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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."

100 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 BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Pirated or jailbroken, that is one CPU I will not buy. Intentionally holding a gun to the customer's head by crippling the device until you pay a ransom is not a way to get my business.

    2. Re:I'm all for it by mysidia · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You know... Intel being the CPU manufacturer, could make this really robust. Each CPU already gets stamped with a unique serial number. They could stamp each one with a unique unlock code that goes with the serial number, as well.

      Then the only way to 'unlock' the function would be to go through Intel, so they would look up your specific CPU's unlock code in the database.

      That's impossible to pirate, because there's no way you can share the code. As long as they assure the unlock code is the only mechanism allowed to re-enable the capabilities, and there is no BIOS mechanism to override the lock.

    3. Re:I'm all for it by hardburn · · Score: 3, Informative

      Happens all the time, actually, they usually just don't offer a way to unlock it. They make a run of all the chips of a given architecture, then put them through tests. The ones that pass clean are set to highest offered speed or full cache, while the not quite so good ones are brought down a notch. Also happens for GPUs, hard drive platters, and even resistor tolerances.

      Sometimes people figure out tricks to unlock everything (with the caveat that the company sold it to you that way for a reason), but who knew Intel would sell their own tool hacker tool?

      --
      Not a typewriter
    4. 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
    5. 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.

    6. 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.

    7. Re:I'm all for it by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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. Maybe their reject rate has dropped enough that it's not a viable way to get lower-performance chips.

    8. 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."
    9. Re:I'm all for it by mysidia · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Piracy of crippleware, means users download a serial or crack from a third party, the 'pirate', who doesn't have possession of the software or hardware device being cracked.

      If this comes down to physical manipulation of the device, and someone has to break open the case on their CPU or uncap it, to attempt to implement a physical attack, that will stop 99% of the population.

      Because the CPU is easily damaged, and if it's damaged, the whole point of trying to upgrade for free is spoiled.

      And the risk of damaging the CPU is so high, that it is unlikely to be a success.

      At this point, one would call "unlocking" it by physically manipulating the device a "hack".

      Not piracy. Piracy implies distributing things to the masses, such as a tool that can be used to easily turn on the restricted functionality.

    10. Re:I'm all for it by muridae · · Score: 5, Informative

      You know that you probably bought a handicapped chip already, right? Chances are a good portion of the economy cpus out there had a core or two disabled just to meet a shipping quota and price point, not because the core failed an integrity check. So, Intel spends some money making the Q/A test disable cores when it needs more chips in the economy bin and less in the high-end one. This just shifts the market a little. Now, instead of disabling a core by frying it completely, they just lock it in firmware. You, the end user, still get your economy priced chip. If you decide to upgrade you just buy the software to unlock it.

      This is not some software that works the other way around, you know. The chip you buy isn't going to say "4 Cores and 32Mb cache" and then show up as 2 and 1 meg. The box might tell you, instead "2 core (upgradeable to 4)". The computer upgrade goes from being something geeks know how to do, to something any mom and pop and uncle bob can do. If they can get past the perception of it, no big deal. However, most of those people have no idea what a computer upgrade requires, and telling them that you can do it with software is something they have suspected anyways.

      The real problem is that it becomes buy computer -> download spyware, games, p2p crap -> oh no's it is slow -> buy upgrade card -> more crapware -> "why can't I buy another upgrade card?"

    11. Re:I'm all for it by dargaud · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Pirated or jailbroken, that is one CPU I will not buy. Intentionally holding a gun to the customer's head by crippling the device until you pay a ransom is not a way to get my business.

      I completely agree. This 'method' of doing business has been going on for a long time in the digital spectrometer world and mainframe world. I find it revolting and for the period when I had some decision power on what was being purchased I made it very clear to vendors that I would never consider their equipment for that very reason. Fortunately (for them), I'm back to lowly coder now.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    12. 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.

    13. 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.

    14. Re:I'm all for it by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because you believe that to be the case doesn't mean the current reality will reflect that. You can't just choose *not* not pay the licensing fee for a mpeg2 decoder from Apple (either rolled into the cost of the OS or in the Quicktime Pro fee) because they *do* respect it.

      You can, of course, get the mpeg2 encoder from other sources but we're not talking about that in this instance.

    15. Re:I'm all for it by therealmorris · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Problem is, if they're selling these unlock cards then the chips can't just be disabled "when it needs more chips in the economy bin and less in the high-end one", they must be using better chips and artificially disabling every single one, or else how would anyone know if the card would work! That I think is the issue here.

    16. Re:I'm all for it by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > I can understand having to pay extra for MPEG-2 support in a piece of software or hardware

      I was wondering when this would come up and when some fanboy would try to make excuses for this absurdity.

      It's just bogus. MacOS can play a DVD. So obviously it has all necessary rights sorted out to deal with
      MPEG2 and AC3 and ANYTHING else related to the fact that it is able to play a DVD for you "out of the box".

      The idea that you have to pay extra to add any of these capabilities to Quicktime is pure nonsense.

