Pay $50 to Unlock More Cache and Hyp-Threading

Engadget. Intel is testing it on desktop cpu's, wonder if it would hit notebooks? What do you think?

 

It 's a way to add 50$ to the original cpu price
like at the supermarket when they decrease the size of the product without lowering the price

 

Its kinda cool but it's only a matter of time until it theres a way around it. Some amd boards unlock cores, perhaps new intel ones will unlock cache or ht.

 

Nooooooooo, DLC for Intel CPU's!
/hard_facepalm

Hope they at least keep this only for the low end hardware.
Its like selling you a ATI HD 5xxx or Nvidia Geforce 4xx, then tell you that you can "unlock" Dx 11 for 50$.

 

I don't think it will hit notebooks. More cache typically means more heat and while it doesn't matter much for desktops, it may cause problems with notebooks. To be honest, I'm not sure whether Intel will expand this program -- people tend to get upset when they find out that something they bought has been deliberately crippled.

 

Really? Cool? What are you smoking?? This is stupid. If the machine I BOUGHT with my hard earned cash came with deliberately disabled features that I found out about after the fact... My lawyer would be giving Intel a call very, very shortly after. Also, the way this sounds, it sounds like Intel didn't just come out with a press conference and announce this in big headlines to let everyone know they're getting ripped. They're slyly sneaking this by. And 50 bucks! Even Apple only charged $4.99 to enable N-WiFi. I am not a fan of this.

This makes me wonder just how exactly are the features disabled in the first place. A processor doesn't just have re-programmable firmware that will give it different abilities. It either has the abilities or it doesn't. It's up to the OEM whether the features will be utilized or not. So is this some kind of partnership with OEM's to cripple BIOS's even more?

 

Intel has been pulling stunts like this for years. They'll take a Core2 Duo CPU and disable half the L2 cache and market it as a "Pentium Dual-Core". Remember the Core Solos? Those were just Core Duos with one core disabled. They do all kinds of stuff like this -- their naming schemes are nothing but marketing hype.

Did you know that Microsoft uses Intel's compilers? "Wintel" is not just a pretty name. Sorry, AMD.

 

It does sound like good news, because I'm sure someone will find a way to "upgrade" for free

 

I meant that essentially downloading a hardware improvement as an idea is cool. And in reality Intel and Amd have been doing this for years as stated before. Amd Athlon II x4's are Phenom II's with a software limited cache. Celerons are Pentiums with the math coprocessor disabled. Hell, even Phenom x2's are just x4's with the cores disabled, but any unlocking has had to been through the Bios. However I will definitely laugh when the ability to pirate hardware is a reality.

 

Yes, but there are differences in that and what Intel is doing. First, they're shipping an item with perfectly workable features disabled. AMD disables cores because that MAY or may not work. Sometimes they can be activated and sometimes they can't. Intel usually disables cache because one or more parts are defective or aren't quality testing right. And number 2 is AMD doesn't charge to enable more cores. It's left up to the end user whether that extra core can be enabled or is usable with their board or BIOS revision. And 3rd is that Intel is charging for something that already should have been part of the initial purchase.

 

This isn't anything new for computer users, though. Microsoft does the same thing with Windows, along with countless other software companies. And besides that, most of the people who buy computers with low-end CPUs aren't even going to know what these features are and can do without them. At least they're only charging $50 in this case.

 

But the point is they're deliberately disabling features during manufacture so they can sell you a card to unlock the other features later. This is a new a frightful addition to the hardware market, I hope to God no one buys this. The community should replicate the functionality of the software and release a free version... this is just preying on the gullibility of consumers (the ones that think you can download more RAM etc).

 

Welcome to the free market. If it bothers you that much run to AMD.

It's got to be much cheaper for them to partially disable a product to create a new one than produce the second from scratch.

 

So long as it sticks to low-end CPUs, it's not a giant issue. In fact, I bet that what you're really afraid of is buying a quad core i7 and then having to pay extra to unlock two more cores. However, I'm sure Intel realizes these tactics only work on people who don't understand the implications and that enthusiasts will find ways to activate the features without paying. Besides, it's better than them just raising all of the prices $50 and adding nothing, right? It's not the end of the world, and it won't even sell all that well.

