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AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

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Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#171

Post by undersuit »

dd_xplore wrote: post #118
hgoel wrote: post #62

It's pretty crazy that we have this entire segment of features that companies artificially restrict from the average person and overinflate the price of, for no real reason. GPU virtualization is another example of such a feature. The market segmentation arguments don't really work either, enterprises are paying the big bucks for more than just these standalone features.

I think intel tried to offer GPU virtualisation with their consumer offerings but not sure what happened to that.

From what I recall they started adding SR-IOV support to Xeon iGPUs. Among the ARC GPUs you still need a PRO model.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#172

Post by vel0city »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #139
vel0city wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, this memory encryption function can let a hypervisor tell the platform to use different encryption keys for different virtual machines. So even if somehow a compromised VM managed to read data from a neighboring VM theoretically they'd get garbled, encrypted data.

That is not in this one. That is only the datacenter one(SEV) This one (SME) is a single machine wide key and it doesn't have integrity protection either.

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification!

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#173

Post by undersuit »

rusk wrote: post #35

I wonder what the additional power draw of these features would be. Parenthetically, I wonder often about the energy impact of all these HTTPS localhost links, and is there a point where defense-in-depth has to give way to other concerns? But yeah 95% of the consumer market don't care about this and it's only adding unnecessary costs

Despite it being hardware accelerated I've always wondered what the energy cost for HDCP encryption on HDMI connections is.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#174

Post by supertrope »

SirFatty wrote: post #81

"silently" Everything is done silently and quietly nowadays.

I get your point. I assume the intent is to call out companies on marketing good things and trying to bury customer unfriendly things. As a customer you can assume that if a company is not drawing attention to something, it's not good or at least the feature is not there.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#175

Post by zamadatix »

alberth wrote: post #160
zamadatix wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Epyc 4585PX falls into the `(and "real" Epyc, not just any Epyc branded consumer platforms)` note. I.e. it is the same CPU as the AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 9965X3D, branded differently because it is certified against "server" branded motherboards instead of "standard" PC motherboards (same socket/chipset though, outside firmware validation the two are swappable). It carries none of the actual Epyc feature sets, just the PR…

Hence why I said in my original post: >>Makes sense. The ECC in consumer line is what created an entire market for use in inexpensive web hosting. Then AMD created their EPYC variants, and it wasn’t clear what the difference was between the consumer & Epyc models. reply

To summarize my responses to what you had originally posted:

"True" Epyc has always had a differentiation from the consumer line in the scaling+features, Ryzen PRO has always had a differentiation from the consumer line in the features, and "fake" Epyc 4000 has always had differentiation from the consumer line in the same way as PRO had/has.

Of all of the combinations, only the newer Epyc 4000 line compared with the pre-existing Ryzen PRO line have actually lacked differentiation from each other and this change in encryption support on the consumer line does not help with that.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#176

Post by simcop2387 »

thg wrote: post #12

This was never marketed as a feature of the consumer CPUs and if some malignant actor does get physical access to my (consumer) hardware, then them being able to read out bytes through cryo-freezing the RAM really isn't high up on the list of things I'm going to worry about.

It's more than just for cryo-freezing and attacks like that, it also helps defend against row-hammer and other DRAM refresh related issues since the scrambling means that the host kernel or application can't determine what the physical bits on the chips are going to actually be and end up determining the layout in a way to flip specific bits. It might still be possible but it's yet another layer of defense against memory related security problems.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#177

Post by SirFatty »

supertrope wrote: post #174
SirFatty wrote: post #81

"silently" Everything is done silently and quietly nowadays.

I get your point. I assume the intent is to call out companies on marketing good things and trying to bury customer unfriendly things. As a customer you can assume that if a company is not drawing attention to something, it's not good or at least the feature is not there.

I don't think you got it... it's a lazy way of writing headlines, and as someone else pointed out, it's an AI thing. Search news.google.com for silently or quietly and be amazed how many hits there are.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#178

Post by yomismoaqui »

throw0101c wrote: post #93
DanielHB wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George tries to move a Frogger arcade machine without powering it off in order to not lose his high score leaderboard. https://youtu.be/5etwHVarNgI?t=256

From a few years ago: > Five guys moving a server to a new datacenter without shutting it down. Without cutting it off from the internet. And as using a car would have been too easy, they used public transport. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5MA685ApE (DE audio, EN subs) See also perhaps: > The HotPlug allows hot seizure and removal of computers from the field to anywhere else. The HotPlug's patented technology…

Thanks for the video, it made me happy seeing those pals having so much fun :)

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#179

Post by RealityVoid »

simcop2387 wrote: post #176
thg wrote: post #12

This was never marketed as a feature of the consumer CPUs and if some malignant actor does get physical access to my (consumer) hardware, then them being able to read out bytes through cryo-freezing the RAM really isn't high up on the list of things I'm going to worry about.

It's more than just for cryo-freezing and attacks like that, it also helps defend against row-hammer and other DRAM refresh related issues since the scrambling means that the host kernel or application can't determine what the physical bits on the chips are going to actually be and end up determining the layout in a way to flip specific bits. It might still be possible but it's yet another layer of defense against me…

Oooh, I saw this memory scrambling trying happening on the Open titan chips and I couldn't wrap my head around why they would scramble the memory since on read you descramble it anyway through the circuitry. That makes sense! Thanks for the explanation.

Re: AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs

#180

Post by ninglor »

fragmede wrote: post #162
thg wrote: post #12

This was never marketed as a feature of the consumer CPUs and if some malignant actor does get physical access to my (consumer) hardware, then them being able to read out bytes through cryo-freezing the RAM really isn't high up on the list of things I'm going to worry about.

Except let's say the argument for running a local model is for your finances or marriage, counseling or help raising children and you want privacy for that, and you're willing to buy the new AMD AI Halo box for that ($4,000 MSRP, July 10th). You're gonna want this shit to be trustable that depending on your marriage that notification that the other person's reading, your shit is accurately being logged. But in the ca…

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