http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/
They'd better not do this with enthusiast Sandy Bridge parts.
They'd better not do this with enthusiast Sandy Bridge parts.
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Intel processor upgrade cards
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EricFX1984
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people will figure out how to unlock with out Intel's card... lol let them do it... fine by me
I think it's a BS way to make money though
from what I am looking at it is machine specific, which means it's just something in the bios
I think it's a BS way to make money though
from what I am looking at it is machine specific, which means it's just something in the bios
BababooeyHTJ
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Wow, that is just not cool.
Why the negative replies? They already downclock (bin) processors to meet demand for lower priced tiers. This just gives the average person a way to unlock performance without swapping processors. You can still do it now, it's just called overclocking, but it can take more work and some experience with hardware.
I agree, as long as existing overclocking options are not removed. In this case, this seems to be only for OEM systems which typically (with the exception of gamer-oriented systems like Dell XPS) have few or no overclocking options anyway.
jackofalltrades
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But if I pay for a 50 dollar card to use all the capabilities of a chip why not just pay 50 more for a better chip?
CaptNumbNutz
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I predict this concept won't last long. Not only is it a shitty idea, but I'm sure even average joe will figure a way around it quickly as soon as an intrepid programmer releases some sort of "fix" online. Just like every other piece of software meant to lock something down (especially DRM), someone will find a way around it.
I have no doubt it will be hacked soon, but what about grandma for example? (I'm lucky enough that my grandma doesn't have a computer and doesn't want one!)
She'd probably go into Best Buy and go ask the salesperson for help. Said salesperson would show her a $400 or $500 desktop and then upsell her. Extended warranty, processor upgrade, anti-virus, office software, etc. I can easily see computer illiterate people buying these things.
fattypants
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Stockholders: +1 (unless there is a huge negative fallout from consumers)
Consumers: -1 (unless there is a huge negative fallout from consumers)
Consumers: -1 (unless there is a huge negative fallout from consumers)
Unless you have an eternal desire for Intel's chip.
If you have no problem with the chip's missing features, buy it.
If you have problem with the chip's missing features, OK, then buy AMD's chip.
If you don't like missing features yet still desire Intel's chip, then maybe Intel thinks it is about time to pay.
If you don't like to pay, and don't like AMD, then don't use it.
If you don't like to pay, don't like to use AMD chips, yet cannot release yourself from the desires of Intel's new chips, hmm, then perhaps there's another issue to identify.
If you have no problem with the chip's missing features, buy it.
If you have problem with the chip's missing features, OK, then buy AMD's chip.
If you don't like missing features yet still desire Intel's chip, then maybe Intel thinks it is about time to pay.
If you don't like to pay, and don't like AMD, then don't use it.
If you don't like to pay, don't like to use AMD chips, yet cannot release yourself from the desires of Intel's new chips, hmm, then perhaps there's another issue to identify.
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Mr. Bluntman
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This is clearly for those people who fall for that "go to doublemyspeed dot com and double the speed of your pc" and crap.
D
Deleted member 176933
Guest
Well according to THIS page, you can only upgrade System XYZ sold by retailer 1, 2 or 3. I heard you can get System XYZ with Ubuntu installed from retailer 3, but then you lose the option to do the upgrade to use the hardware you bought. 
This seems like a April Fools joke gone wrong. Kinda like that stuff Google pulls every year - but less funny.
As long as it stays in the big box stores...whatever. I bet best buy will charge an installation fee. They will come to your house and scratch off the back of that card with a special penny for $100.
This seems like a April Fools joke gone wrong. Kinda like that stuff Google pulls every year - but less funny.
As long as it stays in the big box stores...whatever. I bet best buy will charge an installation fee. They will come to your house and scratch off the back of that card with a special penny for $100.
Astronomica
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When did Intel start taking marketing tips from Activision?
German Muscle
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this would be much more successful is done this way. Buy a chip, spend x amount of dollars to turn your 7, 8, or 9 series I5 or I7 into a xxxK model
Tex Arcana
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Cue hack in three... two... one...
I suppose there are many angles into this issue. In the end, I think it is ok. Reasons below
1. It establishes once and for all that if you are happy for what you already have, you have an Intel-branded dependable system you can rely on.
2. If you feel restricted with your current system, and you are very sure more CPU power can address your problem, Intel upgrade Cards offer you easiest upgrade option with minimal hassle. Concept is easy to understand and do.