 

raising the prices of 50$ it's not the same because there are some constraints if you see some item 50$ more expensive you won't be so attracted by it. The market makes the rule
here they try to lure people by adding price later on expecting people won't notice

Mr and Mrs smith your son will be born with only one leg and no arms
if you want the others arms and leg you will have to pay 50$

At least, it's a good news for people who don't want to pay the whole price for a thing they don't need but for enthusiasts not very much

 

Yea. $50 bucks for a CPU that costs $90 +/-. This is just something else to tack onto the price of a new PC. They get people in stores like Best Buy with low prices on these PC's and when they get to the checkout they're going to be haggled into paying $50 bucks here and there just to get a decently workable machine that isn't crippled. And what happens if the end user isn't running Windows? Is this something that is OS independent? Consumers should be better informed about technology, and the WorstBuy squad don't help at all with this.

I'm already an AMD fan partially. AMD own's Intel in the Price-to-Performance ratio in the desktop space. Honestly I hope Intel gets bit by the media about this. Intel honestly needs to be taken down a belt size, and I'd love for it to be done by AMD. Intel is getting too cocky. If AMD can make a good competitive push for the notebook segment, and maybe the sub-notebook/CULV market, they'll be set.

 

Most consumers who use other OSes (barring Mac users, but they don't factor in here) are smart enough not to fall for this crap. As for the rest of what you said, welcome to America! You might as well be complaining about markups.

 

Well, I don't think you're looking at what this means broad term. If Intel can do this and "get away with it", this sets precedents for future actions that they think they're going to get away with also. If this goes over decently for Intel's bottom line, you have no idea how fast this idea will spread through the entire tech ecosystem. Like an earlier comment said, Nvidia will sell you a GPU with 1GB of onboard memory, but then lock out half of it, expecting the end user to pay to unlock more and more features. But then by your reasoning this would be ok, because half of the people that buy computers don't know what they're buying in the first place. While you're partially right, it's just morally and ethically wrong. Swindling people just because you know you can is wrong. But I honestly can't say I'm shocked to hear it coming out of Intel. IDK why?

This is a very dangerous thing Intel is pushing here. I hope more people see it as that. It also makes them look bad to the people who DO know better than to fall for that load of crap.

 

I don't see the difference between this and hardware locking.

This is just better for modders, save yourself $50.

It's just like flashing a GTX 470 vBIOS onto a 465 to get extra shaders:
Guide on how to unlock GeForce GTX 465 into GTX 470 - XtremeSystems Forums

If you bought a GTX 465, would you complain that it didn't have all of the shaders available?

 

No, they are disabling features so you can buy it at a lower price. If you want premium features you pay a premium price.

Do you also think MS sells Home Basic with disabled features so they can sell you an "anytime upgrade" later?

Think about it.

 

As far as I know the U5400 is the same CPU as a Core i3 330UM with HT disabled. I wonder when Intel is going to sell the code to unlock it.

I have no objections against these practices.

 

If you want to pay a lower price you choose a slower component.
Here they are finding a way to make people pay more while being limited by the market rules it's not the same thing

 

Ok. So I downloaded the Upgrade Client from Intel and dissected it. Here's some key points:

Basically it's using Intel Active Management technology. I really don't like this. It's one thing for Microsoft to charge to upgrade to different levels of software, but if you don't want Windows, you have no choice. By what I directly quoted, you MUST be running windows, and even worse is that the features can be taken away just as easy as they're granted. Suddenly Intel's purchase of a security software company is becoming clear. If they're going to have this much control over hardware remotely, then they're going to need some security. This also opens a whole new door for security issues and what they can cause.

 

Do you have a link, I can't find where to download?

EDIT: Found it

 

I'm not sure that they're finding a way to make people pay more, here, and we won't know unless we actually get a price structure. To take Phil's example above, assuming he's correct, the U5400 is an i3-330UM with HT disabled. Unfortunately, there are no listed prices for either (as they're both BGA parts intended solely for sale to OEMs), but let's assume that the U5400 is cheaper than the i3-330UM because of the disabled features (reasonable, but admittedly unprovable).

If this is the case, then you already are paying a lower price for a slower component, (the U5400 instead of an i3-330UM). If there is some way to convert the U5400 to an i3-330UM, then, depending on exactly how much the fee for conversion is, it may or may not be "making people pay more", especially given that in this case we are talking about BGA parts that are inherently unupgradable without ridiculous amounts of work (AKA you just about have to buy a new motherboard/notebook).

