Intel charge $50 to unlock extra hidden features of current CPU's

M

Matthew Kane

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 1, 2007
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I actually think it's a good idea. It's not like you're going to pay more and get less, you're still going to get what you pay for. The "good" part is lets say you're building a computer but can only afford a budget CPU to begin with, well with this program you can simply pay a fraction of the cost to unlock more cache, additional cores, or what have you instead of re-investing in a whole new processor.
 
RamonGTP said:
I actually think it's a good idea. It's not like you're going to pay more and get less, you're still going to get what you pay for. The "good" part is lets say you're building a computer but can only afford a budget CPU to begin with, well with this program you can simply pay a fraction of the cost to unlock more cache, additional cores, or what have you instead of re-investing in a whole new processor.
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That and you know it would only be a short amount of time before someone figures out a hack to unlock the extra performance for free.
 
It's a server only processesor and it's old news. Furthermore, it's a horrific idea. Can you imagine if Ford tried to sell cars with V6s but you had to pay extra if you wanted to use the last two cylinders?
 
vengence said:
It's a server only processesor and it's old news. Furthermore, it's a horrific idea. Can you imagine if Ford tried to sell cars with V6s but you had to pay extra if you wanted to use the last two cylinders?
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Unless you're building servers with their lowest end dual core consumer part then you are tragically misinformed.
 
eh, interesting concept but the fun will come in once you reformat your PC and then have the same issues as everyone has with problematic DRM implementations and 'limited' installs and possibly expiring codes. In other words, a challenge for a 3rd party solution to solve.
 
vengence said:
It's a server only processesor and it's old news. Furthermore, it's a horrific idea. Can you imagine if Ford tried to sell cars with V6s but you had to pay extra if you wanted to use the last two cylinders?
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Ford sells Mustang with a V6, they also sell a Mustang with a V8. Guess which one costs more? The one with the two extra cylinders. What's wrong with paying for a V6 then later on paying for only the difference to "unlock" two additional cylinders? Isn't it better to pay the 5-7k difference than it would be to go buy a 35k vehicle?
 
RamonGTP said:
Ford sells Mustang with a V6, they also sell a Mustang with a V8. Guess which one costs more? The one with the two extra cylinders. What's wrong with paying for a V6 then later on paying for only the difference to "unlock" two additional cylinders? Isn't it better to pay the 5-7k difference than it would be to go buy a 35k vehicle?
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/sigh.
 
RamonGTP said:
Ford sells Mustang with a V6, they also sell a Mustang with a V8. Guess which one costs more? The one with the two extra cylinders. What's wrong with paying for a V6 then later on paying for only the difference to "unlock" two additional cylinders? Isn't it better to pay the 5-7k difference than it would be to go buy a 35k vehicle?
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Except it's a V8 with two cylinders disabled by the on vehicle computer. You're paying for a V8... with V6 performance.

Considering this is for stupid retail lowend PCs, I don't really care. It's disturbing... but not really important to me.
 
jeremyshaw said:
Except it's a V8 with two cylinders disabled by the on vehicle computer. You're paying for a V8... with V6 performance.

Considering this is for stupid retail lowend PCs, I don't really care. It's disturbing... but not really important to me.
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Uh, but you're not paying the V8 prices guy. If you were, people would just buy the V8 to begin with. :rolleyes:

Same with the processor. Think about it. You're not paying for hte higher end processor, I mean, you know the prices right? They're listed right there on newegg are they not? If you saw a crappy processor for the same price as a higher end one you'd just get the higher end one to start would you not?

Soooooo, you're paying for exactly what you're getting (no different than what you're doing now) but you have the option of unlocking more performance for a fraction of the cost of a whole new CPU.

It makes perfect sense.
 
RamonGTP said:
Uh, but you're not paying the V8 prices guy. If you were, people would just buy the V8 to begin with. :rolleyes:

Same with the processor. Think about it. You're not paying for hte higher end processor, I mean, you know the prices right? They're listed right there on newegg are they not? If you saw a crappy processor for the same price as a higher end one you'd just get the higher end one to start would you not?