      It just shows that Apple thinks it can f*ck around with it's customers. ...and they're right too.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    17. Re:I'm all for it by Raenex · · Score: 2, Informative

      Try reading the comment you are replying to: "Chances are a good portion of the economy cpus out there had a core or two disabled just to meet a shipping quota and price point, not because the core failed an integrity check."

    18. Re:I'm all for it by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It seems to me to be a means to unlock potential that was previously locked because of marketing demands. Chips aren't made for specific speeds, they make a batch and "bin" them based on testing.

      Before, when you bought a 2.2 GHz chip, it was in a batch of chips that also happens to include chips that made the 3GHz bin, but they clock locked them to multipliers specific to 2.2 GHz. Sometimes those 2.2 chips were marked such because really weren't reliable at 3 GHz, but sometimes people found they ran perfectly fine at 3.0GHz, it's the luck of the draw.

      I find this system preferable to having to replace the chip or computer in order to get a faster one.

    19. Re:I'm all for it by douglips · · Score: 4, Informative

      Cooking recipes can be patented. Copyright != patent.

      --
      My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
    20. Re:I'm all for it by IICV · · Score: 5, Interesting

      One thing nobody's talking about is why Intel is doing this.

      The only reason I can imagine is that they're sitting on some technology that will greatly reduce fabrication flaws, which means that far more chips will be coming out of their factories that are capable of running at full specification than the market wants.

      That, or they're already outputting a high percentage of chips that are capable of running at higher rates, and disabling them - a much higher percentage than they used to be able to manage, if it makes sense to actually market these chips as upgradeable.

    21. 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.

    22. Re:I'm all for it by Reziac · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True enough, but I think it's going to backfire on them -- by driving down the price of those chips by the $50 everyone knows they'll have to spend to get what they figure they really paid for.

      I think they'd do their market a lot better by releasing a free tool that would helpfully upclock CPUs by as much as the chip can handle (at your own risk, of course). Then people would feel like they got more than they paid for (instead of feeling ripped off), and that always results in good word-of-mouth.

      People generally prefer a gamble to a forced payout.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    23. 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.

    24. Re:I'm all for it by joeyblades · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've been in the semiconductor business for over 30 years and we've always been doing this. Manufacture one device with certain performance or features that can be disabled and sell 2 or more different versions. It happens with other kinds of technologies, as well.

      You're confused about the cost part of the equation, though. Usually what happens is that the marketing gurus figure out how much market share you're going to get with each flavor and set the price accordingly. Often, if you only sold the low-end version you would not make enough profit. You count on some sales of the high-end version to offset the actual cost. It's a gamble and if your marketing team guesses wrong, and no one wants the high-end flavor, you lose money. If they guess wrong and everyone only wants the high-end flavor, then everyone gets a nice bonus...

      I've seen it go both ways.

      If the upgrade capability was zero cost, Intel would do exactly what you say. Just make that the standard; it's free marketshare. The fact that they had to get creative is a sure sign that it's not zero cost.

    25. Re:I'm all for it by MBGMorden · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know that you probably bought a handicapped chip already, right?

      Of course, but that's not the point. As the OP said, it's about PERCEPTION. Most people don't really think about (or even know about for many consumers) the fact that their CPU may be a downscaled version of another one. If you offer to "unlock" those disabled features for a price though, then it's a firm slap in the face reminding you that this chip most assuredly is just arbitrarily limited.

      Consider it like a John visiting a prostitute. Most of them know that the prostitute is only sleeping with him for money, and they're ok with that in the back of their mind, but they certainly don't want to be reminded of that fact the whole time.

      Or consider when World of Warcraft came out: in an effort to reduce excessive playtime, developers built in a "fatigued" mechanic. As long as you rested at an inn your character would return to normal, but eventually if you gained too much XP without letting your fatigue wear off you started gaining XP at half the normal rate. There was public outcry. So, rather than changing the mechanic AT ALL, Blizzard changed the wording so that instead of the extended play time XP being "halved", IT was renamed to the normal rate and the other state was renamed from normal to "rested" and the claim was that you get DOUBLE the XP in that state. Numerically identical, but the community accepted this version pretty well because the prospect of a reward that builds over time was more palatable than a penalty that decreases with time, even if they might work out the same.

      Presentation of the situation is as important as the details of the situation.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    26. Re:I'm all for it by dargaud · · Score: 2, Insightful

      because it makes economic sense

      Nope, because if the extra memory (or cores or speed) is already inside your computer, then it means you have ALREADY paid for it. Paying extra later to unlock it is just a ripoff.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    27. Re:I'm all for it by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But I can understand that the MPEG people want their cut for licensing out their technology

      I think everybody understands that the MPG people want their cut; what some of us don't understand is why the law forces us to give it to them when it doesn't do society any good overall.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  2. Yeah, That'll Last by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Crack coming out in 3...2...1...

    1. Re:Yeah, That'll Last by BlkRb0t · · Score: 5, Funny

      Finally, we can pirate hardware.

    2. Re:Yeah, That'll Last by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Probably not if each slashdot poser knows what a one time pad is.

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
    3. Re:Yeah, That'll Last by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      it would be completely impractical to try to hard code a different key onto each chip during manufacturing.

      Didn't Intel processors have a unique ID at one time?

