Intel Wants $50 for Software Unlock of CPU Features

[[Ion]]

Next up? A program to unlock hyperthreading on Lynnfield i5s? Would be interested in that

 

[Wile E]

Its $50, or at least that is what Best Buy was selling them for. And if you look at it compared to what the $50 gets you up front, it is a rip-off. Basically it is unlocking to an i3-520(if it existsed) since the clock speed would be 2.8GHz. But for only $15 more up front, you could just go with an i3-540.

But if you look at the cost for the average consumer to upgrade their processor, someone that isn't going to be doing it themselves, it makes sense. Because Geek Squad charges ~$50 just to open the machine up and swap the processor on top of the cost of the new processor.

See, I think that pricing is a bit high, so it does kinda fall into ripoff territory to me.

 

[newtekie1]

See, I think that pricing is a bit high, so it does kinda fall into ripoff territory to me.

I thought so at first too, but once I started looking at the cost for a normal consumer to have a CPU upgraded in a PC, I don't think it really is. Maybe a little on the high side, but not a rip-off.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Intel need to integrate this upgrade into STEAM. New game download incl. CPU upgrade. Nice.

 

[qubit]

Consensus =/= truth or fact.

How is it a ripoff? If the cpu costs $100 up front, and later down the road, you pay $25 and you get the performance of a $120 cpu, that sounds like a good deal to me, especially if you can't afford the $120 cpu up front. You paid $5 for the convenience of not having to sell your cpu and buy a new one. That sounds like the exact opposite of a ripoff to me.

I thought you'd make the consensus/truth argument. However, this thing is new and hasn't taken over the market at this point, so all we have are a few facts and lots and lots of opinion extrapolating this up further. And makes for a great thread, no?

NT's first response described a good scenario where Intel can price gouge this one and I'm 100% sure they will, for all its worth.

Anyway for me, it's not just about the price: it just feels wrong. Basically, Intel is holding the processor that you paid for to ransom for more money, which doesn't seem right to me.

I think also that it could lead to stagnation in new hardware with genuine performance improvements held back by this. You can just see Intel and AMD "competing" in the marketplace by incrementally enabling more performance in their current chips until they are fully unlocked and only then making new designs. Sounds like it would stifle real competition and innovation, doesn't it?

Nah, it's one thing to speed bin chips and permanently disable parts of them to make useable lower grades and quite another to intentionally cripple them for more money. Think about it, using Intel's new strategy, what happens to the slightly defective chips that could have lived life as a lower grade CPU with less cache or something? They would get discarded and we all end up paying higher prices so that Intel can make a profit in only selling fully functional, but "locked" CPUs.

And finally, as I suggested before, there have been lots of angles discussed on this thread and I think it's well worth reading them and not just taking the narrow view of price into consideration.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

If you pay $50 to upgrade your cpu to the capability of a cpu that cost $50 more than you paid you for yours then I'm sort of okay with that. Where this bugs me is if you need to keep the card in all the time, wasting a slot.

 

[qubit]

If you pay $50 to upgrade your cpu to the capability of a cpu that cost $50 more than you paid you for yours then I'm sort of okay with that. Where this bugs me is if you need to keep the card in all the time, wasting a slot.

What card? This is a one-time unlock.

 

[Wile E]

I thought you'd make the consensus/truth argument. However, this thing is new and hasn't taken over the market at this point, so all we have are a few facts and lots and lots of opinion extrapolating this up further. And makes for a great thread, no?

NT's first response described a good scenario where Intel can price gouge this one and I'm 100% sure they will, for all its worth.

Anyway for me, it's not just about the price: it just feels wrong. Basically, Intel is holding the processor that you paid for to ransom for more money, which doesn't seem right to me.

I think also that it could lead to stagnation in new hardware with genuine performance improvements held back by this. You can just see Intel and AMD "competing" in the marketplace by incrementally enabling more performance in their current chips until they are fully unlocked and only then making new designs. Sounds like it would stifle real competition and innovation, doesn't it?

