"What if you were to give us even more money?" - Intel announces Intel On Demand

[BachChain]

Summary

 

Intel has today finally announced their long-dreaded "Intel On Demand" program. This Software-defined-Silicon system allows Intel to sell processors with specific features disabled and then re-enable them for anyone willing to pay extra money. This program is currently limited to the new "Sapphire Rapids" generation of Xeon Scalable server processors. No word on pricing or exact billing model, but it's likely to follow the "If you have to ask" principle.

 

Quotes

Quote

The list of technologies that Intel wants to make available on demand includes Software Guard Extensions, Dynamic Load Balancer (DLB), Intel Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA), Intel In-Memory Analytics Accelerator (IAA), Intel In-Memory Analytics Accelerator, and Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) to accelerate specific workloads.

Quote

The formal rollout of the Intel On Demand program leaves more questions than answers. We do not know how much Intel plans to charge to activate certain features or how much its clients will want to start them 'as a service.' We know that companies like H3C, HPE, Inspur, Lenovo, Supermicro, PhoenixNAP, and Variscale will be a part of the On Demand program.

 

My thoughts

Does Intel really need to squeeze even more money out of their enterprise customers? It's only a matter of time before they start bringing back the Intel Upgrade Service.

 

Sources

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/ondemand/overview.html?s=31

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-officially-introduces-pay-as-you-go-chip-licensing

[goatedpenguin]

amd epyc is better price, more cores, more performance amd is better in enterprise servers in general intel is just money leeching company when it comes to enterprise products

[da na]

At least they're not disabling features on older Xeons people have already bought... yet, at least. And at least they're not disabling hyperthreading or anything serious, still bullshit though.

[StephanTW]

I wonder how long it will take people to find a way around it and use all the features in the core.
or more likely find a loophole in the law and sue the F out of them for this.
honestly whoever started the entire subscription for what you own,software ... F you

[xAcid9]

More like "Intel No Demand"  after Genoa released. 

[Coolmaster]

25 minutes ago, StephanTW said:

I wonder how long it will take people to find a way around it and use all the features in the core.

These are enterprise chips, generally companies don't like breaking the law for niche cpu features.

[Thomas4]

So, a company makes a product, allows customers to save money but not having unneeded features disabled, But then allows to afterward unlock certain features that the find that need or want afterwards.

Sounds like an automobile manufacturer we all know, doesn't it?

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Coolmaster said:

These are enterprise chips, generally companies don't like breaking the law for niche cpu features.

They also hate software licensing so we'll see just how far this really gets. I bet Intel will just end up making specific SKUs with features unlocked as part of it and that's how all this will ultimately turn out for the vast majority.

[ouroesa]

3 hours ago, swabro said:

amd epyc is better price, more cores, more performance amd is better in enterprise servers in general intel is just money leeching company when it comes to enterprise products

why do you type like this do you expect everyone to understand what you are saying when you use no full stops nor caps, only commas have you not been through some sort of education process

[CTR640]

Oi Intel, if you're lurking on this forum, you just gave me reason to stick to my 4770 so go **** yourself.

I avoid such practices like a filthy parasite.

[LAwLz]

11 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

Oi Intel, if you're lurking on this forum, you just gave me reason to stick to my 4770 so go **** yourself.

I avoid such practices like a filthy parasite.

According to the OP, this only applies to Sapphire Rapids, their upcoming server CPU. 

I don't see why you'd boycott them for that when you were most likely not going to buy that product anyway. 

 

 

I also don't really see how this is any different from them locking features in hardware rather than software. At the end of the day, they are artificially segmenting their product stack for profits. It's just that this process is reversible compared to the hardware method which everyone, including AMD and Nvidia have and are doing instead. 

 

I don't see how destroying a feature in software and allowing you to get it back is any worse than destroying a feature in hardware and not letting you get it back. 

[suicidalfranco]

How long before it ends up in consumer products

[Sauron]

I hate this not just because software subscriptions are a scam but also because this means hardware can now have an expiration date that isn't just "when it breaks", increasing ewaste. How long before your ebay xeon can't use features it has on-die simply because Intel shut down its online activation services in the meantime?

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I also don't really see how this is any different from them locking features in hardware rather than software.

Online activation and you not owning the hardware you bought and physically have. Not a huge concern while it's still enterprise only but it's likely to spill over in the consumer market if it's met with indifference.

[leadeater]

21 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I also don't really see how this is any different from them locking features in hardware rather than software. At the end of the day, they are artificially segmenting their product stack for profits. It's just that this process is reversible compared to the hardware method which everyone, including AMD and Nvidia have and are doing instead. 

 

I don't see how destroying a feature in software and allowing you to get it back is any worse than destroying a feature in hardware and not letting you get it back. 

