Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do

[Muffin Man]

Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do -- Engadget

Hold onto your hyperthreaded horses, because this is liable to whip up an angry mob -- Intel's asking customers to pay extra if they want the full power of their store-bought silicon. An eagle-eyed Engadget reader was surfing the Best Buy shelves when he noticed this $50 card -- and sure enough, Intel websites confirm -- that lets you download software to unlock extra threads and cache on the new Pentium G6951 processor.

Hardware.info got their hands on an early sample of the chip and discovered it's actually a full 1MB of L3 cache that's enabled plus HyperThreading support, which translates to a modest but noticeable upgrade. This isn't exactly an unprecedented move, as chip companies routinely sell hardware-locked chips all the time in a process known as binning, but there they have a simpler excuse -- binned chips are typically sold with cores or cache locked because that part of their silicon turned out defective after printing. This new idea is more akin to video games that let you "download" extra weapons and features, when those features were on the disc all along.

Still, it's an intriguing business model, and before you unleash your rage in comments, you should know that Intel's just testing it out on this low-end processor in a few select markets for now.

 

[patonb]

Wow...... It'll take 3 days to hack this i bet.

 

[TheOtis]

I can't even believe it. I mean, really? I can see folks who purchase Gateways, HPs, Dells, etc being interested in something like this, because they don't know any better. But Patonb is dead on, we'll see someone come out with a way to do it for free. If it's software, it can be hacked.

 

[overlord20]

Even hardware can be hacked. People have been unlocking multipliers on presumably locked CPU's for ages haven't they?

 

[TheOtis]

Never thought of overclocking as hacking.....touche sir.

 

[patonb]

^Actually he means tghe locked cores on the amd tri cores that were shut off due to either bad chips, or need for tri cores.

 

[Trotter]

^Actually he means tghe locked cores on the amd tri cores that were shut off due to either bad chips, or need for tri cores.

What hacking? My wife's mobo did it, not me. Some dual core Phenom II's are unlockable as well.

 

[patonb]

Yes, but I'm refering to the new intel idea.

 

[Harper]

DLC with games, now this. Every one what to make that little extra monday after the sale. I wonder what is next?

Actually I just remember that there was some apple products shipped with Wireless N cards that where dumbed down to wireless G a few years back.

 

[-RockMan-]

wtf would intel want to do this for, I mean come on AMD is starting to beat their *** in the lower middle and some high rank class cpu's.
I can understand why AMD shut down one core or two and that was to due to the cores being somewhat unstable at current clock speeds or just flat out whacked out.
Did amd charge you a extra buck for a extra core and unlocked cache ? no they didn't, they did state however if you unlocked your cpu and ****ed it up they will not approved your warranty status or give you a rma number.

I have respect for intel for what they try to provide, but this is just flat out sorry, which is why I am glad I left the intel scene late last christmas season.