[Solved] What is the cheapest x86 or x64 processor that supports AES-NI?

What is the cheapest x86 or x64 processor that supports AES-NI?

Break it down into Intel, Via and AMD if you would like to list chips, and prices, from multiple vendors.

I understand that Via might have beat Intel to the punch on this.

However I do not understand if there is a difference (in compatibility) between the Via and Intel implementations.

I don't think Via called their solution 'AES-NI' either.


Frankly I'd be happy with an Intel Core i3, sadly it doesn't look like they sport it.

It looks like their Core i5-600 series are closer to the Core i3 than being a 'true' Core i5 like the 700 series. (It is a little difficult to grasp, I feel bad for Joe Average consumer looking for a new PC...).

Remember: If there is a Via solution, one that is actually on the market, I would be happy to discuss it too.


Thanks in advance,

If you can't provide an answer maybe you know someone who can?

Oh, I also have an interest in encryption of keyboard input, and possibly mouse input too. This does not need to be a high end 'Core i7 gaming rig' or anything like that.

So if you have advice on that, feel free to throw it in too. (I know of some products, but I do not wish to list what I may, or may not, be looking to use to perform this 'key' task -pun intended- on a public forum).

Yeah you have a good point Lutfij.

Wikipedia is a good resource, I'm just concerned that it may not always be 100% reliable (nothing is anyway), and it may not be up to date with current product offerings on the market.

I'll have a look anyway, thanks for contributing.

Yeah the i5-661 appears to be a common chip that Intel had given to reviewers some time ago.

Don't worry, I am quite familiar with http://ark.intel.com - it's my Via/Cyrix knowledge that is lacking... :-P


The prices I can just get from StaticIce, don't worry about getting them unless you really want to.



It's interesting that the Via solution accelerates SHA algorithms too, which are piss slow on Intel and AMD CPU's. (Not something you see every day).

I'll be doing a lot more reading before I even start on making a short-list.

I'm currently going over the following Intel solutions:

Intel® Core™ i3 Desktop Processor Family
http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollec [...] Segment=DT

Intel® Core™ i5 Desktop Processor Family (with a price below USD $200 per 1K units)
http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollec [...] Segment=DT

Namely the following four to isolate support:

Intel® Core™ i5-650 Processor (4M Cache, 3.20 GHz)
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx? [...] LBLK,SLBTJ

Intel® Core™ i5-660 Processor (4M Cache, 3.33 GHz)
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx? [...] LBLV,SLBTK

Intel® Core™ i5-661 Processor (4M Cache, 3.33 GHz)
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx? [...] LBNE,SLBTB


Intel® Core™ i5-750 Processor (8M Cache, 2.66 GHz)
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx? [...] odes=SLBLC


I find it easier to work from the Intel website as it contains more information in a more useful format for making decisions than Wikipedia. Wikipedia is still damn useful though.


I'm also going over some Via material, there is a substantial amount of it considering their market share.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2901/5

AES-NI: Much Faster Encryption & Bitlocker Performance

Westmere (and thus Clarkdale) adds some new instructions to x86, although the big expansion comes with AVX and Sandy Bridge next year. Westmere gets six new encryption/decryption instructions. The group of instructions accelerate AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) and are thus referred to as AES-NI.

Many businesses require that all corporate PCs have the contents of their hard drives encrypted through the use of software like Bitlocker that comes with Microsoft Windows 7. These sorts of applications can be accelerated by AES-NI and to show the potential benefit I dug up a test I did while preparing for one of our SSD articles several months ago.

If you turn on Bitlocker in Windows 7 there's an immediate and measurable impact to performance. Disk performance generally drops by a noticeable amount and actual application usage performance drops by a smaller amount. Every write to the disk has to be encrypted first so there's some obvious CPU overhead. Clarkdale should reduce that overhead significantly as the common encryption operations are now hardware accelerated.

i5-760..

^ yeah the IGPU will also hlep neglect a dedicated GPU. Cheaper. Good for what your looking to build up. I've read that the i3's had issues with AES-NI didn't read all of it . Bang for buck choice - get the i5-650 you've looked up...evryone out there is using the i5-661 and your looking for a cheaper route with IGPU...can't be anything lower than that. any lower will KILL your hopes of your build.

That line just begs for you to wait until Q1 2011 for the sandy bridge release and the intro of more TXT/AES-NI tech. History has shown us that intel CAN and WILL come up with monster releases & great features that rival its own processors before them.

pardon me, I live in Bangladesh and it was 6 am when I was writing that post , didn't sleep until 7 am...so you can understand my brain signals failing on me...

Thats intel for ya, they wanted "us" to run around in a maze in hopes that the customers buy their processors without the buyer understanding whats in the box. When they do realize what's in it, its too late...

money dumper - customer
money maker - intel

1) Because price doesn't dictate the feature set of a processor in any way shape or form.

2) A 32nm processor will always cost half as much to produce than a 45nm processor, which cost half as much as a 65nm processor - for a given transistor count.

3) There is no point spending an extra $100 - $250 dollars for transistors I don't need (For example: Going from 4MB cache to 8MB cache, on a given platform may not really help performance).

4) A $1,000 dollar processor is not 10 times faster than a $100 processor. Although it may only raise the TCO by 50%, and result in more than 60% better performance, so I do understand why you'd raise it.

Update: As of the 9th of January 2011, the official release date, the second generation Core i5 processors are the best choice.

On the 20th of February the second generation Core i3 processors may become the cheapest, since the baseline feature set of both of these processor series should support AES-NI

Note however, that the 'K' parts do not support Trusted Execution Technology which is typically desirable to have in addition to AES-NI. They may also lack 'some of' the Virtualization extensions. Namely direct mapped I/O (VT-d). They should support VT-x though. (For VT-C you'll be wanting to consider a Xeon or perhaps* Opteron based system instead).

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey