Slashdot Mirror
Intel To Offer CPU Upgrades Via Software
derGoldstein writes "Intel will again offer CPU upgrades through software. In the past, the upgrades gave you HyperThreading and more L3 cache. This time upgrades will actually increase CPU frequency: 'Intel Upgrade Service offers three different upgrades on second generation Core processors: Intel Core i3-2312M processor, Intel Core i3-2102 processor, and Intel Pentium G622 processor.' The page provides benchmarks of the 3 upgrade options."
Intel will again offer CPU upgrades through software. [snip] This time upgrades will actually increase CPU frequency
Hurray, now we can buy crippled CPUs and unlock them later.
It's like I'm being scammed at purchase, and scammed again at upgrade time.
In before Intel sells 256 core CPUs but requires you to purchase an extra license for every 2 cores beyond the initial 2.
According to the FAQ, if you replace your motherboard, the upgrade is no longer valid on the chip. It must store the information in the BIOS or at least use an identifier from the BIOS.
It also says you must be running certain versions of Windows 7 to install the upgrade but does not mention if an upgraded system would work in Linux or BSD or any other OS after installation.
I'm interested in a crack for this not to cheat intel out of money, but to activate it from BSD or Linux and to "fix" it myself if I have to swap out motherboards.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
I know I shouldn't be RTFA but I couldn't read it. Slashdotted already?
I just wanted to know if these "upgrades" is done by changing the micro-codes. Or are there some FPGAs in the chips? Just curious, very obviously I'm not a chip designer!
Also, does this mean that someone (who REALLY knows what they're doing), could upgrade a "cheap" chip into something more expensive? Or add new features/try new designs or instructions? Isn't there some "hardware" encoded security aspects to these chips that might become vulnerable (like DRM)?
and Ford, they're going to sell you a car, and you can purchase an upgrade on your fuel economy, cooler air from the air conditioning, and enable the side-curtain airbags and heated seats too, for an additional fee, all as software upgrades.
The issue here is the manufacturers are starting to realize just how much overhead they're spending making so many different models of products, and that it's cheaper to just manufacture one model, the best one, and then cripple it if you don't want to pay for the best.
You could damage it (don't want the run-flat bladdered tires? they'll just shank the bladders with an ice pick near the end of the assembly line) or by disabling it via software. It's only natural to expect buyers to look for ways to re-enable disabled features. And we've seen so many times how manufacturers like to think they still somehow can tell you how you are and aren't allowed to use the product you purchased from them. (they want to sell it to you, but not really sell, as in, it's your property to do with as you please) God I hate that.
I'm really quite surprised that by now we're not seeing manufacturers trying to license physical goods. So you buy a computer. But you didn't really buy it, you licensed the use and Dell still owns it and is just loaning it to you, and can legally tell you how you are and aren't allowed to use it. (or cancel your license for any reason at any time, and demand you return it)
But closer to back on topic, so what's the going wager on whether they'll play the ever-popular DMCA card (for circumventing a protection device) if these get hacked back to top specs? I'm betting near 100%.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Intel now sells Atom CPUs, with embedded FPGA. Xilinx, the top FPGA maker, offers ARM CPUs with embedded FPGA. Both CPU lines run Linux now.
FPGA is logic gates, the building blocks of CPUs (and other computing chips) that can be interconnected on demand to create different logic circuits - and therefore custom instructions. Logic implemented in FPGA on a CPU can be revised by over-the-network software upgrades. FPGA was typically used by chip designers to develop candidate designs to be burned into hardware, but has become cheap and fast enough to distribute as end-product "reconfigurable computing" devices.
Imagine your multimedia codecs configured directly into logic circuits on the CPU. They'd be really fast, and lower power than moving data across the CPU/RAM/bus boundaries. Upgrades by SW, just like now. Load/unload them as circuits on demand rather than as instruction codes in banks of RAM. Bring the network wires to FPGA pins on the CPU, and the data can route to codec processors on the chip for parallel operation. Of course these features apply to any "media" data, including business data in streams or large datasets.