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    4. Re:Yeah, That'll Last by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, a one-time pad is a butterfly-shaped absorbant sheet of cotton and/or synthetic fiber. It goes where no Slashdotter has gone before.

    5. Re:Yeah, That'll Last by v1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If they're already doing the serial number, then a unique random code wouldn't be much of a bother.

      There'd have to be more to it than just that though. Usually in those cases (such as with the sat receivers) they have to put in special circuitry in the chip.

      lets say they didn't do that and just put another random number in there, lets not even say they hash the sn, we'll give them benefit of the doubt that they use a real random number and just keep a table at the plant for sn and random unlock code.

      Then when you "purchase your upgrade", they mail you a link to a downloadable program, and an unlock key. You download the program, punch in the key, and the program confirms the key matches your proc and its random number, and the program then tells the processor to bump.

      See the problem? The program is the gatekeeper, not the chip. Ten minutes with a disassembler and you figure out how the program is talking to the chip to unlock it, and it's cracked.

      First, a clarification. It's totally impractical to physically differentiate chips during production. They use lithography, and you can't just have a machine at the end of the line that goes in with tweezers making jumper changes. The chips instead have a grid of blowable fuses. At the end of the line, the machine with the SN list drops down the pins onto the chip and runs the initial tests on the chip, and then blows the fuses corresponding to the serial number of the chip. This is irreversible. This is how they all do it. And this is how they would set an unlock code too.

      Getting back to the problem. If all you are doing is setting another number on the chip, you aren't protecting the chip, you're only using it as a way to store another number. The only reason you need to know the number to unlock the chip is because the unlock program insists on your license key matching the code it reads off the chip. The program is a very weak protection, easily cracked or decompiled.

      The "correct" way to do it is different:

      The unlock code is still blown fuses like the serial number, but with a difference. It's WRITE ONLY. There's no instructions you can send to the processor to ask it what its unlock code is. Instead, there's a new procedure added to the chip that allows the license program to SEND the unlock code to the chip. The chip then, internally, compares the provided number with the burned one, and if they match, it unlocks. If not, it doesn't. And done properly, it won't allow another attempt for some time, possibly until it's been power cycled. This prevents brute-forcing it.

      (some of the more viscous methods used in the cable industry are to only allow a fixed number of attempts, and after so many fails, the chip bricks itself or becomes permanently locked etc, via burning another of its internal fuses)

      This takes protection out of the hands of the program, and puts it in the processor, safely out of reach of most people. But it does require some additional changes to the chip. In retrospect, considering all that's IN the chip to begin with, I suppose it's not that big of a deal to add, but I just wanted you to understand it's not just a matter of writing another number to the fuses.

      If they were stupid, the unlock code would be a hash of the proc sn. In that case, it's quite possible that the hash algorythm could be discovered, in which case anyone could write an unlocker or a keygen for the downloadable app.

      But if they were using a hash, then it wouldn't be necessary to burn the unlock code into the chip, since the proc could run the hash on its sn itself and compare with the provided hash. But as I said, that would be the stupid way to do it, and I doubt it would save them much money in the long run even if it never was broken.

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  3. I hope this doesn't fly ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but if it does, it's a big opportunity for AMD. Of course, odds are it'll get cracked at some point and we'll be able to grab an "Intel Upgrade Service Crack" torrent.

    Presumably Intel will be using the CPU serial number to keep track of legitimate users and so forth. But here it comes: have we bought a central processing unit which has now become our property because we paid for it, or are we simply buying a "license" to use Intel's "intellectual property"? 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. Will the BSA (or some similar organization) come down on companies that unlock their processors without paying Intel's upgrade fee? This has the potential to get ugly.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Informative

      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. Some companies only turn on their extra processors for a short time each year (Like end-of-year transaction processing) and if you decide you need some more space in your disk array, it's much more convenient than having to have more disks installed or buy a new disk array.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    2. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except, I'm not sure how that really applies to hardware. Can you license hardware? Remember, modding consoles is illegal because you start fiddling with licensed software as well, not just the hardware you own.

    3. 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?

    4. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by mysidia · · Score: 3, Informative

      CPUs have built-in software, they are just commonly called 'Microcode' instead of software.

      Hyperthreading is a software feature that involves using hardware to implement it.

      So is "VT" / Virtualization Technlogy

      There are even ATOM CPUs where the hardware is 64-bit capable, but Intel ships without the 64-bit capability enabled in the software.

      So, yes, it's a technlogical protection that defends intel's exclusive right to license and distribute the Hyperthreading software.

      Until you have been provided the code, Intel has not licensed the Hyperthreading software to you. It's just like an expired trial version of any sort of shareware you might have on your computer.

      I wonder if Intel will offer a 30 day trial of Hyperthreading and Cache expansion <GT>

    5. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Bob9113 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      Is this leased or purchased hardware?

      Leased hardware comes with a contract. Purchased hardware comes with a first-sale doctrine.

      The purpose of the first sale doctrine is to maintain an information balance between purchaser and seller. "Purchase" is a standardized term so that we don't have to take our lawyers with us when we go shopping. If we had to take our lawyers with us, it would create friction in the economy, reducing the velocity of money.

      Now, the idea of keeping the first-sale doctrine is, of course, predicated on the notion that an informed consumer is a good thing. That hypothesis is only true for business owners if they believe in the free market and maximizing GDP growth. While that is almost certainly their official line, actions speak louder than words. Offered the opportunity to engage in a market practice which reduces the probability of GDP growth but increases quarterly earnings, take a wild guess which one wins.

      And, to bring the comment full circle, this brings us back to regulations like the first-sale doctrine. As Adam Smith himself pointed out, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public." The tool to prevent such behavior is simple and limited regulation like the first-sale doctrine.

      If a company offers to lease me something, requiring me physically sign a contract that I can read in advance, no problem. If another company sells me something, then tries to tell me how I am allowed to use it afterwards, perhaps corrupting our government to achieve that end, that company is an enemy of the free market, and a progenitor of reduced GDP growth.

      --
      Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
    6. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by bieber · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...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...

    7. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yep sounds like they'd need DMCA, and if I was the CEO of AMD I'd be fricking dancing in the streets at this news. hell the commercial writes itself /shows sleazy used car salesman type selling PCs/ "Intel sells you hardware you can't use until you pay ANOTHER fee on TOP of what you paid for your computer. We here at AMD think you should get what you paid for, so we don't deal with such shady tactics" /sleazy salesman points at Intel box that side falls off and tries to cover it up/

      hell between this and Intel getting investigated for shady dealings after having to shell out 1.25b to AMD to get them to shut up, it's like the gift that keeps on giving!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Informative

      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. Some companies only turn on their extra processors for a short time each year (Like end-of-year transaction processing) and if you decide you need some more space in your disk array, it's much more convenient than having to have more disks installed or buy a new disk array.

      True. My father used to work on a Hewlett-Packard mainframe back in the seventies, and he ordered some extra hard disk space. The HP tech came out, opened the casing of each drive (big freestanding units), reached in the back and flipped a DIP switch. Voila!, extra space. He even showed Dad how to turn on the entire drive if he wanted ... apparently HP didn't care (it wasn't a contract violation or anything) but wouldn't provide any support if you did.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    9. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem is that it doesn't make sense from the common sense point of view.

      This may come down to economies of scale. If you only have to manufacture one processor, and simply deactivate parts of it, rather than tooling up for multiple chips, there might be a significant savings there. In fact, I'm rather inclined to think that that's all there is to it.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    10. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by tgibbs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It sounds like you are a bit unclear on the concept of pricing. Here's a clue:
      The price of something has nothing at all to do with what it costs to produce or deliver--it depends only upon what it is worth to the customer.

      So no, it doesn't matter whether the hardware you bought is capable of functioning as an i7, because you didn't pay for an i7, and therefore you didn't buy it.

    11. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, you can't license hardware unless there is an agreement prior to purchase that you are doing so. U.S. courts have consistently ruled that a tangible product you buy retail is bought outright, not licensed, with complete disregard to any "licensing" language there may be on the package or elsewhere.

      The only exception so far is software, and that's only because almost unbelievably, to date there has been no major court ruling on the matter. To be honest, I do not know why software should be any exception to a rule that applies to literally every other kind of product in existence.

    12. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Score+Whore · · Score: 2, Informative

      A) When has bluray been cracked? I know that the HDCP master key is no longer a secret and I know that a few people have then said "bluray hsa been cracked", but those people are morons. HDCP is the encryption of the digital signal sent between a video generation circuit and a monitor/television/display. In theory you could build a small device that you hook to your bluray player and then capture a digital signal and reencode the uncompressed signal, but that's hardly a crack. It's just a reinvention of the analog hole. The fact that the HDCP master key is now known has zero relevance to bluray AACS/BD+ encryption..

      B) Yes they do upgraded bluray encryption periodically. And the various tools that are used to copy said movies then need an upgrade. Happens pretty regular.

    13. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 2, Funny

      Fuck em?

    14. 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.

    15. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When you have informed consumers and zero barriers, then you have a free market. When that happens, you can't charge monopoly pricing (what the market will bear) because someone else will enter at a lower price. And no, the markup will not approach zero. If you think that, then you have no clue about finance (or are a liar trying to make others look bad by lying). Either way, that makes your opinion not worth listening to. And the fact you are an AC only supports the theory that you are a lying idiot.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    16. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      The problem is that if these extras are so cheap that Intel figures they can afford to put them in every CPU even if only a few people buy them, then there's clearly a large disparity between the cost to produce the feature and the current market price for it. Long-term, this typically happens when there's a distinct lack of competition and a natural monopoly is arising. Normally, competition will drive the market price for features down to a small percentage above their cost to produce.

      I'm pretty pro-free market and have eaten my share of down-ratings here for it. But that Intel is considering something like this is a pretty big warning sign that the free market isn't working as it should in this market.

    17. 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.

    18. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... by paramour · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      You left out one significant scenario:

      4. You have a choice of buying an i7, that acts like an i7, for $200.

      Choice (4) is clearly best for me as a customer.

      For Intel, (4) isn't any worse than (2), as clearly they think they can make a profit selling i7s at $200. For (3) it's only worse to the extent of their conversion rate, probably well under 10%, minus the cost to lock the chip, or less than $10. For (1), they are apparently just overcharging by $90 - $100.

  4. Re:Step right up, place your bets by blai · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bollocks! Intel has Intel Genuine Advantage installed on the CPU!!

    --
    In soviet Russia, God creates you!
  5. 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 hawkingradiation · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sometimes it is harder to get an OEM computer to use AMD (like apple) but according to AMD's website: Powering ultrathin notebooks to blade servers, all AMD processors shipped are designed to use AMD-V features. Where as Intel has been a little less free and more cumbersome. For instance most Atom processors by Intel do not support virtualization but all shipping AMD (and it has been a while) do. Also computer models such as the sony viao (undercapitalized for a reason) use the "feature" provided by Intel to disallow virtualization through the BIOS, meaning that you have to turn in on before booting. Along with other technology that AMD has developed makes you wonder why Intel is so dominant in the space. So for an informed geek, switching to AMD was already a good move, if only the manufacturers would follow.

      --
      Society use your Sciences
    2. 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. Re:Can you hear that? by thegarbz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just like all those informed geeks switched to Intel when it was revealed that AMDs could be unlocked with a pencil, and all that separated one processor to the other was a little trace printed on the outside of the chip? The companies have been doing this stuff for years, releasing chips that don't quite meet quality control as a slower chip, and when the distribution channels crash due to unforeseen circumstances, ship identical higher speed chips with the clock turned down even though there's nothing wrong with them. It was more a matter of time before someone would monetize this.

      If the price is right, all you'll be hearing is the sound of business as usual, or perhaps even a boost in Intel sales as like all things when you give something out on good faith, someone will crack it.

  6. Let's hope they used the same key as HDCP by laing · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe that HP/Agilent was the first company to do this. They would manufacture something with gobs of RAM and then charge you extra money to enable the 'option' that was already present. It costs less for a manufacturer to produce a single version of their product than for multiple versions with different capabilities. Intel realizes this but their marketing people are full of shit (just like HP's were). They didn't lose any money when they sold you the processor. The software unlock is 100% pure profit. It's really annoying to know that you have paid for and posses capability that you cannot use.

    1. Re:Let's hope they used the same key as HDCP by LordLucless · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's a bit different. They disabled a chip, and sold you the board. You could turn it on if you wanted - with no guarantee that it'd actually work. They do the same with multi-core CPUs. They build em all with X cores, during QA, if one of the cores fails a test, they'll just disable the core, and sell it as X-1.You're perfectly free to try and re-enable your disabled core - but there's a chance it won't work. They can't sell them as X-core processors, because they can't guarantee all cores will work.

      This, on the otherhand, is them selling you a piece of hardware with functionality *that they know is 100% functional* (or they wouldn't be able to offer the upgrade) and are trying to make you pay for what you already own.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    2. Re:Let's hope they used the same key as HDCP by alanshot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Packard Bell used to do something similar.

      my first 486 system I bought back in the early 90s came in two flavors: the SX version and the DX version.(For those that dont remember, the DX had a math coprocessor, the SX didnt.)

        It was about a $50 difference in price between the two models, and so I bought the cheaper one.

      One day I was skimming the manual looking for a motherboard jumper and found a cryptic note for "J12 1-2 SX/2-3 DX). On a whim I swapped the jumper.

      Whadda ya know! suddenly my bios reported DX processor.

      Apparently it was cheaper to build one box, then apply a case sticker/jumper setting to differentiate the two.

      makes perfect sense really.

  7. Lock in the BIOS or in the CPU? by crow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be relatively simple for the BIOS to turn off CPU features in such a way that they can't be turned back on without a reset. So the easy way to implement this would be for Intel to partner with a PC vendor and charge for the BIOS upgrade that doesn't disable the CPU features in question. With such a system, it would mean that you could pull the CPU and put it in a different motherboard, and get all the features, but that's not going to be a concern for the business model until they're talking about hundreds of dollars for the added features.

    Putting this into the CPU would require that the CPUs be designed specifically to support this, which is not as likely to be the case, but would be much more difficult to defeat.

  8. Intel Fanboys by r6_jason · · Score: 2, Funny

    I wonder if the Intel Fanboys have udders, because Intel sure is trying to milk them.

  9. 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 */
  10. 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.
  11. Don't let the marketing get to you... by Anachragnome · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't let the marketing get to you, and do not encourage it.

    If you are shopping for processors, simply disregard the "upgrades" and treat the product accordingly. Does it compare with fully unlocked competitors?

    No? Then don't buy it. Yes? Then buy it but don't upgrade.

  12. 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.

  13. Re:Similar experience at bestbuy by Kitkoan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fifteen enormous cocks raping every orifice in your body.

    I couldn't describe hiring the geeksquad any better then that.

    --
    Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
  14. What's next, Windows only CPUs? by Da+w00t · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How come the software to "unlock" this capability appears to be windows only?