Soooooo, you're paying for exactly what you're getting (no different than what you're doing now) but you have the option of unlocking more performance for a fraction of the cost of a whole new CPU.

It makes perfect sense.
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You're looking at it form a price sense... without knowing where this CPU even is. It's an OEM CPU inside of a Gateway desktop.

Pricing will be stupid and often senseless, guarenteed.
 
I suppose the big question is if the unlock actually does anything with the cpu or if it is really just changing some bios settings....
 
jeremyshaw said:
You're looking at it form a price sense... without knowing where this CPU even is. It's an OEM CPU inside of a Gateway desktop.

Pricing will be stupid and often senseless, guarenteed.
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But it isn't gauranteed, not even close. Like I said, if priceing was "stupid and senseless" (especially if found in a gateway computer) no one is going to buy it. I don't understand why you fail to see this very simple concept. I highly doubt it's going to be like a game show where you have to pick what's behind door number 1, 2 or 3 without knowing what you're going to get. A MUCH more logical and probable gaurantee is that you will not only know the price, but the specs as well. You will have all the info you need to make an informed decision, and if the price doesn't make sense (senseless) you don't buy it and the product wouldn't even exist for very long becuase of that.
 
heh, AMD is locking the bulldozer, no oc'ing there either, so switching would be pointless
 
RamonGTP said:
But it isn't gauranteed, not even close. Like I said, if priceing was "stupid and senseless" (especially if found in a gateway computer) no one is going to buy it. I don't understand why you fail to see this very simple concept. I highly doubt it's going to be like a game show where you have to pick what's behind door number 1, 2 or 3 without knowing what you're going to get. A MUCH more logical and probable gaurantee is that you will not only know the price, but the specs as well. You will have all the info you need to make an informed decision, and if the price doesn't make sense (senseless) you don't buy it and the product wouldn't even exist for very long becuase of that.
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Yet, it still sells. You still fail to grasp the basic concept of stupidity. People will buy systems that are ridiculously overpriced. They'll buy worthless "installation services" that they don't need.

They'll pay some extreme amount to unlock a very low end OEM GPU inside a poorly priced system. You are arguing that it would be worth the price to do so. I'm simply stating it won't be worth the price.
 
It was only a matter of time before Intel started doing this sort of thing. IBM has been doing this for a long time now with their Power hardware, capacity on demand. You buy a machine with 32 cores and 64gb of RAM at a discounted price but only say 8 cores and 16gb of ram are licensed out of the gate, then you get activation codes for the extra cores and RAM as you need them.\

I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD do something like this too eventually.
 
jeremyshaw said:
Yet, it still sells. You still fail to grasp the basic concept of stupidity. People will buy systems that are ridiculously overpriced. They'll buy worthless "installation services" that they don't need.

They'll pay some extreme amount to unlock a very low end OEM GPU inside a poorly priced system. You are arguing that it would be worth the price to do so. I'm simply stating it won't be worth the price.
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Fuck the price, it's something Intel is saying you can do. If people have the money, they will do it. I'm not affected, you are most likely not affected by this, nor are many people in this thread.
 
jeremyshaw said:
Yet, it still sells. You still fail to grasp the basic concept of stupidity. People will buy systems that are ridiculously overpriced. They'll buy worthless "installation services" that they don't need.

They'll pay some extreme amount to unlock a very low end OEM GPU inside a poorly priced system. You are arguing that it would be worth the price to do so. I'm simply stating it won't be worth the price.
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Actually I'm arguing that you don't know what the price will be, and that your pricing prediction simply doesn't make sense. Yes, people buy over priced systems, but that's NOT what you said. You said you're paying for X but only getting Y and I'm saying there is NO WAY that's going to happen.

Essentially wha you said is that this idea is like paying for a i7, but only getting an i3 and there is ZERO chance of that happening beucase people would just buy the i7 to begin with. Now, what's more likely to happen is that this i3-ish processor will probably cost a little more than an i3 becuase it has the ability to be unlocked, and after you unlock it your total cost for the CPU may be a little bit more than an i7, but again, that isn't what you said.
 
I'm okay with this as long as the cost of the item isn't that much above similar items without an unlockable feature. In addition, if the costs for removing such limitations is cheaper than buying the same item with similar specs then it really is a no-brainer.

This way, you get what you pay for without the worry of throwing too much money away if and when one decides they want more.

This isn't a solution to all products but I could see it used in some products where consumers buy for incremental improvements that overtime costs the consumer tons of cash. Again, this works with technology or products that wont see a complete overhaul of their product line for a long time at any given point. Otherwise, that premium, if any, would be a waste because consumers would still have to buy a newer version of a product if they want to remain current.

As for not knowing what the future price of any said item would be, I'm hopeful that those costs at the time of any upgrade are considered when making that particular purchase.
 
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I don't like the idea of buying something and then having to pay more for a better and faster product. It should be included in the price already.
 
I think this is a great idea. Think of buying an i7 for the price of an i3, but it only runs at i3 speeds. A couple months down the road, I think "I wish this was faster", I pay a small fee and it is now an i5. Then I get into gaming a bit more and suddenly want more. I can pay another small fee and make it into an i7. Sure beats buying 3 processors. Sure, most people on [H] would just get the i7 right out of the gate, but this could be a great way for people to get into a system they can afford right now, and upgrade it over time without having do do ANY hardware changes. Believe it or not, MOST people don't know what the inside of a computer even looks like, let alone how to work on one.
 
bencorn said:
I think this is a great idea. Think of buying an i7 for the price of an i3, but it only runs at i3 speeds. A couple months down the road, I think "I wish this was faster", I pay a small fee and it is now an i5. Then I get into gaming a bit more and suddenly want more. I can pay another small fee and make it into an i7. Sure beats buying 3 processors. Sure, most people on [H] would just get the i7 right out of the gate, but this could be a great way for people to get into a system they can afford right now, and upgrade it over time without having do do ANY hardware changes. Believe it or not, MOST people don't know what the inside of a computer even looks like, let alone how to work on one.
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According to this post in the original thread, [post=1036235710]Intel retail edge states you must buy the card at the same time as you buy the computer[/post]. Thus making it no more effective than buying the more expensive computer to begin with.
 
vengence said:
It's a server only processesor and it's old news. Furthermore, it's a horrific idea. Can you imagine if Ford tried to sell cars with V6s but you had to pay extra if you wanted to use the last two cylinders?
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Considering upgrading to a V8 is never free, I don't see what would be so bad about that.
 
I think this idea is so stupid it's a good idea. If they implement it, someone's going to create a crack to circumvent the protection. In terms of legality it wouldn't be a whole lot different from jail-breaking a phone.

Free extreme edition processors for everyone! :)
 
RamonGTP said:
Actually I'm arguing that you don't know what the price will be, and that your pricing prediction simply doesn't make sense. Yes, people buy over priced systems, but that's NOT what you said. You said you're paying for X but only getting Y and I'm saying there is NO WAY that's going to happen.

Essentially wha you said is that this idea is like paying for a i7, but only getting an i3 and there is ZERO chance of that happening beucase people would just buy the i7 to begin with. Now, what's more likely to happen is that this i3-ish processor will probably cost a little more than an i3 becuase it has the ability to be unlocked, and after you unlock it your total cost for the CPU may be a little bit more than an i7, but again, that isn't what you said.
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Wow, talk about twisting words.
I've already stated the concept, and you somehow took it to explain it in a completely different sense. I bring price into the factor, since that is what you seemed to be working at, not what I stated out explaining. Now you say price isn't the big deal? Fine. Then what is? You're not going to unlock it later down the road. This is sort of like having a car salesman charging extra for leather seats, and the only difference is a velvet slipcover over it. Nickle and diming (if you pardon the phrase...:p), and not for any technical reason.

Anyhow, it's moot, since you apparently need to do the unlocking at time of purchase.
 
jeremyshaw said:
This is sort of like having a car salesman charging extra for leather seats, and the only difference is a velvet slipcover over it. Nickle and diming (if you pardon the phrase...:p), and not for any technical reason.
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I did hear of one vehicle where the "high capacity fuel tank" option involved simply removing a peice of plastic from inside the fuel tank.
 
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