3. You don't even need to open the casing for this to work. Clean-upgrade.
4. If you really prefer human-attention, bring your unit to the computer-shop, and they don't even need to open the casing. Consider the boom for clean desk, or quick upgrade service with minimal hassle.
5. Obviously a lot of people argue whether this upgrade means anything in real world. This is a valid inquiry and probably need some studies to verify.
6. Another thing that worth consideration is the stock-heat-sink. For example, say you have default Dual-Core 1.6GHz processor. After this processor upgrade program to 2C/4T 3.2GHz, can the stock heat-sink handle the additional heat issue?
7. It also can mean
7a. For $20, you get 2C/2T 2.4GHz
7b. For $40, you get 2C/4T 2.0GHz
7c. For $150, you get 2C/4T 3.2GHz everything unlock VT-X/VT-D,AVX,AES, free marketing brochure for loyal customer, maybe one lucky draw chance to win a vacation, maybe more...
Finally, this following the CRITICAL point, at least for me, no negative,
Intel provides a starting point for you. There's no pressure for you at any sales session, per the CPU choice.
1. If you like absolute minimum price, get the starter kit
2. After starter kit, you regret, no problem, buy processor upgrade card, scratch the key code, upgrade to whatever you are comfortable, done. This process is straight-forward, easy to understand, and implement.
3. If you believe you are technically more informed. OK, no problem, don't buy starter kit, buy the better Processor SKU, higher price but everything listed.
4. If you are after extra-ordinary things in life, OK, go for the Extreme-series or the K-series
And the following are positives you have not figured things in.
Just like everything in commercial life, after a while, the price could be dropped as well maybe if the retailers want to clear stock.
For the people who never upgrade for a long time (several years), but find a need much later, you do not need to search and do complicated procedure, just buy the option, scratch and key-in the code, finished whatever necessary steps. voila, you are done.
The above scenario is consideration for a lot of after leased corporate desktops cleared to the second-hand market.
1. It establishes once and for all that if you are happy for what you already have, you have an Intel-branded dependable system you can rely on.
2. If you feel restricted with your current system, and you are very sure more CPU power can address your problem, Intel upgrade Cards offer you easiest upgrade option with minimal hassle. Concept is easy to understand and do.
3. You don't even need to open the casing for this to work. Clean-upgrade.
4. If you really prefer human-attention, bring your unit to the computer-shop, and they don't even need to open the casing. Consider the boom for clean desk, or quick upgrade service with minimal hassle.
5. Obviously a lot of people argue whether this upgrade means anything in real world. This is a valid inquiry and probably need some studies to verify.
6. Another thing that worth consideration is the stock-heat-sink. For example, say you have default Dual-Core 1.6GHz processor. After this processor upgrade program to 2C/4T 3.2GHz, can the stock heat-sink handle the additional heat issue?
7. It also can mean
7a. For $20, you get 2C/2T 2.4GHz
7b. For $40, you get 2C/4T 2.0GHz
7c. For $150, you get 2C/4T 3.2GHz everything unlock VT-X/VT-D,AVX,AES, free marketing brochure for loyal customer, maybe one lucky draw chance to win a vacation, maybe more...
Finally, this following the CRITICAL point, at least for me, no negative,
Intel provides a starting point for you. There's no pressure for you at any sales session, per the CPU choice.
1. If you like absolute minimum price, get the starter kit
2. After starter kit, you regret, no problem, buy processor upgrade card, scratch the key code, upgrade to whatever you are comfortable, done. This process is straight-forward, easy to understand, and implement.
3. If you believe you are technically more informed. OK, no problem, don't buy starter kit, buy the better Processor SKU, higher price but everything listed.
4. If you are after extra-ordinary things in life, OK, go for the Extreme-series or the K-series
And the following are positives you have not figured things in.
Just like everything in commercial life, after a while, the price could be dropped as well maybe if the retailers want to clear stock.
For the people who never upgrade for a long time (several years), but find a need much later, you do not need to search and do complicated procedure, just buy the option, scratch and key-in the code, finished whatever necessary steps. voila, you are done.
The above scenario is consideration for a lot of after leased corporate desktops cleared to the second-hand market.
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Additional elaboration on previous point.
As Intel transitions generation after generation, the old stock will decrease until it completely runs out. At that time, even if you wanted to upgrade, you may not be able to find parts easily at reasonable cost. For explanation, just pretend this is the case.