    --

    da w00t. mtfnpy?
    1. Re:What's next, Windows only CPUs? by tomz16 · · Score: 5, Funny

      EXACTLY! I'm new at this stuff too, and I think you are on to something. You just have to boolean the bit that controls the memory hash function pointer. Then you can probably just decrypt the parity bit endian stack!

  15. $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.

    1. Re:$200 should have bought full functionality then by SpectreBlofeld · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nah. This is really no different than Microsoft's six editions of Windows - Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. It doesn't cost MS any more to stamp out an Ultimate disc than a Starter one, so why not just have the Ultimate edition only?

      The reasons are economic. If you only had one version of Windows, what do you charge for it?

      I'm not going to bother to look up the actual prices for the editions, so let's make 'em up. Let's say that Home Premium is $50 and Ultimate is $199.

      If we take away the tiered pricing and MS sells Ultimate only, they'd probably settle on an average price, let's say $129.

      The people that really needed or were willing to pay $199 are now getting a bargain at $129, but Joe User who was previously willing to pay $50 is either shut out of the market or forced to pay more, for features he didn't need.

      In chip manufacturing, like any other manufacturing, it's cost-prohibitive to have too many production lines going on at once. You can have tools, materials, and manpower divided into two production lines pumping out low-end chips and high-end chips - that probably cost the same to manufacture once R&D is finished, actually - or you can streamline, and produce one chip. Which is what Intel's doing. They're offering a Intel Home Basic edition that's affordable and an Intel Ultimate Edition that's pricier. Both prices reflect what the market will bear.

      This allows Intel to market to people of differing needs and socioeconomic strata. I guarantee you, if they didn't do this, and only sold the 'unlocked' chips, then the chip's selling price would be higher than what the locked chip is right now.

      Nobody's getting ripped off, this is just how economics.

  16. Windows 7 only unlock! by scrib · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Currently, CPU upgrades are available on selected Windows 7 systems."

    It installs the application. Does it run every time your computer boots? Does that mean the unlock isn't permanent? If I pay to unlock the chip, and then reboot into Linux, is the CPU still unlocked? If I have to reinstall Windows, do I have to reinstall (or re-purchase) the upgrade?

    No thanks...

    --
    Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
    1. Re:Windows 7 only unlock! by mlts · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This reminds me of an old 486 upgrade chip for the 386DX that was pin compatible. It would run the same speed as a 386DX, but one had to install a .SYS driver in MS-DOS to turn on the internal clock-doubling and such. No driver, no performance gain.

      I wonder if it is the same stuff, where the CPU is fed some sequence to have it allow access to the full cache and such. Of course, I will be almost 100% sure that this driver will be not something open-sourced, so expect the performance boost by "unlocking" the chip to be only in Windows, and no other OS.

      I just hope Intel doesn't spread this crap beyond the bottom of the barrel chips where profit margins are razor thin. For the low-end market where price is everything, maybe. However, for mainstream i5 and i5 chips, much less Xeons -- hell no.

    2. Re:Windows 7 only unlock! by jpmorgan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes. Modern CPUs can be given what's called a 'microcode update' during system boot by driver. Microcode updates are volatile, so they need to be reapplied on each boot. Generally this is done to fix minor bugs that slipped through testing. In this case, Intel is allowing the microcode to unlock additional capabilities.

      Only available for Windows 7 right now, but generally microcode update drivers are available for all common platforms (e.g., Linux). If Intel is serious about this business model, it's likely that they'll roll out updated microcode drivers for other supported platforms soon.

    3. Re:Windows 7 only unlock! by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's a perception that releasing such tools for Linux will result in cracking them. Such "delicate" tools are often not released to Linux, so I'm doubtful your prediction will come true.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  17. Re:Ridiculous... by __aajfby9338 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except that I've already paid for that hardware with the original $200, and Intel made a profit on it unless they were daft enough to sell it to me at a loss. It cost a fixed amount to build that chip, based on wafer cost, die size, test time and yield. It'd be one thing if they took a bunch of chips in which some of the nonessential features failed final test and then sold them at a lower cost instead of throwing them away, but these proposed feature-locked chips are necessarily fully-functional chips in which they've chosen to hold some of the features for ransom. This is simply price gouging.

    This is just like paying $20,000 for an SUV, and then later paying another $5,000 for the key that opens the back doors and the cargo area once I've decided that two seats and a glovebox aren't enough for me.

  18. Is this some kind of flash update or os based? by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this some kind of flash update or os based?

    So will it be $50 per os reload?

    Will you be able to buy it one time and make a image and mass deploy it?

    Will Linux just auto unlock the cpu?

    Will some MB auto unlock the cpu?

  19. Ive seen this somewhere.... by metalmaster · · Score: 2, Funny

    Salesman: Thank you sir. Thats all the paperwork. Here are the keys to your brand new Toyota Camry. Oh wait, there's just one more caveat. We'll need you to pay the "accelerator calibration" fee

    Joe: Nah, i'll take my chances.

    The rest is history...

  20. Re:the law also says you can jailbreak stuff what by Kitkoan · · Score: 2, Informative

    the law also says you can jailbreak stuff what does the BSA and others think about that?

