AMT and AMD's equivalent (don't remember the name) has been a holy grail for security researchers and malware authors alike for many years. People have been begging Intel for a very long time to make business-tier chips without remote access capabilities.
For personal computing, at least we have enthusiast chips. For example, my i7 K model lacks the technology.
EDIT: AMD's remote tech is called Platform Security Processor (PSP). Thank you, jacquesm!
It's not really new that Intel and AMD do binning to get more yield.
My working theory however is that since my chip lacks vPRO / AMT and I have not been able to find any indication it exists on the chip even in a dormant state, there may be more than one prefab used for binning.
However they could be using the same prefab for all.
Thus, "AFAIK".
According to ARK [0], vPRO is absent. I have done various other system queries and nothing has turned up.
Anything else you want me to query? And where do you get this information that ME is present in all chips? Having a motherboard that supports ME is irrelevant, if the chip has no ME.
[0] https://ark.intel.com/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Pro...
sudo intelmetool -s
Im pretty sure Intel BootGuard is ME based
Same questions apply to you. This is something I would like to be proved wrong on, as I don't want a false since of security.
PSP: Platform Security Processor
Yes. But somehow, any time anyone brings up wanting a device without one, people start poo-pooing the idea. "Just don't use it." "That's paranoid." "Just another CVE, yawn."
In a ton of discussions over the years, I have yet to hear a single plausible, benign reason for why the ME's 30 minute timer must be impossible to disable by the owner of the chip.