Now, with this option, say 10-years later you still feel the urge to upgrade this particular machine's processor, well you do not need to go through the somewhat involved physical process of locating part and removal/installation. (I still think cleaning up the heat-sink fan is likely needed). All you need is to scratch the paint off the upgrade-card and perform the necessary steps)
By doing this, Intel does not need to keep old processor stock, yet can continue to offer upgrade for a lot of the old processors. Isn't this grand? I believe AMD, or many other expensive-ware vendors may consider such scheme pretty reasonable alternative, if they are able to pull it off.
Now, finally I have to say the logical thing. This seems like a new trial, so I am not sure who will benefit more down the road. I am not willing to make any claim on this new scheme. This addresses the "good/bad things to do" issue as I have made no judgement on that point. Vendors/customers will decide how this scheme works eventually.
As Intel transitions generation after generation, the old stock will decrease until it completely runs out. At that time, even if you wanted to upgrade, you may not be able to find parts easily at reasonable cost. For explanation, just pretend this is the case.
Now, with this option, say 10-years later you still feel the urge to upgrade this particular machine's processor, well you do not need to go through the somewhat involved physical process of locating part and removal/installation. (I still think cleaning up the heat-sink fan is likely needed). All you need is to scratch the paint off the upgrade-card and perform the necessary steps)
By doing this, Intel does not need to keep old processor stock, yet can continue to offer upgrade for a lot of the old processors. Isn't this grand? I believe AMD, or many other expensive-ware vendors may consider such scheme pretty reasonable alternative, if they are able to pull it off.
Now, finally I have to say the logical thing. This seems like a new trial, so I am not sure who will benefit more down the road. I am not willing to make any claim on this new scheme. This addresses the "good/bad things to do" issue as I have made no judgement on that point. Vendors/customers will decide how this scheme works eventually.
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If I read this correctly the upgrade is HT and L3 cache. I bet most people don't know what those are, but if we look at the benefits of those two features you'll get a computer that "feels" faster but in most tasks probably won't add much more than a few percent improvement.
Assuming Intel still carries/sells the particular upgrade card for the cpu from 10 years ago.
This is a prime example of why tech-enthusiast consumers are probably some of the absolute stupidest people in existence. Rather than getting an understanding of the product and what it does, they just assume that it's a way to scam dumb people and demand that it be removed from existence.
In actuality, this product being around harms nobody. It's a beneficial thing, and should stay around. But ignorant tech-junkies who seem to think they're smarter than the computer engineers who have been designing hardware for years, a feat most techies are absolutely nowhere near capable of accomplishing, even on a small scale, don't want this product around because they've contracted some ill-gotten pre-conceived notion that this product is bad. The majority of 'overclockers' out there don't know how a CPU actually works, yet they're convinced that they are too smart to benefit from a new solution on the market. They're hurting themselves by refusing to concede that the people making products are generally more knowledgeable about computing than they are.
This product is not going to prevent you from doing anything you can already do. It merely adds capabilities that most consumers simply cannot achieve currently. Most 'overclockers' are not capable of unlocking disabled cache and so-forth on their machines. This card allows you to do what you can't currently do. If you intend to bash the product, you should at least make sure you know what it's purpose is and what it does, instead of blindly following the other lemmings off of the side of a cliff.
I agree. People are either incapable of reading/thinking, or just plain ill-informed. This will have no effect on anything to anybody except for those who purchase the upgrade. You'll still be able to do anything you can already do without buying the upgrade card; the upgrade just allows you to do more.
This is exactly the point. Let's say you buy a mid-range chip initially, because you don't really have the budget for a higher end chip. Somewhere down the road, you may want to upgrade to a higher end chip. Rather than dropping the full price of the chip and buying yourself a whole new chip, you could get an upgrade card which causes the CPU to operate as if it were the higher end chip. This is a much more logical approach than buying a whole new piece of hardware, if it works.
AMD isn't any better. What this chip does is unlock features previously disabled by the manufacturer. Disabling features isn't anything new, and it isn't anything AMD doesn't do. The thing is, now Intel is giving users a way to re-enable these features via upgrade card.
More likely, the product isn't available and is still a rough idea, so they don't have any retailers or systems that this product is available at/for.
Why would you not want this available to you? Not purchasing it will not affect you in anyway. Things will be the same as they are now. Purchasing it will allow you to run better microcodes, essentially turning your current CPU into a higher model CPU.
Right. This isn't about screwing people over. This is about releasing a solution that is beneficial for both the consumer and the producer.
