Related articles

• Remote PC Management with Intel's vPro

  Managing multiple or even numerous computers in a network is very important for enterprises, because an intact IT infrastructure is imperative for a healthy business, and maintenance in IT can add considerable cost. Small offices may be relatively simple to manage, because you don't lose time walking between different floors, buildings or campuses. In such a case, elementary tasks such as taking an inventory, updating software or replacing faulty hardware can become time consuming - not to mention expensive. There are various management solutions on the market, but many of them require a workable operating system to service the remote PC, or they are based on additional hardware, which, again, can be expensive. Operating-system dependent management typically doesn't allow accessing BIOS settings or changing boot settings, cold reboots or similar actions. If the operating system is down for any reason (think of a virus attack or a serious program error), many systems cannot be remotely accessed any more, and an administrator's onsite presence is required. Although there are standards that enable remote PC management on a higher level than just the operating system, these lack interoperability and manageability. You might be familiar with some of the wake features, which enable computers to wake-on-LAN, wake-on-modem or wake-on-RTC. Then there is PXE, the Pre-Boot Execution Environment, which allows for a computer to be booted from a network source. This way it is possible to install an operating system or execute BIOS updates without inserting a physical medium into the PC. The network card looks for a PXE boot server within the local network, which provides a path to the NBP (Network Bootstrap Program). Lastly there is the ASF (Alert Standard Format), which takes care of advanced warning and system failure indications. It also allows for OS-independent management. But ASF leaves room for improvement, because it does not support authentication, encryption, the ability to reboot, real remote control, remote BIOS update and policy-based alerts. What Exactly Is VPro? vPro is a marketing-friendly product name such as Viiv or Centrino. It summarizes a number of features designed for business customers in the PC space. And it basically combines a number of existing features and technologies that can be found in the Intel portfolio: vPro requires a certain version of the 965 chipset, the Q965 and Intel's AMT (Active Management Technology). Lastly, the vPro Website also refers to the Core 2 Duo processor as a part of vPro, although our test system by Acer came with a Pentium D. The important thing here is to have a processor that supports VT, Intel's Virtualization Technology, so you can run a maintenance operating system partition. Intel's description of vPro is centered on manageability and security. vPro is intended to reduce desk-side visits by administrative staff and to reduce labor-intensive manual processes in IT, and Intel promises seamless integration into existing management infrastructure. Manageability refers to the ability to inventory PCs, including their components, via hardware-based, OS-independent and system status-independent communication. System information can either be collected, or fetched from a small non-volatile memory on vPro-enabled systems. And it refers to minimizing desk side visits to client PCs by enabling remote boot, diagnosis and backup/restore capabilities. Security is offered by filtering network traffic, easy isolation and quarantining infected systems; up-to-date asset information, remote/push updates and the optional creation of a virtual system environment for management services. vPro provides out-of-band communication for all management related activity, which means that it runs on a different sub network, although only one physical network connection may be used. The vPro BIOS extensions allow you to either fetch an IP address via a DHCP server dynamically, or you can manually assign one. The onboard LAN controller is used for vPro; other network cards are not affected. All management activity generally works regardless of the power state or the operating system. Join our discussion on this topic

• Going into the future, Intel is working on another Atom processor code named Pinview which will feature an integrated GPU. Based on the Lincroft architecture, Pinview will be released in a single-core package or a dual-core package with both featuring an integrated single-channel DDR2 memory controller. Both single and dual-core versions of Pinview will feature HyperThreading Intel today also demonstrated its Montevina platform which will replace Santa Rosa. Montevina, now officially called Centrino 2, is being formally demonstrated very much at the same time as when Santa Rosa based products were last year. With what is essentially "Centrino for 2008," the new platform will officially support solid state memory, both on the hard drive front as well as a large static buffer for storing portions or all of an operating system. Called Turbo Memory, Intel demonstrated its high speed small buffer memory technology in a Centrino 2 prototype notebook against conventional models using Santa Rosa. Under heavy movie rendering, a Centrino 2 notebook with Turbo Memory and a solid state HD (SSD) bested a traditional SATA Santa Rosa platform by over 33-perfcent - taking only 2 minutes to render instead of 3. Interestingly, all the benchmark laptops were using Windows XP instead of Vista, pointing to a possible driver issue with new Centrino 2 hardware and Windows Vista. The new platform will also be paired with ICH9M or ICH9 Enhanced, which replaces ICH8 used with Santa Rosa. Intel also announced that along with Centrino 2, it will begin manufacturing its own line of SSDs. Coming in 1.8" and 2.5" form factors, Intel will initially produce drives in capacities ranging from 32 GB to 160 GB. Intel did not confirm to us whether or not its SSD drives will be available for retail purchases. With Intel jumping into the SSD market, its sales will help to drive the cost of SSDs down. Even though SSDs are available today, prices are still way above what most consumers are able to afford - or justify. For reference, Apple gives customers the option of upgrading its MacBook Air’s conventional 80 GB HDD to a 64 GB SDD for a whopping $1000. Intel also talked about vPro, essentially the wireless management technology included with Centrino 2. With vPro, users will be able to wirelessly manage their laptop even when the laptops are asleep. This means starting, restarting and stopping a laptop from a remote location. Being remote, a laptop is also at risk of being compromised and stolen. Intel Anti-Theft technology prevents access at chip-set level. Disabling and locking access to BIOS, RAM and hard drives, Intel said Centrino 2 will be the most secure mobile platform ever. According to roadmaps, Intel will introduce vPro to the Core 2 platform in Q3 of this year. Intel roadmaps indicated that Centrino 2 based laptops will be available in the market after June of this year.