It's not really the same thing though, also I hope you are aware SGX and QAT are available on current products as standard and now in the next coming generation those are being peeled back to being "privledge feature" rather than what we have now.

 

Unlike deactivating cpu cores or cache which can be due to physical defects and yield rate calculations, dies capable will be cut down realistically that is true, locking off an instruction set for a license fee is a different level or arbitrary product segmentation.

 

Of course Intel is more than welcome to do this, doesn't mean it will be a successful business move or a smart idea. They are already getting the beat down and the only thing saving them is AMD production output isn't high enough to capture more of the market.

 

Right now the only thing saving Intel from themselves is that these few features that are becoming licenses barely anyone cares about or uses, and those that do or wish to have a very clearly and easy way to monetize those features to recoup that cost. Smells very strong of profit margin damage control to me.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Online activation and you not owning the hardware you bought and physically have. Not a huge concern while it's still enterprise only but it's likely to spill over in the consumer market if it's met with indifference.

Online activation is a bit annoying but realistically it doesn't matter.

Not owning the hardware you bought and physically have? In what way do you not own it? I assume this is a perpetual license. Again, companies are already destroying perfectly good products before shipping them to you. The difference is that the destruction is now done in software rather than hardware. I don't see how AMD physically destroying two cores before shipping it to you is more acceptable than AMD blocking the same cores in software before shipping it to you, and then saying "if you change your mind, we can unlock it".

 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

It's not really the same thing though, also I hope you are aware SGX and QAT are available on current products as standard and now in the next coming generation those are being peeled back to being "privledge feature" rather than what we have now.

Standard features being removed and then sold back as "privilege features" is a problem. But I think that would be an issue if it was done in hardware as well.

I feel like people put a lot of emphasis on the method used to lock features rather than the practice of locking the features itself, and I find that weird.

 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Unlike deactivating cores cores or cache which can be due to physical defects and yield rate calculations, died capable will be cut down realistically that is ture, locking off an instruction set for a license fee is a different level or arbitrary product segmentation.

You know just as well as I do that things like deactivating cores are not always done because of physical defects and yield rates. It is often times done to artificially segment products. Other examples of CPU manufacturers locking down features that are already present and working would be:

• Overclocking on non-K Intel processors and some AMD processors (like the Pro variants). Completely arbitrary and could be argued that it was done in software (just that it's done in the firmware, and irreversibly).
• AMD locking reBAR support to only AMD 5000 series processors. I think they reverted this, but in the beginning they only allowed it on 5000 series processors in order to create more hype for that. 
• AVX-512 support in Alder Lake. It was working fine in earlier processors, but then Intel decided to fuse that part of the processor off for some reason. I really doubt it was for yield and defect reasons since as far as I know, it was working on all earlier processors. It wasn't like it only worked on some of them.
• AMD artificially locking cores in old and new products in order to meet demand for certain variants. One example that sticks out a lot in my mind was the Phenom II X2 555 which in like 9/10 cases could be unlocked to a Phenom II X4 955. I am sure that AMD knew most of those processors could be turned into the higher end SKUs but decided to lock them down anyway just so that they wouldn't end up cannibalizing the sales of their higher end (and more expensive) processors.
• I am not 100% sure about this, but I do believe SEV is also artificially locked down on AMD's Ryzen processors. Ryzen CPUs do support it (it even has the flag for it set to 1), but the PSP firmware in regular Ryzen processors lack the code necessary to use it. As far as I know, this is not a hardware limitation but rather just AMD not loading the firmware necessary to use it onto the PSP.

I just don't get why people seem perfectly fine with irreversible software locks on hardware but react so strongly to reversible software locks. To me the latter is clearly better for everyone. Is it just that people don't realize how much artificial market segmenting that goes on and it becomes more obvious to them what actually happens?

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I feel like people put a lot of emphasis on the method used to lock features rather than the practice of locking the features itself, and I find that weird.

What is being locked, why and how is just as important. That's why there is a difference between Intel SGX and 4 non function cores out of 48 etc. Sure there will have to be a supply of dies that will have less than 4 non functional sometimes or often but the product SKU was at least created for a different set of reasons to a pure software limitation.

 

I don't think you got the point of my post before, because as above we had SGX etc and how we won't and it's not because of any reason other than pure business, there is no technical driver behind it unlike different core counts or active L3 cache etc.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

You know just as well as I do that things like deactivating cores are not always done because of physical defects and yield rates.

Correct and I also said a situation where it ends up happening to satisfy that. Yields are still a large factor, creating attractive priced options is part of that of course but there is at least engineering effort to calculate these likely yields for the given product specifications. 

 

Intel SGX is unaffected by pretty well all of this. Hell even removing Hyperthreading can be due to physical die defects and not "just because".