I won't speak as to the implications of remotely managed hardware and the disabling/enabling of features remotely presently, except to note that this sort of thing is already happening a lot with software, especially in games like MMORPGs. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is something that will take a while to shake out, I think.

 

Intel AMT is a firmware feature. When the upgrade client is initialized it calls on a referenced firmware. It calls on it up to three tries before timing out. Apparently the CPU's that CAN be upgraded will be placed with special firmware on new systems.

 

ok I explain
in an environnement where it exists strong pressures over the price due to the presence of substitutes goods (you will notice that here they are applying their technique to low end processors where there are strong competitors like AMD at the price level) they just can't increase the price here (cross-price elasticity of demand) what do you do then ? you find a way to increase the price without losing clients --> that's what they have done here

 

And while I realize this is desktop FOR THE MOMENT, they may spread this downstream to their lower priced notebook segment.

Here is the launch/reference chipset for the Pentium G6951. Intel states directly that this board actually changes it's chipset HARDWARE ID as a part of the upgrade. This is getting worse and worse the more I research it.

 

That would only be if they started shorting features and raising the price. Again, we have no price structure here for comparison, but if they sell something that is equivalent to the existing model for the same price, but also have an added possible price to upgrade it to something better, then they're not increasing the price at all. After all, you don't have to buy the upgrade. Going back to the previous example of U5400 and i3-330UM, let's assume that as presently configured, you can't upgrade a U5400 to an i3-330UM, even with this method. So, they start selling a U5400-B, which retails for the same price as the U5400, but now you can pay an additional price to upgrade it to an i3-330UM equivalent. In this case, the price is not increased for those that only want a U5400, it's only increased for those that want to upgrade to something that would effectively be an i3-330UM. So, if anything, what they're doing is making the U5400-B competitive in the i3-330UM market, and maybe stealing some of that share.

As I said, this will all come down to how they end up pricing things out. If they raise the prices "because the processor is now upgradable and thus you pay a premium for an upgradeable processor", then sure, you're right. However, if they don't, and keep prices about the same as to an equivalent processor (base level) processor (which IMO is more likely), then not so much.

 

and the 50$ ?
The pentium G6951 come after the pentium G6950 which cost 87$ and was launched in january 2010

 

From what little I can find quickly, the G6951 is basically the same as the G6950, with a faster/better GPU. No mention of price, but if it comes for basically the same price as the G6950, it'll basically be a straight drop-in replacement. The $50 apparently grants you an extra 1 MB L3 cache and enables Hyper-Threading (as per the Engadget article linked in the first post). Thus, the question seems to be... what's the (base) price on the G6951?

 

the G6950 came at launch for 87$ the immediate competitor was if i'm correct the athlon 2 x3 455 sold at 76$ for nearly the same perf (after overclock)
with a lower priced competitor it's hard to increase your price if your product hasn't any advantage like a better performance at the end

 

So say that the G6951 is identical to the G6950. The G6950 retails at newegg for $99.99. If you add in the $50 dollar upgrade cost for HT and more cache, then you'd be paying more money for an inferior product. The i3-530 is a 2.93GHz part which costs $114.99.

G6951 for $150

Or

i3-530 for $114

Swindling is swindling. And it's still wrong. Unless the price drops to below the i3-530, or is only available to OEM's then...

 

Since it's software, this will be reverse-engineered, and ultimately lead to people (at least enthusiasts) buying lower-priced and lower-performance parts knowing they can turn them into something better that would have cost them more to buy. Same thing that happens when you buy a $200 i7 knowing you can overclock it to the performance of the $500 one.

Whether it's technically legal or not, I have no moral qualms about Intel being beat at their own game, which is exactly what I see happening here.

 

I hope this policy won't go to sandy bridge

Good point syberia

 

Active Management Technology is already a part of all Intel vPro enabled notebooks, so technically this upgrade system could easily be made to work on them if desired.

 

Oh, granted, if you know upfront what you need. Or if you are computer-savvy enough to be able to buy a separate i3-530 and can change the CPU yourself and sell the G6950 for around $50, then you're basically breaking even/coming out ahead (apart from the theoretical costs of your labor). The "strength" of this method, if you can call it that, is that you can upgrade your CPU after the fact without going through the "hassle" of swapping it out. I think calling it "swindling" is a bit strong, though. It's not as if they're not being upfront about it, or selling you something it's not. I was also trying to expand it a bit beyond just these processors, though, to a more general case, especially as this happens to be a notebook forum.

