Sandy Bridge Motherboards Dissected, Compared

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:this is where AMD better and why hypertransport

[hedwards]

Don't forget that the on die graphics core should be a lot better than whatever crap Intel tries to put on Sandy Bridge. Why they haven't given up on providing a graphics solution is beyond me. It's been well over a decade since they released anything that could be confused as a competent graphics chipset. Seriously, in the time it took Apple to develop OSX and the iterations since then, Intel hasn't had any that didn't totally suck balls.

Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM

[bertok]

A lot of this is about turning up the heat on the pot with a live lobster in it. Right now, it's merely pleasantly warm, but it's going to become uncomfortable soon!

You have no idea what AD Rights management is for. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_Management_Services [wikipedia.org]

It is about companies protected their trade secrets and confidential data. It isn't about stopping you from stealing something off of the piratebay.

Except that the data is not protected from employees, who can steal it all the same. Access control lists and transparent filesystem encryption already provide the necessary features for protecting data from employees. What it does do, is prevent open source applications from interfacing with the data in any way. It protects Microsoft's monopoly on your network, that is all.

What NAP really is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Access_Protection [wikipedia.org]

It is about ensuring that the client is configured correctly and secure before connecting to a corporate network. I fail to see why this is a bad thing.

The phrase "configured correctly and secure before connecting to a corporate network" means exactly: "runs a trusted Windows kernel signed by Microsoft". That's not adding security in any shape, way, or form. It's not like insecure computers have an "evil bit" set on outgoing packets.There has never been a secure release of the Windows kernel, ever. There likely never will be. The machine is basically checked for a hash of the kernel. The checks can be made more complex, but it boils down to the same thing, to pass, the machine must be "one of a set of known and trusted versions of Windows".

Technologies like NAP are simply a method for locking out Linux, BSD, or any other OS that isn't made by a huge corporation. This may not sound bad if you're a "big corp" running "windows PCs", but it has a chilling effect. Developers or power users will no longer be able to run Linux, at all. Consultants and visitors will have to have a commercial OS, or they won't be able to get their job done, even if open source equivalents exist that would otherwise work just fine! Imagine a network with 100% Windows PCs and servers, with 100% enforced NAP. Some small vendor comes in, with a low-cost Linux offering... bzzt... can't play, sorry, try somewhere else.

And what is wrong with securing user data in a Medical Research Environment?

Step #1 along to path to requiring mandatory DRM on all medical data. Small pilot deployments are used as demonstrations to politicians. The vendor lock-in is not going to be obvious to anybody until it is far, far too late.