    Sorry, but thats not right. The law is very exact in how its phrased, being "bypassing a manufacturer's protection mechanisms to allow "handsets to execute software applications" is permissible". This is what makes sure things like modchips and modding consoles is still illegal. Only effect handsets aka cellphones/smartphones.

    --
    Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
  21. Re:Hey, I don't mind.. by sayfawa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But this is backwards. In the sane world, the reason why paying less gets you less is because the cheaper product was cheaper to make. Not only is their locked down product not cheaper to make, but it's actually making the whole line more expensive. Some of our dollars are actually going towards the developers for the purpose of making the product worse, by locking it down.

    --
    Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
  22. 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 bhcompy · · Score: 2, Informative

      As mentioned, this already occurs. For example, AMD's 3 core Athlon II's are 4 cores with the 3rd core disabled, either to meet a quota or because it didn't pass QA.

    2. 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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    3. 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
  23. Re:Capitalism sucks by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's no chance this coupon is going to bring down the price of a computer by $50 to correspond to the loss of features....

    Why, did AMD stop making CPUs?

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  24. Re:Price Discrimination by tgibbs · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, price discrimination is when identical goods are offered at different prices to different markets. But the chip with the extra two processors enabled is not identical to the chip without those processors enabled, as you can easily prove by doing a benchmark. And a 16 GB iPad is not identical to a 32 GB iPad, because the latter has more memory. Having different profit margins on different products does not constitute price discrimination.

  25. I'm not by symbolset · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My first impression was "whoa - Gateway is still in business."

    After that though, yeah. Dumb idea all the way around. They're going to get such a roasting over this. Viral Youtube videos, blog crusaders polluting every tech forum and newsgroup with this one issue, the full Tonight Show treatment. The hate that this spawns will be worth far less than all the money it could possibly bring in.

    And then of course comes the question: if ideas this bad come to market, who's running the ship up there? And then the stock takes a hit.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  26. I wonder if we see this for hard drives next by mysidia · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or in filesystems...

    You install Windows on a 1000gb hard drive you bought, and Windows only provides you 500gb of usable space. A few years later, when you are running out of space....

    Dialog box: "Warning: C: only has 5 gigabytes of space left out of 500gb. You can visit http: upgrade . microsoft .com / morespace to expand your system storage capacity.... Your storage software is currently: Bronze Edition (limit: 500gb); you can upgrade to Silver (limit: 750gb) for $99.99 or Gold (limit: 1000gb) for $199.99. Or platinum for $299.99 to allow you to add a second hard drive to your computer"

    And then we could have hard drive manufacturers sell 1TB hard drives that can be upgraded to 1.5TB or 2TB hard drives by running a program and inputting an activation code from a web site......

    1. Re:I wonder if we see this for hard drives next by Mysteray · · Score: 2, Informative

      Look at the photos of the actual card. There's a barcode with a bunch of numbers. There are some digits on the left, a bunch of zeroes, and then a number that's just a bit over 2^31.Presumably, there's an unknown code under the silver. We don't yet know what data gets sent over the web during the un-downgrading process, but it's quite possible that upgrades may be performed even while that system is offline, perhaps by reading codes over the telephone.

      My guess is that the left-justified digits identify the Intel project within the upgrade card network. The ones on the right are the card's unique code with 32 bits of entropy. If the uncrippling process can be unlocked over the phone, there's a probably a brute force attack against the CPU. Humans just can't read long streams of digits that accurately.

      So, if the key or ID space really is something like 2^32, how does a gigahertz CPU resist brute force attack? Just a theory, but it may be that after too many failed attempts, the CPU burns itself out. (That's just the kind of heavy-handed solution these customer-hating DRM types seem to love to implement.)

      This raises the real possibility that the un-downgrade application contains the seeds of either a crack, or permanent hardware destruction of the affected Intel products.

  27. Re:Ridiculous... by Culture20 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the higher end CPU also costs the same to manufacture

    The higher end CPU actually costs fractionally less to manufacture; they are all created unlocked (because they have to be fully tested unlocked), but then the lower-end CPUs have an extra assembly step of getting locked down. And the company has to spend the money on the whole unlock sales-force.

  28. Re:You like this car? by Vegeta99 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I had a SAAB back in the day with a computer-controlled turbocharger. I don't remember the specifics, but it was a 900 model. I had a black turbo controller. If you had the red box, you got a few extra pounds of boost. That was the only difference between two trim levels as far as the engine was concerned, same internals.

  29. The take-away here is... by Mysteray · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The take-away here is that when I buy an Intel processor, I'm not getting the best performance, I'm not getting the best price, and I'm not getting the the best value. At best, I'll get crippleware. Crippleware sucked and I'm glad it died out of the marketplace back in the late 90s.

    Some Intel products open security holes on your system with their defective DRM: http://extendedsubset.com/?p=30 . I just figured they couldn't get competent C programmers after what they did to Randal Schwartz http://www.lightlink.com/spacenka/fors/ . The HDCP leak was yet another example of fail. But now they want to bring this level of quality engineering directly into the CPU? Haha, no thanks guys.

    Imagine the APT malware that would be possible if the CPU microcode update protections get busted wide-open like HDCP just did.