I can see this as being much more useful in the case of something like, say, a BGA processor that you can't normally swap out.

 

yeah but here you're taking for granted that the price you pay is correct for the power you get
why do you have to pay 50$ to get the full power ? why you shouldn't have it at start?
If you don't want to use the full power then it's your choice

 

Well, yes, that's a natural assumption (the price you pay is correct for the price you get). After all, with AMD still competing in the same space, even the "base" version has to be at least reasonably competitive (leaving out the whole issue of fanboyism and those that buy off emotions and marketing). As for why shouldn't you have it at the start, that's almost like asking why doesn't everyone get a Sony Vaio Z instead of, say, an eee Seashell? Sure, it's several thousand dollars, but if you don't want to use the full power, then it's your choice! The reality of the situation is, for some people, $50 is $50 more than they want to spend at the time. Remember, we're talking desktop systems here, so a G6950/G6951 system will end up costing, what, $300 total (this is a WAG, I don't "do" desktops")? And my base assumption at this point is still that the base "locked" processor will come at a comparable price to the price it would be if it wasn't "unlockable". If it comes out to be more, then certainly, your argument would be much more valid, which is, again, why I say that we need a full pricing structure before we can be certain of anything.

Edit - I've been going through some of the comments on the engadget page, and some of them bring up a good point; by at least theoretically eliminating the need for making an entire chip line (the "new" G6951 could theoretically take the place of both the G6950 and the i3-530), Intel could possibly end up saving enough to bring the cost of the G6951 below the cost of the G6950. This assumes, of course, that they pass on the savings to the consumer, but that's more up to the company at that point. Again, pricing structure needed!

 

yeah but as explained in the article the main difference here compared to binning is that they limit the cpu not for technical reasons but for financial reasons
They could sell you an 100% speed cpu but here what they do is that they make you pay a little bit more than what the competition is offering (market pressure) for the same speed by limiting the cpu speed to what the competition is offering (G6950 vs athlon 2 X3 455) and then ask you 54.36$ to upgrade
(Those features were also disabled for the G9650 so it's not new except that now we know why they are disabling those features and it's not for technical reasons)
INTEL LICENSING Price List as of 13 Sep 2010

You're saying you prefer to have 1 chocolate bar for 5$ when you could have 2 bars for the price
I can sell you my stuff then

 

I don't see why the reasons for the limiting matter so much. In the end, the issue comes down to what you get for what you pay, does it not? It doesn't matter why you're limited to what you get. Heck, look at it this way. Let's say sports cars were limited to the same speeds as regular cars by more than law, because of some governor that was ridiculously difficult to remove. Then by following what Intel would seem to be doing, prices for those big, expensive sports cars would drop to something much closer to the price of a regular car, because, hey, now you're only paying a little bit more than what the competition is offering because the sports car is now limited to the same speed, and then you could pay some premium upgrade so that you could "unlock" and get current sports car level performance. I can't imagine that hundreds of teenage boys wouldn't be falling all over themselves to get in on that deal.

I don't understand your link, though, it seems too short on details to figure out exactly what they're selling. I don't quite get the chocolate bar comment either... if they're the same price, then how is it 2 for 1?

 

haha your example is the right one because this technique has been tested in order to limit the speed of the car but it has never worked because people couldn't accept it. Why should it be the case for the cpus then?

Would you buy a car which has a speed limited electronically to 60 miles an hour?

They are selling the upgrade here there are more infos but I couldn't show them here because they appear from the search
You're not the kind of guy who fight for the cause?

EDIT: l3.mgbly.upgd: upg level iii manageability: $87.69: none: inv-sw - lics: g6951cpuupgrd: upgrade for intel pentium g6951 processor: $51.36: none: inv-sw - lics

 

Depends on the cause. As was pointed out in the comments below the article, this sort of thing has been done for years, by companies like Apple, IBM, and numerous other manufacturers. People have been selling hardware that is limited to some extent, and by paying some sort of "upgrade" fee, you either download software or some guy comes out and installs a chip or swaps around a few jumpers and voila! Suddenly you have a lot more performance, or some added feature. Intel is merely the latest company to jump on that particular sales model. As I said, in the end, it'll come down to pricing. If prices go up because of this, I'll be happy to fight with you. If prices come down or stay about the same, I'll go with a big "meh" and move on. There's no real principle involved that I can see, so it comes down to "are you getting what you're paying for", and as long as there's actual competition, I don't see this getting too far out of hand.