• While the memory controller is part of the chipset in all Intel desktop systems, AMD has integrated this important component into the CPU, ever since the Athlon 64 family was launched in 2003 (using DDR-1 memory at that time). Going this way adds complexity to the CPU, but also ensures that the memory is as close to the processor as possible. As a result, latencies are shorter, and the memory controller can operate more quickly than a controller that is part of motherboard core logic. However, the memory controller does not have its own clock generator, but is based on the Athlon's core clock speed instead. As a consequence, the DDR2 memory clock has to be derived from the CPU clock speed, which is achieved by applying an internal memory divider. Depending on the core clock speed, the memory clock speed may not be derived without a remainder, which is the reason that some processors do not run the full memory clock speed. Have a look at the following table: Model Number Frequency CMOS Technology L2 Cache Package TDP DDR2 6000+ 3.0 GHz 90nm SOI 2 MB Socket AM2 125W 750 5600+ 2.8 GHz 90nm SOI 2 MB Socket AM2 89W 800 5400+ 2.8 GHz 90nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 89W 800 5200+ 2.6 GHz 90nm SOI 2 MB Socket AM2 89W 65W 742 5000+ 2.6 GHz 90nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 89W 65W 742 5000+ 2.6 GHz 65nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 65W 742 4800+ 2.5 GHz 65nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 65W 714 4600+ 2.4 GHz 90nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 89W 65W 800 4400+ 2.3 GHz 65nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 65W 767 4200+ 2.2 GHz 90nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 89W 65W 733 4000+ 2.1 GHz 65nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 65W 700 3800+ 2.0 GHz 90nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 89W 65W 35W 800 3600+ 1.9 GHz 65nm SOI 1 MB Socket AM2 65W 760 For example, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ runs at a core clock speed of 3.0 GHz. If you wanted to run DDR2-800 memory on your 6000+ system (400 MHz memory interface speed), you'd divide the 3,000 MHz by 400 MHz, which results in 7.5. Since there are no odd memory dividers, the system will automatically use 8, which means that the memory is operated at 3,000 MHz / 8 = 375 MHz, or DDR2-750. The divider 7 cannot be used, as it would result in a base clock speed of 429 MHz or DDR2-858. This is beyond the specification for DDR2-800 and thus will always be rejected, unless you manually overclock the memory. As you can see in the table above, only a few processors can be recommended with regards to memory speed: all versions running at 2.8, 2.4 or 2.0 GHz will achieve the full DDR2-800 speed, while other models have to live with slower memory clock speeds. The difference isn't really noticeable at everyday workloads, but memory-intensive benchmarks such as WinRAR (file compression/decompression) show quite an impact. The difference can be large enough to neutralize the performance benefit of an additional 200 MHz core clock speed, as you can see when comparing the results of the 5600+ and the 6000+ models in the benchmark section later in this article. Test Platforms: MSI Motherboards With Integrated Graphics We used two MSI motherboards that were handy for this test. We already had the Q965MDO from our review of Intel's vPro technology, and the K8AGM2 is one of the first AMD 690 motherboards that we received. Both are based on current chipsets that run with integrated graphics. Using a discrete graphics card would increase the energy demand and bring the power consumption results closer together, which we wanted to avoid. Yes, you can argue that we could have determined the power requirements of the integrated graphics units, but at the end of the day, AMD 590 or an nForce chipset with integrated chipset and Intel's G965/Q965 are the most interesting chipset choices anyway.