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Intel Wants To Charge $50 To Unlock Your CPU's Full Capabilities

Posted by Soulskill on from the say-no-to-hardware-dlc dept.

MBCook writes "Turnkey CPU upgrades aren't just for mainframes anymore. According to Engadget, OEMs (including Gateway) are selling computers with the Intel Pentium G6951, which can have extra cache and hyper-threading enabled through a $50 software unlock called Intel Upgrade Service."

22 of 832 comments (clear)

  1. I'm all for it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Especially since it'll likely be pirated before the CPU ships.

    1. Re:I'm all for it by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How long until the serial numbers are spoofed? This reminds me of the Pentiums with those identifiers being broadcast to the internet. It didn't take long for those to be disabled, and ultimately, Intel decided it was the wrong thing to do. http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/04/35950

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:I'm all for it by Keen+Anthony · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're not thinking about the marketing opportunity Apple has with this. This isn't like Apple charging customers extra for 802.11n. Apple had an acceptable reason. You sell me a chip that is intentionally handicapped, and then tell me that for $50 more, you will unlock it; as a consumer, it's fully reasonable for me to think you're taking advantage of me. It doesn't cost you anything to sell me that same product not handicapped, so why do this if it's not just to make more money? This is about perception, not logic and not facts. Why not just sell me a fully working product the first time? I can understand having to pay extra for MPEG-2 support in a piece of software or hardware, as there are licensing issues with a third party, but you're Intel. This is your chip.

      Apple could bank on this by not using these chips and then running a new Mac vs PC ad wherein PC talks about all the great things you can do while going over a list of upgrades you have to unlock along the way: first to Windows so you can have all the features, then the CPU, and then toss in a joke maybe about GPU and RAM upgrades. Again, it's perception.

    3. Re:I'm all for it by JorDan+Clock · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's impossible to pirate

      I think I've heard that line before.

    4. Re:I'm all for it by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As long as someone has physical posession of the device there is no such thing as absolute security.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    5. Re:I'm all for it by CarpetShark · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can understand having to pay extra for MPEG-2 support in a piece of software or hardware, as there are licensing issues

      You're too understanding. Cooking recipes cannot be copyrighted. Neither should video decoding recipes.

    6. Re:I'm all for it by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Vendors will hate it. They'll get an increased rate of support calls about it, and none of the benefits, because the fifty bucks goes to Intel.

    7. Re:I'm all for it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This isn't the same thing, though - these are perfectly good chips that are crippled so that Intel doesn't have to manufacture chips at multiple price points.

      Excuse me, but I fail to see the loser here.

      Intel wins: it can focus resources on manufacturing a single processor for multiple price-points
      Customer wins: for a fee, they can upgrade their processor without having to touch a single piece of hardware

      Why the outrage? If you assume Intel doesn't have enough defects to bin into lower priced models, compare this to their alternative. They manufacture and sell additional processor lines in order to cover all their price segments. Consequently, fewer engineering resources per line, less optimization and likelihood of "free" clock-speed bumps, and higher manufacturing costs per processor (and therefore less downward pricing flexibility).

      "But Intel isn't giving me all I bought!"
      Bullshit. You *bought* the cheaper model. If you wanted the more expensive one, then you pay for it. If you don't like Intel's pricing, then you buy AMD.

    8. Re:I'm all for it by Haeleth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This isn't the same thing, though - these are perfectly good chips that are crippled so that Intel doesn't have to manufacture chips at multiple price points.

      Yes, like they have been doing for years. If demand for cheap chips exceeds demand for expensive chips, they cripple some expensive chips and sell them cheaply. This increases their profits and, by decreasing the complexity of the manufacturing process, also reduces the price of the expensive chips. It's a good thing.

      The only new thing here is that they are now also providing a simple way for people who got one of the crippled chips to uncripple it. Which is also a good thing.

      I was outraged when I saw the Slashdot headline too. Then I read TFA. Then I spent a few seconds thinking about the pros and cons of this. And suddenly I'm not outraged any more. I put it to Slashdot that this concept of "thinking" is a useful tool that ought to be applied more widely.

  2. Can you hear that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can you hear that?

    That's the sound of so many informed geeks switching to AMD.

    1. Re:Can you hear that? by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a test by Intel. If it fails, Intel will drop it. If it succeeds, AMD will adopt it.

  3. That's OS licensing... by Qubit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IBM's been doing that sort of thing for years. They ship you a mainframe with more processors than you ordered or a disk array with more disk than you ordered, and you can pay them to turn it on.

    Yes, but I'm pretty sure that's all predicated on IBM service contracts and/or the license on the IBM OS/application software running on the system.

    If you're running a completely-FOSS debian install on top of these new Intel processors, what leverage do they have on you?

    --

    coding is life /* the rest is */
  4. Re:Ridiculous... by dimeglio · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Look at it this way: you buy a CPU at $200 with one core. A year later, you need more performance. Instead of trashing the entire computer (ram, cpu, and motherboard at least), you simply pay a mere $50, unlock 3 more cores, booth the clock by 100% and throw-in hyperthreading. You'll extend the life of the unit for at least another year saving a few hundred dollars. Make it 6 months and another 6 months but the idea is the same.

    I might work great if the price and options are right.

    --
    Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
  5. Re:Hey, I don't mind.. by sdnoob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as I get a $50 break on a new CPU!

    You already are... by buying the Pentium instead of the more expensive i3 that already has the extra MB of L3 and HT enabled.