Intel's move to SW upgrades of CPU microcode is creating the tech and business infrastructure for regular FPGA upgrades to these new hybrids. Soon enough the literally hardwired CPU logic might become the minority of the chip. Already FPGAs with embedded DSPs are like that, so a chip that's mostly FPGA with just some ALU and CLU circuits already optimized to close to their theoretical performance (in speed or power) are foreseeable.
--
make install -not war
Because it costs the same amount of money to make a fast chip or a slow one. But many people wont pay more than $xx for a cpu at a specific performance level.
This sort of thing has gone on in the electronics and computer business for 50 years. Back in the 60's and for several decades IBM offered a single printer that could print at three different speeds at three different monthly lease points. The only difference between them was a rubber belt. You'd ask for the upgrade, IBM would raise your lease fee, and a guy would show up to change the belt.
While some chips get binned lower due to inability to run at a certain speed or having a bad core, most are simply made to run slower at a lower price point.
What really is the alternative? Would you like the chip companies to have separate manufacturing process for each speed level, causing an overall increase in cost across the line? Just charge everyone the top cost and give them all the fastest chip?
I think its a cool thing that you can buy an inexpensive computer, pay a small fee, and have it go faster rather than buy a new computer. Why someone would work overtime to find an issue with this is preposterous...
Have you looked at the power-to-price curve of AMD and Intel? AMD beats Intel so thoroughly on the performance/price curve that I wonder why anyone bothers with Intel. The only part where Intel wins is the performance of high-end CPUs, but that's only because they pack more effective cores into one unit. Performance of single-threaded programs is roughly equal, so Intel can't claim an edge there as well.
You can care about performance of either single-threaded or multi-threaded programs. In the former case, AMD wins thanks to lower price, in the latter, it still wins as you can pile more CPUs and still get it cheaper. The only case when choosing Intel might be a rational choice is the sudden jump between prices of 1-CPU and 2-CPU systems if your needs are just above the top performance of best AMDs but below the point Intel would need two CPUs as well.
Intel's advertising tries to compare CPUs with different prices. To get a meaningful comparison, you need to compare performance with a fixed price or prices with a fixed performance.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
This has been going on for quite sometime in enterprise world, well sort of. Although not quite the same, Citrix's NetScaler box can be "upgraded" via license purchase. This usually increases throughput and the number of allowed SSL sessions. IBM also sells their P-series server in quite similar manner. They will ship the box with all sockets filled with processors, but only enable the ones that you purchase. If you require additional processors, you will have to pay IBM to enable more processor. In the end, you still get what your money worth. I never consider an overclockability as a feature, I treat it more like a bonus. And if Intel or AMD decides to stop giving bonus, that's fine for me
It usually suggests that competitive pressures on the seller, at least in that segment, are sufficiently low that they derive greater benefit from improved price discrimination than they do harm from making their prices less competitive. Given their fab prowess vs. AMD, it isn't totally surprising that Intel sees themselves doing better by voluntarily cutting the value of low end parts, rather than letting higher-end buyers get away with paying less.
(Secondarily, and specific to this particular instance, it probably doesn't hurt that consumer PCs frequently get crufted up and 'slow' over their lifetime and Joe User has no idea why. It's rarely the processor's fault, so what Intel is selling won't help them; but "make your computer faster!" is a well established product line, and Intel's offering won't technically be a lie...)
That is called binning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning
It is standard industry practice. Doing so saves *you* money because it gives customers the option to buy underperforming or semi-functional yields at a lower cost. It is good for the environment because it reduces manufacturing waste. Higher sellable yields improves profits for manufacturers and reduce costs for you. It is a win-win situation!
I think I'm going to pick up their new Bulldozer when it comes out. Intel makes great processors but these shenanigans have got to stop.
What shenanigans?