In actuality, this product being around harms nobody. It's a beneficial thing, and should stay around. But ignorant tech-junkies who seem to think they're smarter than the computer engineers who have been designing hardware for years, a feat most techies are absolutely nowhere near capable of accomplishing, even on a small scale, don't want this product around because they've contracted some ill-gotten pre-conceived notion that this product is bad. The majority of 'overclockers' out there don't know how a CPU actually works, yet they're convinced that they are too smart to benefit from a new solution on the market. They're hurting themselves by refusing to concede that the people making products are generally more knowledgeable about computing than they are.
This product is not going to prevent you from doing anything you can already do. It merely adds capabilities that most consumers simply cannot achieve currently. Most 'overclockers' are not capable of unlocking disabled cache and so-forth on their machines. This card allows you to do what you can't currently do. If you intend to bash the product, you should at least make sure you know what it's purpose is and what it does, instead of blindly following the other lemmings off of the side of a cliff.
I agree. People are either incapable of reading/thinking, or just plain ill-informed. This will have no effect on anything to anybody except for those who purchase the upgrade. You'll still be able to do anything you can already do without buying the upgrade card; the upgrade just allows you to do more.
...or what if they take a $100 chip, sell it to you for $50 with some stuff turned off and if you want it all, you can buy the $50 unlock. Gosh, that would be terrible wouldn't it.
This is exactly the point. Let's say you buy a mid-range chip initially, because you don't really have the budget for a higher end chip. Somewhere down the road, you may want to upgrade to a higher end chip. Rather than dropping the full price of the chip and buying yourself a whole new chip, you could get an upgrade card which causes the CPU to operate as if it were the higher end chip. This is a much more logical approach than buying a whole new piece of hardware, if it works.
AMD isn't any better. What this chip does is unlock features previously disabled by the manufacturer. Disabling features isn't anything new, and it isn't anything AMD doesn't do. The thing is, now Intel is giving users a way to re-enable these features via upgrade card.
Well according to THIS page, you can only upgrade System XYZ sold by retailer 1, 2 or 3. I heard you can get System XYZ with Ubuntu installed from retailer 3, but then you lose the option to do the upgrade to use the hardware you bought.
More likely, the product isn't available and is still a rough idea, so they don't have any retailers or systems that this product is available at/for.
Why would you not want this available to you? Not purchasing it will not affect you in anyway. Things will be the same as they are now. Purchasing it will allow you to run better microcodes, essentially turning your current CPU into a higher model CPU.
Right. This isn't about screwing people over. This is about releasing a solution that is beneficial for both the consumer and the producer.
Well before you go off calling people ignorant. Let's consider what this product actually does.
First off since the product appears to be machine specific, it's reasonable to believe that these upgrade cards remove restrictions on the BIOS and do not modify the chip in any way. It would be more cost efficient for Intel too. Furthermore as these cards are oriented towards your average consumer it would make sense that the process does not require a firmware flash or anything that is overly complicated or potentially problematic for grandma or people who don't even know how to enter or what BIOS is.
Since we have established that it is most likely a BIOS lock, it means the "upgrade" is simply a BIOS setting that is available in almost every standalone retail motherboard. The product engineers didn't dream of this idea. This most definitely came out of the accounting or marketing department.
No one even likes the idea of remotely getting scammed. This is what the beancoutners at Intel or the OEM is doing. It won't catch on. Who wants to willingly buy a hobbled computer? How does this benefit the consumer? All it does is create yet another pricing tier and thereby increases overall cost for the consumer to get the same level of performance previously.
Then again maybe there are people who like this sort of fleecing.
First off since the product appears to be machine specific, it's reasonable to believe that these upgrade cards remove restrictions on the BIOS and do not modify the chip in any way. It would be more cost efficient for Intel too. Furthermore as these cards are oriented towards your average consumer it would make sense that the process does not require a firmware flash or anything that is overly complicated or potentially problematic for grandma or people who don't even know how to enter or what BIOS is.
Since we have established that it is most likely a BIOS lock, it means the "upgrade" is simply a BIOS setting that is available in almost every standalone retail motherboard. The product engineers didn't dream of this idea. This most definitely came out of the accounting or marketing department.
No one even likes the idea of remotely getting scammed. This is what the beancoutners at Intel or the OEM is doing. It won't catch on. Who wants to willingly buy a hobbled computer? How does this benefit the consumer? All it does is create yet another pricing tier and thereby increases overall cost for the consumer to get the same level of performance previously.
Then again maybe there are people who like this sort of fleecing.
