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Intel Patents Anti-Overclocking Technology
VCAGuy writes "It appears that Intel has pantented a crystal-locking technology to lock processors to the processor's clock speed. The Inquirer has a story about it, and you can read the patent description from the USPTO. Let's hope AMD doesn't try to copy this..."
everything released as of yet has been cracked
Just another way to ruin the life of the geek. Go Intel, make your chips even less appealing. /me pokes his Athlon XP
It's only a matter of time before the overclockers find a way around this. Intel will likely have some kind of undocumented override in place to make it easier, even.
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
...it's not in their best interests. The people that they get much of their profits from are overclocking enthusiasts, or at least people who consider the ability to overclock to be a plus. AMD most likely won't follow Intel in this, just like it most likely won't hold back 64-bit.
It's just another reminder that AMD+Linux=Good!
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Sure, crystals have been used to lock frequencies forever...but processes are what are generally patented, and the process of locking a processor speed with a crystal (versus locking a signal frequency, or whatever)...is it not new? Can someone explain prior art? Or is this just a case of complaining about any old patent that gets approved at all?
While AMD processors might "crack" when you install the heat sink incorrectly, who has cracked the Intel multiplier lock introduced so long ago? Nobody.
Patenting the technology isn't the same as bringing it to the marketplace, and maybe it's intended for some other purpose, like guaranteeing the reference frequency for some time-sensitive circuitry or radio-transmitter chips or something like that.
But if they're trying to tie the hands of hardware hackers, then Intel is shooting themselves in the foot, and AMD has just got a big win on a forfeit.
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
Yes they can if they license the patent.
Transcript show: self sigs atRandom.
Instead of someone buying a 2.4GHz processor, for example, they'll get a 1.8 and overclock it to 2.4 (or whatever the exact numbers are). Basically Intel is wanting to ensure people buy the more expensive processor instead of overclocking a cheaper one. But what percentage of people actually overclock? 0.1%?
OK, let's just get something out of the way. This is a good patent. It patents a specific method of achieving a technological end. It is directed, nonobvious, and something which would hurt their VALID intellectual property ownings to have given away to their competitors.
This is exactly the point of the patent office--to protect innovative technology. Intel has nothing to be ashamed of for patenting this, dammit.
Now if you don't LIKE the technology they've patented, then don't BUY it! If they put this on future CPUs, don't support them if you don't want. But DON'T WHINGE ABOUT THE PATENT BEING JUNK! It's not.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
... how about underclocking to keep them cool?
I've seen a lot of comments here asking why Intel would do such a thing, why they're trying to prevent overclocking even though it voids the warrantee.
They really aren't concerned so much with enthusiasts... the percentage of people who over clock in the total PC market is very small (they just speak loudly online).
The problem they have is with resellers (ie whitebox shops) taking a slow processor (say a P4 2.0 GHz), overclocking it, and selling it in a system as, say, a P4 2.8 GHz and marking up the price as such. To clarify, these resellers do not tell their customers the system has a P4 2.0 overclocked to 2.8 GHz and that the warrantee is voided, they say it has a P4 2.8 GHz part in it, and pocket the extra cash. So Intel loses money on sales of its higher end parts, and customers aren't getting what they paid for: they end up with an overclocked part that may or may not be completely stable.
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
First, I'm not making claims this is uncrackable, but you have no problem making claims that not only is it crackable, but it will be cracked, because you're under the delusion that everything has been cracked.
I'm not going to bother making a huge list of things which haven't been cracked, instead I'll give you one: RSA Encryption
RSA isn't uncrackable. It's not designed to be uncrackable. Instead, it's designed in such a way that cracking it will take a VERY VERY long time with today's technology. (Hundreds or thousands of years, depending on the key size?)
RSA will probably be cracked on some level in the future, but it realistically it won't be cracked in this decade or two or five, which is good close enough for most applications.