Except for the CPUs at the very top of their respective product lines, ALL processors are crippled. Compared to the i7, the i3 is just a permanently gimped chip. But its wasteful, both from a manufacturing perspective and from a user perspective, to make physically different chips. It's more efficient to make the low end chip upgradable through software. Fewer physical chip lines result in lower manufacturing costs which can then be passed on to the consumer or shareholder. It also results in lower upgrade costs for the end user, who doesn't have to actually pay for the shipping, delivery, and installation of a new chip. So this is a win-win. Except for people who think all software should be free and therefore feel ripped off at having to pay for additional functionality. I mean, any piece of software, even say Photoshop or Crysis2, is just "unlocking" the capability that your computer already in principle possesses. Why should you have to pay for that, amirite?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I think you don't understand what's going on. Intel is giving everyone more options. There's no way this can make you worse off. You probably don't realize that Intel doesn't make separate "1.8 GHz" and "2.0 GHz" chips. What they do is make many of the same chip, test each chip, and then set the clock frequency depending on how well each chip handles things. Now imagine many people would rather buy a 1.8GHz chip (it's cheaper and they don't need the extra speed), but the manufacturing process is good and makes mostly 2.0Ghz chips. Intel now has three choices:
Under the last scenario Intel is happier (they got the money of the people who want cheaper parts and got to charge a premium from the people who want faster parts). The consumers are also happier (they got the processor speed they want at the price they want). Why should the people who wanted 1.8GHz speed care that the part they got could in theory run at 2.0GHz? that's not the speed they wanted in the first place.
... to enable the features that you've paid for!"
Which features that were listed in the product spec when you bought the chip did you not get? I can see that as a problem along the lines of fraud. But specs that were not disclosed? You never paid for them. Since you picked that particular model, it seems you didn't even want them.
So you're saying that because I like to play games (besides tux racer and rogue clones) at a reasonable speed on reasonable hardware, and so I deserve to be targeted by criminals.
Stay classy, sir or madam.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I'm pretty sure that there is not as much variation in the speed of processors coming out of a fab plant as there is in the size of eggs that hens lay.
Having worked for a major chip company, I can tell you that your assumption here is incorrect. There really is that much variation in chips coming off the assembly line. In fact, I'd wager that the variation in chips coming off the fab is more varied than the size of chicken eggs.
It's the side effect of pushing higher and higher density within the chip. Modern equipment could probably push out extremely consistent 90nm designs. But 90nm chips were out of date 5 years ago. In order to be competitive, you have to push the most density out of the equipment you have. And that means that you get significant variation in your product, even within one wafer. The companies build in flexibility to the chip to allow for this variation. There are "fuses" built in to each chip specifically to disable the broken parts of the chip. If the L3 cache on a processor is totally hosed, they will blow the fuses for it and completely turn it off. But since the rest of the chip is fine they can still sell it, albeit at a discount. Even the maximum speed can be fused into the chip. The testing procedures ramp up voltage and clock frequency until the chip starts failing. Then they step it down a notch or two and fuse it there.
AMD has never produced a 45nm dual or triple core design. I'm not sure they even made one in 65nm. The x2 and x3 processors are just x4 (or x6?) chips with one or more dead cores and maybe less cache, depending on the specific chip. Intel does the exact same thing with their core series processors. That's just the way processor companies do business. It's been that way for decades.
FPGAs are too expensive and take too much power.
FPGAs are very transistor-inefficient and thus are very expensive and power hungry. To give you an example, programming an ARM Cortex A8 into an FPGA requires a multi-thousand dollar FPGA and takes double or triple digits of Watts of power. While a regular ASIC one costs less than $20 and takes a Watt or so. Also the FPGA one runs at perhaps 50MHz and the ASIC one runs at 1GHz.
Intel's reason for the FPGA is because they don't license their IP, the only way to integrate your logic with theirs without multiple chips is to use this. But that's a weak solution. With ARM you can license their IP and integrate it yourself in an ASIC, you'd be a fool to use an FPGA in a large-scale deployment, you're just throwing money away. In short-run deployments FPGAs make a ton of sense.
Use of FPGAs with DSPs is more common, programmable analog/digital logic can be very useful, like Cypress' PSOC (8051 based though, not ARM). I believe most cable/DSL modems use DSPs.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Intel has been doing that forever, from the 486SX, which just had a broken FPU
Some people here on Slashdot seem really upset about this software upgrade thing. But I was upset about the 487SX, and I still grimace when I think about it.
