Sandy Bridge Motherboards Dissected, Compared 143
crookedvulture writes "As we've learned, Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs are pretty impressive. If you're going to build yourself a system with one, you'll need a new motherboard with an 1155-pin socket. The Tech Report has an in-depth look at four such boards based on Intel's P67 Express chipset. Although the boards offer identical application performance, there are notable differences between their power consumption and the speed of onboard peripherals like USB 3.0 and Serial ATA ports. Some implement the new UEFI BIOS framework while others do not, and the quality of those implementations varies quite a bit. Recommended reading for anyone thinking about rolling their own desktop with one of Intel's latest CPUs."
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
Mod up... you can't push this point hard enough. Intel occasionally tries to push this shit into hardware (see VIIV)... and each time it needs highlighting. Intel needs a kick in the teeth every time they try it - make them waste their money trying to screw over the consumer.
To paraphrase a famous quote: they only need to win once, we need to win every time.
Sandy Bridge-based machines have DRM in hardware. DON'T BUY THEM.
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever read.
Does it prevent you from making a copy? If so, yes it's DRM, which is essentially a euphemism for the older term 'copy protection'.
They're just trying to say that it's not DRM because DRM has become as much a four-letter word as 'copy protection' has always been, thanks to advocates like the EFF.
Saying that Intel Insider is like HDCP and HDCP is found in BluRay players and the PS3 doesn't make it not DRM, because HDCP is -- surpise! -- DRM.
How About No (Score:5, Insightful)
One word: Boycott.
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Or people who want to play videos on OSes where no players are available, or people who want to be able to convert videos for mobile devices, or those who want to be able to capture samples for fair use purposes.
Oh wait, that is a whole bunch of non-pirates that hate DRM.
Even worse is that due to DRM AMD will not release proper documentation for its video acceleration hardware nor support it in their open driver. They admit this is to prevent their DRM from being defeated on other platforms.
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't work like that.
Sooner or later, if DRM hardware is 'everywhere', then a big corporation can simply make it mandatory for some file format or protocol... for... ahem... 'security'.
This will instantly lock out any possibility of an open source implementation of such a protocol, as most DRM schemes require code signed by a trusted central authority, which is a concept in diametric opposition to the 'open' part of the whole concept of open source.
Without open source, competition will be reduced, prices will go up, and your options as a customer will be restricted.
There are other abuses possible also, most of which you may never see coming until it is too late.
For example, if Microsoft can convince the idiots running most big bureaucracies that their network isn't safe from hackers unless there's an end-to-end DRM on everything, then this will effectively lock out their smaller competitiors from having any hope of even physically talking to any other machine on such a network. It probably won't do anything to increase safety from hackers, but it will certainly make Microsoft safe from their competition! This of course will increase costs for bureaucracies, which come out of your taxes.
You think I'm joking? Microsoft already tried this, it's called Active Directory Rights Management Services Role [microsoft.com]. Sounds innocent, right? It's horrifying! It's pure evil, the ultimate lock-in: using military grade cryptography to ensure that their customers stay locked in forever, and cannot possibly get their own data out of the walled garden of Microsoft software. They even tried to change low-level network protocols to prevent their competitors from competing on the 'corporate network' with their offerings by implementing open protocols: Network Access Protection [microsoft.com]. If you don't know what NAP is, it's a system that does nothing a firewall couldn't, except that to gain access, you must have a DRM-enabled computer running an OS kernel that's digitally signed by... a trusted authority.
Microsoft is pushing hard to have this technology become mandatory in some scenarios, like health data. Can you imagine if you couldn't obtain your own health records if you had one of those filthy 'untrusted' Linux computers? It's a very real possibility, and Microsoft wants it, bad.
I'm not making this up, check it out: Using Digital Rights Management for Securing Data in a Medical Research Environment [acm.org].
To put it another way: This is not a feature Intel is including for free, out of the goodness of their hearts, just in case you want it. It's about increasing profits of the biggest corporations not just at your expense, but at the cost of your rights and freedoms. How does this not upset you?
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Insightful)