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Everybody that buys a Celeron based PC, that's who. It's nice that those people can pay for a Celeron today and upgrade to a "flagship" down the road if they need to do so. All the end user has to do is punch in a code, no tech service required.
I think I'm only one of the few who are completely OKwith this.
Any body who doesn't buy the highest tier CPUs is already buying hobbled computers. The hardware is the same, but the microcodes which operate the lower end chips simply reduce the clock rate and cache of lower end chips. Physically, the hardware on your low or mid range chip is not any different from that of the high end chip. This product, if what we know about it thus far is true, will simply unlock these features and allow us to upgrade our machines without replacing hardware.
I agree on a convenience level it would be a good idea. Nonetheless, the problem is you are ignoring the market tiers. They (the OEM) will not be selling it at the Celeron price, but at a higher price to begin with and the higher tier chip will also be introduced at a significantly increased price because of the tier.
AltTabbins
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I bought 6 cards. That should be enough to make my P4 into an i7.
It is different. The binning process differentiates different quality chips and a microcode is assigned based on that. (That still is an oversimplification.) They are assigned tiers. My point is the more tiers you have the higher the likelihood of overall cost for the consumer. It's market economics. Instead of Value/Mainstream/Performance at $X, $X+50, $X+100 you have Budget/Value/Mainstream/Performance at $X, $X+50, $X+100, $X+150.
Mainstream and performance users face higher cost if the model is widely implemented.
This does not necessarily create new tiers, though. This card isn't going to create weaker CPUs. If what I have read about the card is correct, it simply allows users who have purchased a lower tier CPU to unlock features on their CPU to move it into a higher tier through whatever mechanism the card uses.
It doesn't create new tiers, but simply allows users to move to a higher tier without physically replacing their hardware with more expensive hardware.
The features being enabled aren't cores, but HT and L3. You will hardly see a huge difference in everyday use and obviously this was all done as an afterthought on the part of Intel and the OEM. The difference won't be from Celeron to a Core i5. You won't be moving tiers, just creating an artificial one in the middle that convenience aside creates an extra price barrier for the consumer who more likely than not be getting the disabled chip for the same price they would have the normal one.
How is this different than what they already do? Look at the Xeon line. Example: the X3430 runs at 2.4Ghz and does not have HT, the X3440 runs at 2.53 and does have HT - but they are exactly identical when they (most most of the rest of the X34xx line) come off the fab. You pay for what they enable on the chip after they are tested, binned and finalized.
At least this way they are giving users a way to buy the next bin w/out having to open the box and change out the physical chip.
At least this way they are giving users a way to buy the next bin w/out having to open the box and change out the physical chip.
bore_u2_death
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Agreed 100%. People who bought those CPU's before the K series unlocked chips came out wont pay the full price of a processor to unlock the multiplier, but they would probably pay a small fee to unlock it on their old ones. Win-Win for everyone.
A more refined user-case study. I do agree this example gives very favorable impression for the producer, but consumer may benefit somewhat as well.
I learn elsewhere : disclaimer. I have no current financial interest in Intel.
Example (not real):
1. A very large enterprise/agency/ngo/whatever orders 1-million desktops.
2. X-years later, this organization wanted more processor power. They do not want to buy new desktop. The particular processor model is already decommissioned and out of stock at Intel. They have analysed their software needs and supplied Intel a database of machine configurations with demanded processor upgrade spec. Some more and some less.
3. They negotiate with Intel for 1-million Intel processor upgrade options.
4. After agreement/payment, Intel maybe update the software, add more identification and licensing verification, activate necessary morphing instruction, with the service delivered over the Internet. For added safety, maybe require manual human confirmation on each desktop.
5. Voila, instant 1-million processor upgrade. No physical casing/cpu removal/reinstallation/heatsink handling/thermal-paste required. If this is performed on authorized Intel-branded/support motherboard, Intel can even send the necessary BIOS update to prepare the machine before unlocking.
6. User could be pretty happy for such simplified large scale processor upgrade exercise.
7. Intel is equally happy for additional revenue without holding any old stock, just by making software and keeping the website/payment process operational.
Edit : As you look at the extend of physical work, it follows that the real-upgrade cost is going to be more than the x-percentile by Intel in normal case since a more involved project is listed here, the exercise could be very much higher if doing it the traditional ways.
extremely obvious is that the upgrade must be reasonable. 1C/1T 2.0GHz to 1C/2T 2.2GHz is really not much of an upgrade. However, 1C/1T 2.0GHz to 2C/4T 2.8GHz extra L3 could be quite beneficial if the pricing is right.
