It appears that Intel will give PC gamers a first look at its upcoming discrete desktop GPU based on the Xe architecture at GDC 2020. Intel will be present at this event, which takes place in March 2020, and will hold a conference.
Titled “A Primer on Intel Graphics Xe Architecture (Presented by Intel Corporation)“, this conference will target game and engine developers. Moreover, the conference will introduce attendees to the Xe Architecture. Thus, Intel plans to reveal new and innovative features, unique insight on 3D and compute, and clear guidance on Xe Architecture optimizations.
Here is the description of Intel’s GDC 2020 conference:
“Intel’s brand new Xe Architecture, has been teased for a while, and is scheduled for release later this year! This update brings a significant compute, geometry and throughput improvements over todays widely used Gen9 and Gen11 graphics. This talk will provide a detailed tour of the hardware architecture behind Intel’s upcoming GPUs – unveiling the structure behind its building blocks and their performance implications. Special consideration will be taken to explain how graphics engineers can best exploit the new Xe Architecture. We will then take an in-depth look at some of its powerful new features.”
As we can see, Intel has re-confirmed the release date of the consumer version of the Xe graphics cards. Yes, these GPUs are coming out later this year. Now while Intel has not confirmed any of its features, we can assume that they will support Ray Tracing.
It will be interesting to see what Intel has in store for PC gamers. It will also be interesting to see whether the blue team will release a high-end product, or whether it will focus on the mid-tier crowd.
Kudos to our reader “Metal Messiah” for bringing this to our attention.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
This screamed “content sent by metal messiah” right after reading the title. I was not wrong.
Because John speciality is nude mods,not tech news..
MM works for Dsog, hehe
maybe instead of discreet gaming GPUs, they could make discreet RTX cards to piggy back to GPUs.
Intel GPUs will launch with Minecraft included.
Hi John,
Please read this important article…
Intel CPUs hit by new “CacheOut” attack…
Researchers have uncovered a new speculative execution vulnerability that affects Intel processors, an attack vector which can exploit Intel’s caching mechanisms to leak data from “nearly every hardware-based security domain”.
This new vulnerability is called “CacheOut”, and it has been rated as a “medium” severity threat by Intel, who plan to release microcode-based mitigations for the flaw in the near future. Thankfully, this flaw cannot be exploited via web browsers, limiting the potential damage that the vulnerability can cause. vvvvvv
https://cacheoutattack.com/
https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/intel_cpus_hit_by_new_cacheout_attack/1
Pre Q4 2018 processors from Intel are affected by CacheOut, as Intel has “inadvertently managed to partially mitigate” CacheOut while addressing another vulnerability.
AMD processors are known to be unaffected by CacheOut, though there is a chance that IBM and ARM processors could also be affected by the flaw. IBM and ARM processors may be affected, as they contain features that are similar to Intel TSX (Transactional Synchronization Extensions), which are what can be used to exploit CacheOut.
Researchers had privately disclosed CacheOut to Intel before making revealing information about the vulnerability to the public. This has allowed Intel to deploy countermeasures to cloud providers and prepare other mitigations in advance of their public disclosure. CacheOut has been given the CVE-2020-0549 ID, which is discussed on Intel’s latest vulnerability advisory.
https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/intel_cpus_hit_by_new_cacheout_attack/1
https://cacheoutattack.com/
More IMPORTANT links with info::
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3516302/new-cacheout-attack-targets-intel-processors-with-a-fix-arriving-soon.html
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/new-cacheout-attack-leaks-data-from-cpus-vms-and-hardware-enclaves-537102
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1149697-new-cacheout-attack-targets-intel-processors-with-a-fix-arriving-soon/
Hey john,
Some vulnerability related news from INTEL…….This flaw means vulnerability to privilege escalation, denial of service and information disclosure.
Intel’s internal team this week disclosed a new vulnerability in the company’s Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME), which could allow privilege escalation, denial of service and information disclosure attacks against PCs powered by certain Intel CPUs.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-csme-security-flaw-vulnerability-firmware
Some more details from different websites, highlighting few more severe Flaws as well.. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 8.2 out of 10, classifying it as “HIGH severity.”
