Intel on chip CPU SHA256 hashing announced

[samson]

An ASIC miner in every PC

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sha-extensions

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[dree12]

...so CPU mining makes an unexpected comeback.

[justusranvier]

Is anyone who is capable of making an educated guess about how the hash/watt values Intel could achieve with this as compared to current ASICs, and who is willing to be quoted, is invited to send me a PM.

[os2sam]

It seems like this was talked about some time ago and it wasn't going to work well for Bitcoin mining?!  But maybe I'm not remembering correctly?

[dree12]

Is anyone who is capable of making an educated guess about how the hash/watt values Intel could achieve with this as compared to current ASICs, and who is willing to be quoted, is invited to send me a PM.

It probably isn't very good. A single SHA-256 operation takes 139 instructions; 2 would take at least 278. Peak instruction rate is 177730 MIPS for the best processors, and this won't even approach the peak speed. So the speed would be far less than 600 MHz, which is hardly any better than a high-end GPU.

[justusranvier]

It probably isn't very good. A single SHA-256 operation takes 139 instructions; 2 would take at least 278. Peak instruction rate is 177730 MIPS for the best processors, and this won't even approach the peak speed. So the speed would be far less than 600 MHz, which is hardly any better than a high-end GPU.

Is that per processor, or per core?

[dree12]

It probably isn't very good. A single SHA-256 operation takes 139 instructions; 2 would take at least 278. Peak instruction rate is 177730 MIPS for the best processors, and this won't even approach the peak speed. So the speed would be far less than 600 MHz, which is hardly any better than a high-end GPU.

Is that per processor, or per core?

Per processor. Per core it's probably closer to 30000 MIPS and less than 100 Mhps.

[justusranvier]

So a CPU containing these instructions might produce about 6 Mhps/watt?

[dree12]

So a CPU containing these instructions might produce about 6 Mhps/watt?

Probably far less, but yes, that's the upper bound. However, it's worth mentioning that CPUs are useful for non-mining-related activities, and so suffer less from depreciation than ASICs and GPUs.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yeah specialized instructions help but a general purpose CPU is a giant bloated monster of transistors 99% of which are never used in hashing (massive banks of cache, out of order execution pipeline, branch prediction, high speed memory controller, high speed point to point connectivity to northbridge, floating point computations ,etc).  Nothing can make it cost effective compared even to a GPU much less dedicated ASICs.

[justusranvier]

Had these instruction been included in Sandy Bridge processors it would have been a big deal.

[2112]

From what I've heard the target application for this is IPsec portion of the IP stack, together with the already existing AES instructions. In all the operating systems. Apparently Broadcom and/or Marvell had made some inroads into the Intel network chipset territory by doing IPsec at much lower watts per megabit per second.

[Ytterbium]

It probably isn't very good. A single SHA-256 operation takes 139 instructions; 2 would take at least 278. Peak instruction rate is 177730 MIPS for the best processors, and this won't even approach the peak speed. So the speed would be far less than 600 MHz, which is hardly any better than a high-end GPU.

It obviously doesn't compare to ASIC mining. I mean something like a KnC where you have, possibly, more transistors dedicated to SHA then an entire Intel CPU.

But an Intel CPU cranking out as many Mhash as a GPU is pretty damn impressive. If it weren't for Asics, you might very well see people build CPU rigs with cheap motherboards rather getting expensive motherboards and tons of GPUs.

[razorfishsl]

LOL....

Like first time sex... lots of excited anticipation, but once you get round to implementation its all over very quickly followed by  depression.

[SirMintALot]

sounds like padlock reloaded 

[jhansen858]

At least the NSA will have the ability to get all your private keys now. 

[Jaymax]

At least the NSA will have the ability to get all your private keys now. 

Basically that - in a short while, we will finally see MS Outlook with inbuilt encryption - using, of course, the new Intel CPU optimised encryption.

[DeathAndTaxes]

At least the NSA will have the ability to get all your private keys now. 

Basically that - in a short while, we will finally see MS Outlook with inbuilt encryption - using, of course, the new Intel CPU optimised encryption.

You guys are idiots.  Since when is SHA-256 an encryption algorithm?

[dree12]

At least the NSA will have the ability to get all your private keys now. 

Basically that - in a short while, we will finally see MS Outlook with inbuilt encryption - using, of course, the new Intel CPU optimised encryption.

You guys are idiots.  Since when is SHA-256 an encryption algorithm?

AES is, and Intel has recently optimized that.

[Xc0d3]

code release SHA-256 processor intel https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=22357