Maybe this won't be technically uncrackable, but what will one have to go through to crack it? Cracking Hardware isn't like cracking Software.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
My next computer purchase for a linux box, I plan to get a mid-range chip, then underclock it a few notches as to reduce it's operating temperature and thus extend the reliability of the chip. I don't want to spend a fortune and worry my hair out over whether my CPU is running too hot or not. While I can understand Intel's concern with resellers of their CPUs falsing advertizing faster chips but in reality selling overclocked ones, I hope Intel realizes that it's better to allow consumers to be able to over/underclock the CPU, and instead pursue legal actions against resellers that fake CPU speeds, instead of going for an overpreventative hardware solution.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
You do NOT buy a 110V hair dryer and stick it in 220V just so your hair dries faster. In the same way, overclocking isn't a design spec... it's pure and simple not safe and stable, even if your computer *looks* stable. Small instablities tend to only manifest themselves after a server has been up for a long time under lots of load... not right after a reboot... Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there.
On a side note, neither the dryer manufacturer nor Intel will provide support for products used out of spec... but there isn't a slashcode site where people bitch about how so and so makes hair dryers that burn your hair off if you put em in 220V... (get my point?)
Unfortunatel, as we hit the high speeds of processors, the performance gains are not justified. I have a Celeron 300 overclocked to 450Mhz. That's a 50% increase in speed. You can (without using liquid nitrogen) not get such an increase on modern hardware. Overclocking was good for the PC industry. I'd be hard pressed to say that it still is. It is a little side-note in the home-pc history, that's it.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Your argument against the parent post is correct. However your example is clearly not the same as the technology that the parent refers to.
:-P
I would also put it forward that the parent had no idea what he was talking about though.
When trying to encrypt media in things like DVD's, satelite feeds etc etc etc you need to encrypt the data so that the bad guys can't interrupt it and you need to decrypt it so the legitamate users can read it.
I think this is what the parent post sorta meant. (I don't believe that really)
RSA encryption is not the same thing. If someone gave someone to you encrypted with RSA encryption and also gave you the decryption key it would be cracked. Not the encryption itself but the decryption key can then be compromised. This is the reason that most people today believe it is impossible to safely protect media from copying but still allow it's use.
The Intel thing is different again as I assume (having not RTFA) that the protection would be embedded on the chip. You would need a pretty steady hand to modify something on a CPU at the scale it is fabricated I would guess.
Also, the protection is not trying to protect someone copying data so encryption technologies are not the trick. It is trying to stop you using more CPU cycles per second. I think this could probably be done in a way that is not accessible (price wise) to the average consumer. Let's face it the only reason overclocking is popular at all is because it is free. If it cost much more money you would just buy faster CPU's on day one.
On the other hand for 1000$ you could build a 6 Eden beowolf cluster since they have built in ethernet and the bios for the EPIA-M's support boot from network. (1 harddrive + 6 EPIA-M (Eden 600MHz) + 1 Case + 1 Hard-drive + 6 128MB DIMMs) and still draw less power than one high end AMD or Intel chip.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I think they worry more about potential (& for companies like Intel potential is profit) lost profit.
It's very simple from Intel's POV: High Mhz CPU's cost more, thus making the company more money per CPU. Intel has been hurting profit-wise due to lowering their astronomical prices on CPU's/ Intel needs those astronical prices on CPU's to support it's bloated self. Overclocking lets people buy cheaper CPU's & OC them to the level of higher CPU's cutting into Intel's profits. So bloacking OC = Increase in profits.
Intel knows that they have the marketing clot to avoid any real damage to their rep from this. Heck they've managed to make most of the world think they need a "Intel Inside" CPU for years... Worse yet most people (aka most non-technical people) don't realize their are other companies that make CPU's due to Intel advertising. So they loose a few people to AMD as they were just into for the OCing, oh well they gain larger profits from making those people who stay with Intel pay more...
It's not like thsi is the frist time they've tried to limit overclocking...
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