So I’ve been looking to get a new CPU and I can’t decide whether the i9 10600k is good enough for new games and general use. Also, I have read some stuff about the Intel Engine thing and thought whether it is possible to dump some parts of it like they do here with the Librem laptops. There was some software on Github that claims to do exactly that but I don’t know at all if it is relevant.
Advice and help are welcome, ty!
It is not worth it.
My understanding is that Intel prevented that from occurring as of generation N - so you would have to check back as to which generation exactly that was.
Probably noone but yourself can answer the question in your topic title i.e. only you have an understanding of what your needs are (i.e. what you are doing with a computer) and what your budget constraints are, if any etc.
To be more precise, this was Nicola Corna’s project me_cleaner on Github.
The last gen this Python script would work on, was KabyLake 7th gen (this was also Purism’s Librem 13/15 v4 laptops’ arch.) On this particular architecture, something extraordinary was achieved: reducing the bloated IME firmware to only…4 tiny modules necessary for the CPU to initialize!
Deblobbing the IME in such ways and so deeply, didn’t please Intel at all - as you can imagine. They claimed that this was a breach of security of the way the CSME was designed in the first place: namely security by obscurity, the mantra of the entire Wintel industry and aficionados. They made it so that later generations of their processors’ architectures would not permit such deep scrub anymore, by way of encoding the partitions of the firmware with unknown/unpublished Huffman tables. This unfortunately put an end to Corna’s me_cleaner project.
Just my opinion, but I don’t see any reason to buy Intel. They’re expensive and do not perform well these days. To get similar results to Ryzen they need 2-3 times higher power on times where the world should save as much as possible. I bought a 5950X last weekend to replace my 1800X. It has double amount of cores, 2.5x calculation power and consumes less energy (doesn’t heat room in summer so much and makes less noise). I also can use my motherboard from 2018 (release 2017) another 7-8 years. Intel just produces expensive e-waste.
AMD and Intel are both using proprietary blobs. If you choose the one or the other one makes no big difference. It is at least what I think (others here have maybe another opinion). Open source Risk V would be the only true alternative, but these CPUs do not have enough power for gaming and other heavy tasks yet.
Intel can ship microcode updates for Qubes OS, among other security benefits:
See also:
Appreciate the answers, but why do you think it is not worth it, like, generally or just in my context?
By the way, what is the last processor where I can use the tool you guys mentioned, or is there maybe a new one which supports the CPU In the title (even better, a newer one?)
My expectation is “no”. Really, Intel stomped on it. Can’t have users controlling their own CPU …
The only way such a tool or equivalent alternative could exist would be if it comes out of Intel, one way or another. (For example, Intel could make an official release of alternative IME firmware that is explicitly minimal, for those who only want to do the bare minimum to boot the main CPUs and then halt the IME, with the possibility that the IME firmware halts itself without being asked to, or just leave it to the existing config i.e. the HAP bit.)
So Intel is forcing you to choose … the latest and best performance v. the less compromised.
The first issue is that the i9 10600K does not exist as a product.
Good catch. Could be i5-10600K or i9-10900K? Or?
Either way, both products are long discontinued:
Apologies, I meant the i9 10900K (Comet Lake).
I am not sure if i am thinking right, but Purism was able to neuter Intel ME on i7 Comet Lake, both were released in 2020, correct? If yes, shouldn’t both be possible to neuter via me_cleaner?
Depends what you mean by “neuter”. Refer post 4 above.
There are two potential meanings here:
My guess is that only the second meaning will be possible on the i9-10900K.
No, Intel ME can only be disabled via HAP bit from Comet Lake onwards.
What a bummer! How come purism did it then, though? They say they removed 90ish % of the firmware.
“benefits” sounds dubious lol.
They were able to do that in their prevoius generation of laptops and intended to do the same with the Librem 14, but could not. The discussions of IME on the web pages did not all get updated to reflect that. Purism has been overwhelmed by events for years now.
The product page for the Librem 14, CPU Core i7-10710U (Comet Lake), says:
disabled Intel Management engine
So they are implying the second bullet point meaning of “neuter” above.
It’s not an incorrect claim. It’s just not as good as earlier Intel CPU generations / earlier Purism laptops. Thanks, Intel. 