Very special user-case.
1. Assume this large enterprise have some unusual needs to now reconfigure the involved machines.
2. Some Upgrade as demanded --> easy to understand
3. Some sidegrade/force-downgrade --> this one seems like forced-logic unrealistic example. Maybe after X-years, the PSU has degraded to certain level, and you want the potential power demand to reduce so that machine can continue to function by alternating CPU spec, this could be interesting? I agree this sounds like forced-logic
I learn elsewhere : disclaimer. I have no current financial interest in Intel.
Example (not real):
1. A very large enterprise/agency/ngo/whatever orders 1-million desktops.
2. X-years later, this organization wanted more processor power. They do not want to buy new desktop. The particular processor model is already decommissioned and out of stock at Intel. They have analysed their software needs and supplied Intel a database of machine configurations with demanded processor upgrade spec. Some more and some less.
3. They negotiate with Intel for 1-million Intel processor upgrade options.
4. After agreement/payment, Intel maybe update the software, add more identification and licensing verification, activate necessary morphing instruction, with the service delivered over the Internet. For added safety, maybe require manual human confirmation on each desktop.
5. Voila, instant 1-million processor upgrade. No physical casing/cpu removal/reinstallation/heatsink handling/thermal-paste required. If this is performed on authorized Intel-branded/support motherboard, Intel can even send the necessary BIOS update to prepare the machine before unlocking.
6. User could be pretty happy for such simplified large scale processor upgrade exercise.
7. Intel is equally happy for additional revenue without holding any old stock, just by making software and keeping the website/payment process operational.
Edit : As you look at the extend of physical work, it follows that the real-upgrade cost is going to be more than the x-percentile by Intel in normal case since a more involved project is listed here, the exercise could be very much higher if doing it the traditional ways.
extremely obvious is that the upgrade must be reasonable. 1C/1T 2.0GHz to 1C/2T 2.2GHz is really not much of an upgrade. However, 1C/1T 2.0GHz to 2C/4T 2.8GHz extra L3 could be quite beneficial if the pricing is right.
Very special user-case.
1. Assume this large enterprise have some unusual needs to now reconfigure the involved machines.
2. Some Upgrade as demanded --> easy to understand
3. Some sidegrade/force-downgrade --> this one seems like forced-logic unrealistic example. Maybe after X-years, the PSU has degraded to certain level, and you want the potential power demand to reduce so that machine can continue to function by alternating CPU spec, this could be interesting? I agree this sounds like forced-logic
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The bottom line is that this means nothing to the enthusiast. Who cares what Intel does in regards to this.
What you people who think this is a good idea don't seem to get is that the "hobbled" CPU is the same exact CPU whether or not the "upgrade card" is used.
It is a stupid BIOS lock of certain features.
It is a stupid way for the OEMs and Intel to get more money from comsumers who don't know any better.
Intel and the OEMs have no guarantee whatsoever that any of theses systems will ever have a "CPU upgrade card" bought for them. So what is the point of locking out the features that are already there onthe CPU? So why not just have the systems not have the BIOS lockouts? Itel has already sold the CPUs and the OEMs have already paid for the CPUs, and the consumers have already purchased the CPUs from the OEMs.
And from a BIOS hacking standpoint, it will probably be very simple to hack the settings to unlock the "CPU upgrade" without having to use the stupid "upgrade card code".
If Intel continues this I will not be buying any more stuff from them, and will recommend against it to everyone as well.
It is a stupid BIOS lock of certain features.
It is a stupid way for the OEMs and Intel to get more money from comsumers who don't know any better.
Intel and the OEMs have no guarantee whatsoever that any of theses systems will ever have a "CPU upgrade card" bought for them. So what is the point of locking out the features that are already there onthe CPU? So why not just have the systems not have the BIOS lockouts? Itel has already sold the CPUs and the OEMs have already paid for the CPUs, and the consumers have already purchased the CPUs from the OEMs.
And from a BIOS hacking standpoint, it will probably be very simple to hack the settings to unlock the "CPU upgrade" without having to use the stupid "upgrade card code".
If Intel continues this I will not be buying any more stuff from them, and will recommend against it to everyone as well.
drescherjm
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Both AMD and Intel intentionally disable working features on processors to have many different models at different prices. They have been doing that for many years. How is this practice any different? At least with this method the consumer will be able to undo the disabling at some time.