Before the 486, you had the 386 CPU chip, and the 387 FPU chip. A 386 motherboard would have a second socket for the FPU; probably the socket was empty when you bought a 386 system, but you could buy a 387 for a speed boost.
The 486 was the first Intel CPU with an integrated FPU. So, the 486SX was a way for Intel to sell a cheaper part, and to sell 486 chips whose FPU was defective. I get that. I'm cool with that.
The real 486 was called the "486DX". SX == no FPU, DX == FPU.
The 486SX and the 486DX were pin-compatible. If you wanted to upgrade a 486SX system, you could simply pull the 486SX out and pop in a 486DX.
But Intel tried to push a motherboard design where there were two sockets: the 486SX socket, and the 487SX socket. Instead of unplugging the 486SX and putting in a 486DX, you were supposed to leave the 486SX in place, and buy a 487SX, which was just a 486DX with an incompatible pinout (including one extra pin). You couldn't put a 487SX in a 486DX socket. When you put in a 487SX, the motherboard would disable the 486SX and it would just sit there, with the 487SX doing all the work, as it really was just a 486DX. (And an integrated FPU sharing cache with the rest of the CPU is better for performance.)
I found the whole 486SX/487SX thing to be breathtakingly obnoxious. It's one thing to provide multiple price points and find a way to sell CPUs with a defective FPU. It's quite another thing to engineer up a whole system that was cynically designed to lock up a perfectly good 486SX chip and trick a user into buying a special 487SX chip instead of just getting a 486 as an upgrade.
To make it even stupider, the 487SX cost more than a 486, because the 486 was being mass-produced. I found a Google Books scanned copy of InfoWorld that said the 487SX was 30% more expensive than an equivalent 486 chip! ($799 vs. $588 for a 25 MHz part) And a 25 MHz 486SX must have cost $258 because the cost of leaving the 486SX in place and adding a 487SX was $1057, vs. $588 for the 25 MHz 486DX plus having a spare 486SX you could sell or give away.
Nobody I knew ever bought a 487SX, and I don't think many companies even built computers with a 487SX socket. Even Intel can't push that kind of cynical "solution" and have wide success with it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Well maybe the employees that work for Intel can decide that if they're not getting wages that seem fair in proportion to what managers are getting, they can just move a little slower. No need to have different employees, they can just adjust their productivity to match the price. How efficient that would be. Management has already set a precedent, so they shouldn't have any ground to complain, right?
Burger stands could just use some slightly foul dressing to offer lower priced options without having to cook differently otherwise. I wonder if Intel is violating some prior art, like spit in the soup for customers that don't tip well?
If chips have a back-door to control one feature, what else is in there? Can they be really secure if they've got hidden controls or debug modes? People were upset when Intel was going to digitally serialize their chips. Whatever happened with that? Of course if chips can be uniquely upgraded it seems we know.
I hope Intel products get more serious competition. Also, the fuss about power consumption should be just for laptops. Feel the top of a recent iMac sometime. Hopefully Steve pressuring them will help. Did Intel ever come up with some answer to small geometry leakage currents besides lowering the voltage? Shutting down sections helped too, but a process that isn't prone to the problem is needed. The Core series was a huge leap from the Pentium 4, but it doesn't really seem like we've seen that much since considering how long it has been. It could be worse. At least CPUs aren't licensed by the year, waiting to expire after some freshness date. (the way it feels with Apple expiring old apps by omitting Rosetta in Lion)
Yup, back in the mid-80s I worked for a firm that wrote EPoS software for petrol filling stations (gas stations). There was a whole extra feature set that could be enabled simply by programming a special character (might just have been an "@" sign, I forget) into one of the programmable setup fields, and we charged quite a bit for it.
Our field-service engineers got so embarrassed at this (as did those of us in the software department with a conscience), that if time allowed they'd often open the box up and pretend to fiddle inside, maybe faking an EPROM change, to do it.
Eventually one or two site managers got wise, and the word spread as to what the secret was, and everyone was getting it for free, so we had to make it so it really WAS an EPROM change...