    Now was it really such a good idea to hand the Elbonian Business Network a way to sell cracks for who-knows-how-many millions of CPUs for $50 each? Congratulations Intel, the black market value of a crack on your microcode just went from $100k to $M++. Did you stop to consider the fact that some of the top supercomputers on the planet are botnets? That's right: the adversary has the computational resources of a state actor and he doesn't even pay his own power bill.

    I'm sitting right now within arm's reach of 14 Intel cores I've bought within the last year or two (from Atoms to i7's), never mind the stuff I have a voice in professionally. My next general purpose CPU is coming from AMD.

  30. Good for users - more options by goodforusers · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is not as bad as it looks. In fact, this could be real good for the Customers. This model will allow me to pay less for a machine when I don't need that much performance. If the performace is not meeting my needs, then I may use the upgrade card and increase the life of my machine. I don't see why folks here are making big deal out of it. How is software upgrade different from hardware upgrade? Even Microsoft and Apple do the same where they charge different price for different features and technically charge less for features by disabling some. So I think software and hardware upgrades are analgous. I actually like that Intel is thinking out of the box and trying to do something different. This only means better and more options for the Customer.

  31. Re:The real scam... by Mysteray · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yep.

    Looks like the retailer's got a piece of the action too: http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/404392.htm "You will be eligible for a revenue share from Intel if/when your reseller customer installs an upgrade."

    Looking at the card: "Effortless movement between multiple applications". Really? Wow. That's a pretty wild product claim to make for 1MB of L3 cache.

    Heck, I had decided to turn off Hyperthreading at my next reboot. For some things it's a net slowdown.

    We might guess that the folks buying one of these stripped-down, crippled notebooks are likely to be students or otherwise budget-constrained. It's going to suck for them to get their expectations up and part with 50 hard-earned bucks just to find out it's not that all that big of a difference in performance. I suspect they might feel a teeny bit ripped-off even.

    It'll be measurable on benchmarks, but like you said, it's not going to exactly breathe new life into a low-end laptop that's sucking wind because of malware, anti-malware scanning, general Windows bloat, and/or the 10 different applications that load themselves in the system tray and memory on startup.

    This was not a good move for customer loyalty, Intel. Anyone want to bet they'll end up giving all the affected customers free un-downgrades and refunds?

  32. 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...

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  33. I will pay them $250... by Hymer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...if they provide me with a code or utility to disable hyperthreading.
    Hyperthreading is killing my VM hosts and new servers do not have the "Disable Hyperthreading" in BIOS.

  34. It's not bad idea in principle by JamesSharman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The physical difference between your uber cpu and a z80 is half a teaspoon of sand and some subtlety in the arrangement. You don't think you actually paying that much for the physical material in your processor are you? If a cpu manufacturer just sold their top cpu design at it's best configuration with the development costs spread evenly then they would find themselves priced out of the entry level market (sell far less chips and the top ones would end up being far more expensive). All the variations in cpu's are a way to spread those design costs around while not forcing people to pay for what they don't need. What's being proposed here is brilliant in principle, put the extra stuff on the chip (Which doesn't cost them much) and give people the upgrade opportunity, which should be far cheaper for all concerned than stamping out another piece of nearly identical silicon when the customer discovers the new generation of games aren't quite fast enough. My primary concern is that if this is a boot time driver update then Intel's "upgrade" only applies to whatever operating systems they deem fit to support.

    1. Re:It's not bad idea in principle by JamesSharman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's an interesting argument. Exactly the same argument could be made on both sides for commercial server software that is locked to given number of users. The comparison is very similar and I'm sure there are many people who would make the same counter argument in that case.

      An early poster pointed out that it's common for cpu manufactures to hard lock features out (either because of defect or purely to create bigger range of product), do you object to this as well?

      You argument that every cost that goes along with locked cores is already paid however just doesn't fly for me. The R&D costs of chip development are astronomical and it's exactly this portion of it that Intel are offering a compromise over.

  35. Re:Mucking with depreciation of IT costs? by turtleshadow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This could really muck up the depreciation cost of IT data centers.
    Intel has to have run some financial models on this to go this direction.

    Is the $50 unlock going to depreciated or be full cost 3 years after the initial sale?

    If I got a racks that we don't have to have a pull and replace with current CPUs but could get another 1 -2 years by unlocking them I'm going to get a note from the comptroller for not choosing to spend the really low unlock cost but instead going with upgrades which will be higher.

    Next will the unlock transfer?
    That would really bite if it was non-transferable unlock / license.
    This would also be important when a CPU does go casters up and is replaced with a like unit. Would the unlock follow the specific CPU package or the customer installation? Doing any kind of "credit" tracking is a nightmare financially and for license compliance.
    Second hand sales are also a potential problem.

    Anyhow I also see Viking and/or SDD makers also doing this stuff with the wacky great Sata DIMM. How many more circuits needed to unlock 1TB RAM drawn from SDD rather than the base 32 GB they sold you a license for.

    Non mainframe datacenters have had "unlockable" storage upgrades for almost over decade (IE tape libs), its almost time for unlockable, SDD, CPU & SDD/SATA memory upgrades.