ago
Lowball speculation lacking any semblance of supporting data aside, remember that this doesn't require a new product line, or any new features, just removing an existing component that costs more to add in, replacing owner-controlled CPU core initialization with the code that performed that prior to the introduction of ME.
Not to mention that both team blue and team red could charge something of a fortune of a "privacy premium" for not including these much-despised coprocessors. Consider one of the only remotely comparable semi-modern options - IBM's Power 9 processors. Midrange versions of these processors and their motherboards each start in the thousands of dollars. For a Ryzen 9 7950x with no AMT ST (PSP) or Microsoft Pluton, I'd eagerly jump at the opportunity to purchase one for $2500.
Back to your estimate - even for consumer demand, your estimate is easily dismissed by simply looking at the existence of companies like RaptorCS, Purism, and the like. In addition, there is enterprise purchasing demand in the hundreds of millions, easily. Google was attempting to remove all proprietary blobs from their servers a few years ago (2017, if memory serves correctly), and ME/PSP was the big barrier they couldn't overcome at the time.
Make no mistake, there isn't a single tech company that wouldn't leap on such coprocessor-free compute to protect sensitive corporate secrets.
- phendrenad2 4y agoFirstly, a response with no supporting data is befitting of a post with no supporting data, no? > this doesn't require a new product line, or any new features, just removing an existing component that costs more to add in That seems wrong. Even having a new SKU has some overhead in terms of any manual process (such as making product brochures). Plus, are they going to silently make this hypothetical ME-less CPU, or are they going to try to do some outreach to interested buyers? If not, what's the point? That costs money too. Oh, and they'll need a separate line for packaging these CPUs. And lastly, adding a post-process way to remove ME is potentially a security issue, because maybe people in high-security environments (who likely pay more than people such as yourself who want ME-less) would be worried about an attacker slipping a ME-less CPU in and doing something nefarious. Anyway, TL;DR: it's not enough to prove that there are people interested in a ME-less CPU. Heck, if it's $1, I'll buy one for the hell of it. It's a question of how much more they're willing to pay, and how much more it'll cost Intel to deliver such a CPU. And we have precious little info to go on, so your argument is hardly a slam-dunk. Edit: > there isn't a single tech company that wouldn't leap on such coprocessor-free compute to protect sensitive corporate secrets Really? Corporations are worried about ME? First I've heard of it. These are the same companies that willingly use Azure and AWS, right? Can you provide some evidence?
- anonym29 4y agoHere's a link to an article detailing how Google was trying to remove ME themselves when they were trying to remove all proprietary blobs from their servers back in 2017: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/google-removing-minix-management-engine-intel,35876.html https://www.tomshardware.com/news/google-removing-minix-mana...
- phendrenad2 4y agoGoogle will continue buying Intel CPUs with or without the ME. Their trying to remove it is irrelevant, Google also tried to create a social network and whatever Google Buzz was. They have a lot of pointless projects, in other words.