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-warns-of-critical-security-flaw-in-csme-engine/
https://threatpost.com/intel-patches-high-severity-flaw-in-security-engine/152794/
The bug affects all Intel CPUs that come with a CSME microcontroller unit (MCU), with the exception of newer Ice Lake and Comet Lake processor generations. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 8.2 out of 10, classifying it as “high severity.”
The firmware flaw is an improper authentication in a subsystem in Intel CSME versions 12.0 through 12.0.48, and versions 13.0-13.0.20 and 14.0-14.0.10 may still allow attackers to enable escalation of privilege, denial of service or information disclosure if they have local access to the device via some other bugs.
On Internet of things (IoT) devices, only firmware 12.0.56 is affected.
Security Issues Keep Plaguing Intel Firmware
Only a few years ago, we’d hardly even hear about security issues with Intel firmware. But these days, especially with Intel Management Engine (ME), one of several firmware subsets of CSME, there seem to be a couple of major disclosures every year.
Exploits of Intel’s ME/CSME chips and firmware can enable an attacker to remotely bypass a computer’s security solutions and take it over. That’s because remote out-of-band management enabled by ME/CSME and Intel Active Management Technologies (AMT) is a “feature” Intel implemented in its processors.
Privacy activists and system vendors have long argued that Intel ME and the AMT firmware are too dangerous to be enabled on most devices, especially on consumer ones where there’s little to no need for them.
Mitigation
Intel recommends asking your system manufacturers for the CSME firmware updates versions 12.0.49, 13.0.21 and 14.0.11 or later.
As for most firmware updates, chances are system manufacturers will only update the most recent devices, with the vast majority of in-use devices remaining vulnerable to attacks.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-csme-security-flaw-vulnerability-firmware
Hello JOHN,
Please read this, as it is very important…More security VULNERABILITIES inside INTEL CPUs have been found…UNfixable Vulnerability found Inside INTEL CPUs !! **important**
Some more useful LINKS from tech sites..
https://www.newsweek.com/intel-csme-cpu-bug-unfixable-security-vulnerability-chipsets-five-years-1490746
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/5-years-of-intel-cpus-and-chipsets-have-a-concerning-flaw-thats-unfixable/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/03/05/intel-cpu-security-alert-for-millions-of-users-as-unfixable-crypto-flaw-revealed/#255836054fc1
https://www.eteknix.com/another-intel-vulnerability-and-its-unfixable/
Hello JOHN,
i
Please read this, as it is very important…More security VULNERABILITIES inside INTEL CPUs have been found…UNfixable Vulnerability found Inside INTEL processors .CPUs !! **important**
It seems Intel cannot catch a break when it comes to vulnerabilities, as yes a new one has been discovered. For this one, you need physical access to the computer though.
A vulnerability has been found in the ROM of the Intel Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME). This vulnerability jeopardizes everything Intel has done to build the root of trust and lay a solid security foundation on the company’s platforms. The problem is not only that it is impossible to fix firmware errors that are hard-coded in the Mask ROM of microprocessors and chipsets
Researchers have found another vulnerability Inside Intel’s Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME). For starters, the CSME is a tiny CPU within a CPU that has access to whole data throughput and is dedicated to the security of the whole SoC.
The CSME system is a kind of a black box, given that Intel is protecting its documentation so it can stop its copying by other vendors, however, researchers have discovered a flaw in the design of CSME and are now able to exploit millions of systems based on Intel CPUs manufactured in the last five years.
Discovered by Positive Technologies, the flaw is lying inside the Read-Only Memory (ROM) of the CSME. Given that the Mask ROM is hardcoded in the CPU, the exploit can not be fixed by a simple firmware update.