    _____

    Intel and AMD have both been shipping chips with certain features disabled to meet market demands for years. Nvidia and ATI do the same with GPUs. Sometimes the disabled parts are actually defective, but sometimes not. Then you have two chips that cost the exact same to manufacture sell at two different price points, with the manufacturer intentionally choosing to sell some at a lower price (with the plan of making up the difference through higher sales).

    Owners of certain AMD processors have been able to unlock entire cores along with extra cache for some time now. Intel is just trying to profit from it. I just don't know how well that idea will go over with the uninformed masses. I think many will be just a bit pissed-off that they were sold an intentionally-crippled computer. Unfortunately, any backlash will be aimed at the company who's logo is on the box, not Intel.

  6. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Haeleth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I go out and buy a penknife, I don't expect to have to pay more money if I want to be able to use the built-in compass.

    Not a great analogy. Can you try again only with more cars?

    This isn't a case of you buying a Core i7 and Intel saying "by the way, we only gave you a Core i5, but you can have the full i7 you paid for if you give us another $50".

    This is a case of you buying a Core i5 and Intel saying "here is exactly what you paid for, and by the way, if you ever decide you should have bought a Core i7 instead, we can magically teleport one into your computer for just $50".

    If you want the pocket knife with a built-in compass, pay for the one that has a compass in it. If you deliberately buy a knife that says "KNIFE WITHOUT COMPASS (compass is available at extra cost)", you have no reason to complain when it turns out you have to pay extra to get a compass!

    There's no bait-and-switch here. People are getting exactly what is advertised. Where's the problem?

  7. $200 should have bought full functionality then by mrnobo1024 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They wouldn't have sold the crippled CPU to you if $200 wasn't a fair price for at least the full quad-core CPU, since that's what they had to manufacture. Whether you keep it as single-core, or pay extra for the upgrade, you are with absolute certainty being ripped off.

  8. Sounds as if by turkeyfish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    they are determined to hand AMD a PR club they can use to beat Intel about the head.

    I can just see the ad bylines now, "Why pay extra to have the IQ of your microprocessor raised to average, when you can get one with a higher IQ with no additional hidden costs?"

    This is purely a marketing ploy to see if they can sucker consumers into accepting, so that can generate an additional profit line.

    1. Re:Sounds as if by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, but AMD aren't trying to sell you an upgrade...
      You may have a 3rd core which is defective, or you may get lucky and its just disabled and you can re-enable it with software for free. Either way you bought a cheaper chip.
      Intel on the other hand are selling a chip which is definitely fully working, and then trying to charge you extra to make use of the hardware you've already bought. AMD aren't trying to screw money out of you, you *may* end up getting a bargain out of them.

      Intent is all important.

      --
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    2. Re:Sounds as if by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't have access to Intel's market research data, so I can't meaningfully predict if they would make more or less money with that approach. It's worth noting, however, that Intel's entire business model revolves around largely artificial market segmentation. The difference in production cost between their high end and low end chips is significantly smaller than the difference in sale price. They used to have much higher yields of the cheaper chips (which were just the good chips where not everything passed the tests, e.g. the FPU on the 486sx), but they quite often the yields don't fit with where their sales team wants to put the market segments and so they just cripple some chips before selling them. AMD does the same thing.

      This is just a way of more dynamically adjusting the segments, as well as making upgrades cheaper. Now, rather than buying a crippled chip and replacing it with a non-crippled chip later, you buy a crippled chip and undo the crippling in software. This, effectively, lets Intel sell you the same CPU twice.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  9. How is this similar? by Ecuador · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When you try to unlock an extra core or to overclock a processor there is no guarantee it will work. The manufacturer tells you what the specs of the unit are , which is what you paid for, and from then on you are on your own.
    Here we are talking about a case where the cpu has features disabled on purpose but guaranteed to work as long as you provide a ransom fee. While I can find some logic in it, they are in fact telling the consumer that they make a good profit already with the price they charge for the "crippled" unit, since they are willing to sell it at that price. Then the extra $$ is the "idiot tax" they will get from some users.
    I really hope AMD returns to its early Athlon days so that Intel can be in check. Judging from the previews of their netbook APU (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3933/amds-zacate-apu-performance-update) they might have something to show next year...

    --
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  10. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by gnasher719 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...except that you did buy an i7, it's just that they didn't tell you about it. Just because a feature wasn't advertised doesn't mean I didn't pay for it when I bought the hardware, or that the price I paid didn't include the cost of manufacturing that extra feature. You shouldn't be going around critiquing other peoples' analogies if you're going to liken activating hardware that you've already paid for to magically teleporting new hardware into your computer...

    So here are three scenarios:

    1. You have a choice of buying an i5 for $200, or an i7 for $300.
    2. You have a choice of buying an i7 that pretends to be an i5 for $200, or an i7 for $300.
    3. You have a choice of buying an i7 that pretends to be an i5 for $200, or an i7 for $300. If you pay $200, you can later for a payment of $100 turn it into an i7.

    For me, choices (1) and (2) are identical, but choice (3) is without any doubt better. There is no situation where I am worse off than with choice 1 or 2, and in some situations I'm better off.

  11. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's no bait and switch, but people instinctively understand that the sale price is supposed to closely track the marginal cost of production. Speculatively including extras but leaving them disabled reveals in bold print that the market isn't sufficiently healthy to drive the price down to it's natural free market level. When it's physically separable extra hardware you can at least argue that it's just distributed warehousing.

    People won't really be able to help thinking that Intel could afford to give them a better deal since flipping the switch costs nothing.