Intel to begin shipping Skylake CPUs with SGX enabled

[PeaceKeeper]

Welp, I guess those early adopters like me either got shafted or saved with not having SGX extensions enabled.

Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a CPU instruction set that allows applications to set aside private memory regions for code and data. SGX was first introduced with the Haswell CPU architecture, but the instructions weren't enabled for Skylake CPUs that sold at launch. Future batches of chips will have SGX enabled, though. Intel has posted a Product Change Notification to notify partners that updated Skylake CPUs with SGX will be available later this month.

The CPUs affected by this change are the Xeon E3-1200 v5, Core i5, and Core i7 families. Processors with SGX enabled will have a different S-Spec code for easy identification purposes, but will otherwise be indistinguishable from existing CPUs. There won't be a new stepping or change in die size, and Intel says there shouldn't even be a need to update system BIOSes.

Source: The Tech Report