Nah, it's one thing to speed bin chips and permanently disable parts of them to make useable lower grades and quite another to intentionally cripple them for more money. Think about it, using Intel's new strategy, what happens to the slightly defective chips that could have lived life as a lower grade CPU with less cache or something? They would get discarded and we all end up paying higher prices so that Intel can make a profit in only selling fully functional, but "locked" CPUs.

And finally, as I suggested before, there have been lots of angles discussed on this thread and I think it's well worth reading them and not just taking the narrow view of price into consideration.

Except, as has been pointed out time and time again, binning is not the only time they disable parts of chips. They disable parts of chips just to meat market demand most of the time. This will not stifle innovation at all. They still develop the highest speed parts first, then take all the lower speed parts from it.

They haven't changed anything at all, they have always intentionally crippled parts. Both AMD and Intel (and IBM, and nVidia, and ATI, and Matrox, etc., etc.) have done this from day one. Everybody seems to be missing this point. That point completely nullifies the anti-crippling argument. The only difference here is, Intel now gives the customer the choice to unlock, if they see fit.

If you don't unlock it, you still paid the proper price for the performance level of the chip. You got exactly what you paid for. You have not been ripped off in any way, shape or form. They are not obligated to give you a better performing part for less money.

All that said, I think the unlock costs too much for the performance boost.

And price and value are the only arguments that have had any merit in this thread.

 

[qubit]

Except, as has been pointed out time and time again, binning is not the only time they disable parts of chips. They disable parts of chips just to meat market demand most of the time. This will not stifle innovation at all. They still develop the highest speed parts first, then take all the lower speed parts from it.

They haven't changed anything at all, they have always intentionally crippled parts. Both AMD and Intel (and IBM, and nVidia, and ATI, and Matrox, etc., etc.) have done this from day one. Everybody seems to be missing this point. That point completely nullifies the anti-crippling argument. The only difference here is, Intel now gives the customer the choice to unlock, if they see fit.

If you don't unlock it, you still paid the proper price for the performance level of the chip. You got exactly what you paid for. You have not been ripped off in any way, shape or form. They are not obligated to give you a better performing part for less money.

All that said, I think the unlock costs too much for the performance boost.

And price and value are the only arguments that have had any merit in this thread.

Exactly, the bit in bold is what we're protesting about! Disabling bits and flogging them back to you seems inherently wrong to me. However, disabling bits and then you find an unofficial unlock that may or may not work is fine.

Ultimately, I think this new practice is a bit of a grey area and there are lots of valid angles, including yours.

 

[newtekie1]

Basically, Intel is holding the processor that you paid for to ransom for more money, which doesn't seem right to me.

Not really, because you didn't pay for it. You paid for a G6951, and that is what you get. They aren't holding anything you've paid for away from you.

I think also that it could lead to stagnation in new hardware with genuine performance improvements held back by this. You can just see Intel and AMD "competing" in the marketplace by incrementally enabling more performance in their current chips until they are fully unlocked and only then making new designs. Sounds like it would stifle real competition and innovation, doesn't it?

They already do this. They release lower clocked chips at first, then just up the multipliers as time goes on to release "new" skus to keep the market moving while they develope truly new tech.

Nah, it's one thing to speed bin chips and permanently disable parts of them to make useable lower grades and quite another to intentionally cripple them for more money.

You assume they are crippling chips that wouldn't normally be crippled anyway. As I said, the most likely senario is that they are rebinning G6950 chips, and any that pass the L3 test get labelled G6951 and can be unlocked by the customer if they wish. So if they didn't give the option to unlock the chips, these chips would most likely have been crippled permanantly anyway simply because they didn't bin well in their first binning.

 

[qubit]

@NT: None of your arguments are unreasonable, but it just doesn't feel right to me and a lot of others.

As I said to Wile E, this is a grey area and I think the best decider of whether this is good or bad, will be if it takes off and we see the actual results of this marketing strategy.