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Overclocking on non-K Intel processors and some AMD processors (like the Pro variants). Completely arbitrary and could be argued that it was done in software (just that it's done in the firmware, and irreversibly).

Nobody has ever liked or agreed with this practice.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

AMD locking reBAR support to only AMD 5000 series processors. I think they reverted this, but in the beginning they only allowed it on 5000 series processors in order to create more hype for that. 

No it was only ever first validated and advertised on Ryzen 5000.

 

Quote

The AMD Ryzen 3000 series family launched alongside the 400-series platform and those already have BIOS support for resizable-BAR. However, we can expect a more formal BIOS rollout that will fully enable Ryzen 3000 CPU support on both AMD 500 & 400 series motherboards.

Formal validation came later, it was still there before then.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

AVX-512 support in Alder Lake. It was working fine in earlier processors, but then Intel decided to fuse that part of the processor off for some reason

I thought you were aware of why, the E cores do not support the instruction set at all and the only way to have used that was to disable all E cores in BIOS before booting in to the OS. Otherwise with E cores on it was unavailable.

 

And at least according to Intel it was never supposed to be able to be utilized at all and the changed to amend it to how it was supposed to have been. Having a hybrid design with misaligned instruction set support on x86 is a really bad idea, hence the protections in place so it wasn't a problem, luckily. It would have been nice to keep the ability of disabling all E cores and getting AVX-512 functionality however from Intel's point of view that could open them up to having to indirectly support a feature of a product that wasn't ever supposed to have it. Imagine getting bug reports for AVX-512 on a product that doesn't support AVX-512, that would be weird heh.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I am not 100% sure about this, but I do believe SEV is also artificially locked down on AMD's Ryzen processors. Ryzen CPUs do support it (it even has the flag for it set to 1), but the PSP firmware in regular Ryzen processors lack the code necessary to use it. As far as I know, this is not a hardware limitation but rather just AMD not loading the firmware necessary to use it onto the PSP.

That's a complicated matter since SEV requires SME and SME support is only on Ryzen Pro and with limitations (TSME only). Only EPYC fully supports SME and thus SEV and part of that is EPYC has a different IOD. For SME and SEV to work you need an encryption key store and far as I understand the IOD on Ryzen is insufficiently sized to utilize this feature. Even in EPYC 7001 it was realistically too small to be of a lot of use, maximum 16 keys. EPYC 7002 supported 511 keys.

 

The IOD on Ryzen and EPYC are not the same and neither are the capabilities of PSP, SME and SEV as well. Also you really want SEV-SNP to actually use it which came in with EPYC 7003.

 

Basically it can't be used even if some of the fundamental hardware capabilities are present as not everything required is.

[LAwLz]

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

-snip-

Before we go further with this conversation, because you are not arguing the same points I originally replied to, let me ask you this.

Are you okay with fusing off the physical hardware in a perfectly working CPU to artificially create a different SKU and segment products?

If the answer is yes, are you more okay with it if the disabling of said feature happened in an irreversible manner rather than a reversible manner?

 

These are general questions so please try and refrain from bringing up specifics like some particular feature or some particular example. Just asking in general if you are okay with artificially creating different SKUs based not on technical reasons, but rather for business reasons. 

 

 

 

 

Personally, I see fusing off functions in hardware to create different SKUs as inevitable. Everyone does it, and it has happened for ages. I think it's a necessary evil in order for companies to be able to offer various products at different prices.

And if companies will artificially limit the hardware's capabilities, I'd want it to be done in a reversible manner rather than an irreversible manner.

[HenrySalayne]

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

They also hate software licensing so we'll see just how far this really gets. I bet Intel will just end up making specific SKUs with features unlocked as part of it and that's how all this will ultimately turn out for the vast majority.

That's exactly what I was thinking. The overhead created by license management and the bugs, that come along with it, are super annoying. I'm extremely curious how they are going to not turn it into an excruciating pain in the a*** for their costumers. Will the consumption license be locked to a certain CPU serial number? Will it be locked to the mainboard (from the "provider"). If they don't lock it to serial numbers, how will Intel make sure those licenses are not cloned? Can licenses be transferred? How are they even applied?

[LAwLz]

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's a complicated matter since SEV requires SME and SME support is only on Ryzen Pro and with limitations (TSME only). Only EPYC fully supports SME and thus SEV and part of that is EPYC has a different IOD. For SME and SEV to work you need an encryption key store and far as I understand the IOD on Ryzen is insufficiently sized to utilize this feature. Even in EPYC 7001 it was realistically too small to be of a lot of use, maximum 16 keys. EPYC 7002 supported 511 keys.

The way I understand it is that this is purely an issue with the PSP's firmware, because as far as I am aware, all Ryzen processors support SME (and TSME for that matter, but it's disabled in the firmware). Not officially (since AMD wants to artificially segment them), but unofficially.

