News Intel to offer feature unlocking for selected CPUs

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/08/15/intel-to-offer-feature-unlocking-for-select/1

 

DLC for CPUs?

 

Where there is money to be made...

 

grim

 

If they unlocked the multi's also, this would be brilliant. But then there would be no need for the K series.
How long before someone comes up with a keygen for this?

fixed.

 

And then someone will make a keygen for this...

 

This is the kind of thing they sell gullible non techies at PC world at extortionate prices.

 

Fixed that for you

 

I was under the impression that this was the point of it all and what Intel was expecting (or hoping).

People seem to love the idea of being able to unlock the cores on their AMD CPU's, now intel has an answer to this.

 

i guess it get cracked at some point if its just been limited by codes

 

"pin number"

Personal Identification Number Number : P

Anyhows pet peeves aside, i think this is a good idea...If they get the pricing right.

[By right pricing i mean almost free, a token £10 or something]

 

So we have to see pricing before we see if an DLC unlocked CPU is priced similarly to another model pre-unlocked (what a stupid term DLC has created).

But let's be honest from a business perspective, Intel is doing this not to provide their customers more features, it's to pick up another cut from their distributors. A customer buying the DLC isn't paying Dell or HP or Newegg, it's going straight into Intel's pockets. Intel is going to boost sales of their lowend/lowmargin products and then say you can spend a bit more for "AWESOME NEW FEATURES" and makes Intel takes 100% of that money as profit.

Depending on it's success, I wonder how the distributors will take this.

 

C'mon tinkerers of the world unite (unlock and disseminate howto)!!

 

hmmm.

Why?

 

Something screams "abusing their dominant position in the market". Read about this a while ago, think it's a joke myself.

 

I'm probably going to be in a minority of one here, but I actually think it's a pretty good idea.

If they can sell low-cost budget dual-core chips for example, and then give the customer an option of an easy upgrade later on - more cores, more cache, more speed etc - what's wrong with that?

Not a great model for the mid-range chips, and not something that should be considered for the high-end, but for the bottom of the market I think it's a pretty good idea. Most low-end PC's are sold on an aggressively tight budget - but they're also the people who would probably most appreciate a cheap option to upgrade their speed/power in a year or eighteen months after having bought their system. They're also most likely the people least qualified or inclined to take their PC apart & physically change parts - an upgrade normally consists of waiting several years and then buying a whole new system.

If Intel can say to these people, "we'll make your PC, say, 25% faster for just £30, all you have to do is type in a code" - I think that would make a lot of those people very happy...

 

Anything that takes an option and gives the perception of 'its a great idea' is dangerous to the general populace IMO. Its one thing to buy hardware for the performance - and another to give you something good and say 'Jump for it' when it exists in the first place on the same chip.

Great ideas always look good on paper - its the fact that geeks and real enthusiasts will throw out this information all over the place. Intel would make money no doubt, but in the same hand deal themselves a reputation blow as well. I know I would tell everyone that had the misfortune to buy one of these how to get around it - for free.

 

They'll be selling hats for them next...

 

I (sort of) understand the point you're making, but I just don't agree with it. Intel, like AMD, want to be able to offer distinct ranges of chips to different markets. They want a low-end budget range of products, mid-range general use products, and high-end performance products.

If the way they now make their chips means it's easier for them to just produce more mid-range type chips, disable some of the mid-range features - and then sell them at a budget price - what's wrong with that? If they can then at a later date say to that consumer, (who paid the lower price) "if you want to now pay the difference between what you originally paid and what the mid-range chip sold for, we'll re-enable those extra features", what's wrong with that?

Where's the rip off?

Maybe some people will find a way of enabling those features against Intel's wishes, and maybe someone lucky enough to own a low-spec PC and have a tech-savvy friend will be able to get the benefits for free, but most people won't and I don't really see the problem.

Intel won't be making it particularly easy to break their system anyway, precisely because they don't want people like us buying cheap CPU's & turning them into bargain monsters - eating into their mid-range market.

 

How long before someone engineers software independently that will do the exact same thing? Might even be legal as well.