 

I would.

Just like this intel stuff, that limit could be beat with some modding.

 

But as explained in the article before now they were giving some excuse like there are limiting factors that we can't currently overcome give us 3 months and we will deliver a more powerful chip to you. Now Intel doesn't bother with it anymore. If you want more power you pay

I hope it will be possible to mod

They are not increasing the price they are lowering the power
It's like reducing the size of the bottle of juice hoping than no one ever notice anything rather than increasing the price while keeping the same size of the bottle

I remind you that the pentium g6950 was locked as well so we already know at what price they are selling their stuff and the price should go up for the g9651 as stated here
http://www.hardware-specs.net/actua...nt-de-sortir-un-pentium-g6951-igp-booste.html

Anyway we could go on and on. I think we got the point from each other

 

Actually, those other companies never gave such an excuse. All of that hardware that they enabled was already there when you bought the product. Like these examples for Apple ( Apple to Unlock iPhone's/Touch's FM Radio, and iPod Touch Bluetooth Unlocked by OS 3.0, or Apple intentionally crippled Bluetooth in iPod touch 2G, wants $10 to unlock it! | ZDNet for an alternate take on it). IBM delivered many mainframe servers with multiple processors already installed; they would merely activate as many processors and servers as you paid for, and leave the rest installed, but not activated. Or if you wanted certain features, they'd enable those with certain jumpers. If later, you wanted to enable previously deactivated features and paid them, they'd send out a technician, and all that technician would do would be swap around a few jumper cables and voila! You have the "new" features that you just paid for.

Except that they're not lowering the power. The "basic" version of the G6951 is _more_ powerful than the G6950 (well, the integrated GPU is, the CPU portion actually seems to be about the same). And while I admittedly can't read french, I can't seem to find a mention of price in that link? Otherwise, yes, I think we understand where each other is coming from, the problem we both have right now is that there don't seem to be much in the way of hard numbers for real comparisons just yet.

 

actually yes

Apple is currently attempting to integrate the Mobile iTunes Store purchase functionality into the radio app using Song Tagging, thus delaying its release.

ipod touch :
we don't know the reason because the Ipod touch was released in september 2007 and that the article has been written in March 18, 2009. Between the two they could have encountered some problems or not. We don't know that. The main difference is that with Intel we know before the cpu is even released that because of financial considerations we won't get the full power of the cpu

Anyway you could find more than one screwer in other market because they probably hasn't invented this business model (wondering who was the first person on earth to screw someone else probably some monkey which decide to give only half a banana in exchange of a new partner) but it doesn't mean it is right to do that and it is definitively not the rule in the consumer cpu market

I was more talking about the G serie. The G6950 and the G6951 are both locked I wasn't talking between the two

regarding the price in the article
Le prix devrait légèrement augmenter.
which means: price should increase slightly (for the G6951 compared to the G6950)

 

Uh, they do this already. The only difference is that with this they are offering you the chance to get them back.

I just don't see what the big deal is. Disabling the power of CPU's has been going on since day 1! But now it is wrong if they allow you the chance to pay money to get back the features that were disabled? Who cares if it does not make financial sense for the buyer, they don't have to buy it. Intel is just adding something to what we already have, and not taking away anything from what we already have. We lose nothing by Intel doing this compared to the status quo. There is literally nothing to be upset about.

 

And it's a good business model for them because they can get more money from people who change their computer once every 4 or 5 years and from people who just don't know how to change a cpu

 

How does spending time to disable features save Intel money thus allowing them to sell it at a lower cost? It doesn't. They have to take more time to disable these features (which are all fully present and operational - or else they shouldn't be selling these upgrades). If they are indeed selling it at a lower cost, it just means they have a nice markup in the first place. Intel is just adding more value to the device by selling it for a slightly lower price than they should, and then charging for upgrades after the fact. So essentially, Intel goes out of its way to cripple processors... sounds like purely profit driven behavior to me (not that I have a problem with that - I just think Intel should learn its lesson and stop shooting itself in the foot).

As for people saying this is just capitalism/free-market... You're slightly right but if we weren't in a semi-free market we wouldn't have any other choices, the single corporation would have their way with us. Here is to hoping AMD's Zacate is good enough for my next small notebook.