The researchers from Positive Technologies describe it as such: “Unfortunately, no security system is perfect. Like all security architectures, Intel’s had a weakness: the boot ROM, in this case. An early-stage vulnerability in ROM enables control over the reading of the Chipset Key and generation of all other encryption keys. One of these keys is for the Integrity Control Value Blob (ICVB). With this key, attackers can forge the code of any Intel CSME firmware module in a way that authenticity checks cannot detect. This is functionally equivalent to a breach of the private key for the Intel CSME firmware digital signature, but limited to a specific platform.”
https://www.techpowerup.com/264535/researchers-find-unfixable-vulnerability-inside-intel-cpus
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/new-intel-vulnrebility-foundconverged-security-and-management-engine-exploitable.html
http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2020/03/intelx86-root-of-trust-loss-of-trust.html
As a sneak peek, here are a few words about the vulnerability itself:
The vulnerability is present in both hardware and the firmware of the boot ROM. Most of the IOMMU mechanisms of MISA (Minute IA System Agent) providing access to SRAM (static memory) of Intel CSME for external DMA agents are disabled by default. We discovered this mistake by simply reading the documentation, as unimpressive as that may sound.
Intel CSME firmware in the boot ROM first initializes the page directory and starts page translation. IOMMU activates only later. Therefore, there is a period when SRAM is susceptible to external DMA writes (from DMA to CSME, not to the processor main memory), and initialized page tables for Intel CSME are already in the SRAM.
MISA IOMMU parameters are reset when Intel CSME is reset. After Intel CSME is reset, it again starts execution with the boot ROM.
Therefore, any platform device capable of performing DMA to Intel CSME static memory and resetting Intel CSME (or simply waiting for Intel CSME to come out of sleep mode) can modify system tables for Intel CSME pages, thereby seizing execution flow.
Some more useful LINKS from diff tech sites….
https://www.newsweek.com/intel-csme-cpu-bug-unfixable-security-vulnerability-chipsets-five-years-1490746
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/5-years-of-intel-cpus-and-chipsets-have-a-concerning-flaw-thats-unfixable/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/03/05/intel-cpu-security-alert-for-millions-of-users-as-unfixable-crypto-flaw-revealed/#255836054fc1
https://www.eteknix.com/another-intel-vulnerability-and-its-unfixable/
Hello JOHN,
Sorry to bother you guys, but I just wanted to share this news. I know this is a bit technical, but it is interesting…Just Give it a read…This is something very NEW when it comes to DESKTOP CPUS..
An interesting leak from a member of Chinese PC Shopping forums reveals that Intel’s Alder Lake-S series could feature 16 cores but in a very new way.
Intel planning big.LITTLE for desktop? https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-alder-lake-s-to-feature-16-cores-125-150w-tdp-and-pcie-4-0
ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture was designed for mobiles as a battery-saving feature. The smaller cores would only be used under specific workloads, such as background use or less power-hungry applications. That said, it is quite interesting to see Intel implementing a similar feature into the mainstream desktop platform which is Alder Lake S, as the leak suggests.
It is not revealed what the smaller cores would be designed for, nor it is explained what the bigger cores are for. But the design is clearly divided into two groups (in Intel’s own words BIG and SMALL – assuming this is where the slide originated from).
It has also been speculated that Alder Lake S will require a new socket (LGA1700), meaning that the upcoming LGA1200 socket will only be used for Comet Lake S (10th Gen Core) and possibly for Rocket Lake S (11th Gen Core?).
The 12th Gen core series would be the first Intel series to support PCI-Express 4.0. There is no confirmation on DDR5 support. These series are expected to use a 10nm node, although it was never fully confirmed.
Intel has set a target TDP for Alder Lake S at 125W (same as 10-core Comet Lake-S), but according to the leaked slide, they are also investigating 150W TDP. It is unclear why the table only mentions 16 (8+8) and 6-core specifications. Maybe Rocket Lake-S (which is expected to be up to 8-core configuration) and Alder Lake-S have actually more in common than we think?
One of the theories, based on Intel’s own roadmaps, is that Alder Lake-S could feature eight Golden Cove and eight Gracemont cores.
https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-alder-lake-s-to-feature-16-cores-125-150w-tdp-and-pcie-4-0
https://wccftech.com/intel-10nm-alder-lake-cpus-to-bring-smartphones-big-little-philosophy-to-desktop/
https://twitter.com/momomo_us/status/1236667591210352640