Linux even used to have SME turned on, including on systems that weren't EPYC or Pro versions. They turned it off however because it caused GPU issues when IOMMU was disabled (and some OEMs seemed to disable that with no way of turning it on again).

 

The encryption and store is as far as I know completely done by the PSP (aka AMD-SP), which is a Cortex-A5 with TrustZone enabled, and it is the same for all Zen processors. I don't see why it would be dependent on the IOD.

 

AMD doesn't provide a lot of documentation for this so it's hard to get concrete answers. But according to one AMD developer, SEV support is lacking on Ryzen processors because of firmware.

[Brooksie359]

12 hours ago, Coolmaster said:

These are enterprise chips, generally companies don't like breaking the law for niche cpu features.

The real question is would it be breaking the law? I mean you own the hardware so what would prevent you from making modifications to the cpu legally speaking? 

[Sauron]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Not owning the hardware you bought and physically have? In what way do you not own it? I assume this is a perpetual license.

Well... not the subscription, by definition...? And I suspect the one-time activation would be tied to a specific customer and not be transferred if the CPU was then resold on the used market.

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Again, companies are already destroying perfectly good products before shipping them to you. The difference is that the destruction is now done in software rather than hardware.

They're not double dipping you to unlock the features after the fact. It's also not quite true; while yes, some perfectly good chips are hindered to satisfy market demand for lower end products, some are also physically not fit for the higher end SKU even though the design printed on the wafer is the same. There is binning going on to select the highest end SKUs in a lot of cases. In this case you'd know for sure that that chip you bought could do more, it just doesn't because of a software lock.

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't see how AMD physically destroying two cores before shipping it to you is more acceptable than AMD blocking the same cores in software before shipping it to you, and then saying "if you change your mind, we can unlock it".

AMD specifically has been known in the past to not actually destroy the extra cores leading to some chips being unlocked to better SKUs with bios hacks. It doesn't mean those chips passed the binning tests, by the way - just because they can work as the better SKU doesn't mean they were within acceptable QA standards.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

The real question is would it be breaking the law? I mean you own the hardware so what would prevent you from making modifications to the cpu legally speaking? 

Of course it would break the law.

You are not allowed to pirate Windows 10 Pro either just because you own Windows 10 Home. All the features of Pro are baked into Home and locked behind software. Same deal applies here.

 

It would be illegal to obtain or use the software without the appropriate license, which you only get by paying.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Well... not the subscription, by definition...? And I suspect the one-time activation would be tied to a specific customer and not be transferred if the CPU was then resold on the used market.

I feel like you are making two very big assumptions which I am not sure are true.

1) That this is a subscription rather than a 1-time payment.

2) That it won't be transferable.

 

The Intel website mentions things like "one-time activation" which to me sounds like you pay once, get a license key that gets applied to the processor and then it's activated forever.

I completely understand the whole "I don't want to pay monthly for a hardware feature", but I don't see anything in the news that indicate that that's what this is about.

[Brooksie359]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Of course it would break the law.

You are not allowed to pirate Windows 10 Pro either just because you own Windows 10 Home. All the features of Pro are baked into Home and locked behind software. Same deal applies here.

 

It would be illegal to obtain or use the software without the appropriate license, which you only get by paying.

 

 

I feel like you are making two very big assumptions which I am not sure are true.

1) That this is a subscription rather than a 1-time payment.

2) That it won't be transferable.

 

The Intel website mentions things like "one-time activation" which to me sounds like you pay once, get a license key that gets applied to the processor and then it's activated forever.

I completely understand the whole "I don't want to pay monthly for a hardware feature", but I don't see anything in the news that indicate that that's what this is about.

I guess but I am not sure if that would make flashing different gpu bios onto a gpu illegal as the bios was originally from amd or nvidia. Like when people flashed 580 bios on rx 480 gpus. Granted I guess those aren't really licensed but I would imagine that neither are these features 100% of the time. I mean does that mean if you buy a cpu now you are somehow licensing all of the included features?

[pas008]

Hmm not sure about this

 luckily enterprise level now  undecided

 

imagine buying rtx4090 for like 1k cause you don't want rt or dlss etc

[porina]

I was never involved with enterprise hardware, but I recall of systems in past (not necessarily x86) which were already fully loaded, but how much a buyer could use was determined by how much they paid. The reasoning for that was the hardware was cheaper to preload than to send someone out to actually do the upgrade if needed later on, and less risk/downtime. So this really isn't anything new, just not normal for consumer tier.

 

49 minutes ago, pas008 said:

imagine buying rtx4090 for like 1k cause you don't want rt or dlss etc

That's why 7900 exists?  Might be ok if you only care about raster.

 

Think the difference here is that what are mandatory features can't be opted out. It's more niche features that fit better in this model.