What are intel offering here ?

I think nothing is physically changed; The frequency limits of the CPU are changed via software, so that it will run at higher clockspeed.

So, you pay a small amount of money and the cpu will "overclock" itself so that you still can keep your warranty.

Most of the low-end CPU's on market are like "factory-downclocked", they could run at much higher clock speed without any risks, so this is just "removal of the downclocking".
 
I know we had this discussion before in a purely hypothetical sense; interesting to see it come to fruition. Exactly as hkultala described, most of the 'low end' chips are simply castrated versions of higher grade parts. Opening up additional cache and clockspeed could be as simple as flipping a few bits in the processor microcode.

EDIT: Took me a few minutes to find the old thread, but I did indeed find it :)

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=58652
 
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Personally I can't even put in words how scummy this practice actually is. It's charging twice for the same thing, it should be banned for what it is - fraud.
 
Personally I can't even put in words how scummy this practice actually is. It's charging twice for the same thing, it should be banned for what it is - fraud.

ummm...no its not. You buy something, they give it to you. You pay extra for more performance, they give it to you. The fact that the extra performance was inherent in the product you purchased is irrelvant.

Its EXACTLY the same as buying software then paying more to activate extra functionality that was already in the software your purchased.

When I was buying my Volvo, the engine options were 185bhp engine, and a 205bhp engine. They are exactly the same engine, just one is crippled using the EMU. Having bought the 205BHP, I can now a couple of years later, take it back, give them £600, and in 10 minutes I'll have a 225BHP engine, via them switching something in the EMU, note not from a thrid party, but from Volvo themselves, still under warranty.
 
I think nothing is physically changed; The frequency limits of the CPU are changed via software, so that it will run at higher clockspeed.

So thats what it is. Nowhere on that page to intel describe what it is your buying

ummm...no its not. You buy something, they give it to you. You pay extra for more performance, they give it to you. The fact that the extra performance was inherent in the product you purchased is irrelvant.

So if I sold you a pc that I had purposely downclocked so at a later date I could sell you setting it back to stock speed as an upgrade, that would be fine with you. thats an interesting point of view you have
if I also partitioned the 2tb hdd into 2 1tb partitions and made one of them hidden would it be fine with you if at a later date I unhid the partition and sold you that as a hard drive upgrade ?
 
Davros said:
So if I sold you a pc that I had purposely downclocked so at a later date I could sell you setting it back to stock speed as an upgrade, that would be fine with you.
Here we go again, the army of the entitled strawmen.

It's a valid way of doing business. That doesn't mean I'd personally be fine with it.

Do you have a problem with the downclocked Volvo?
 
So if I sold you a pc that I had purposely downclocked so at a later date I could sell you setting it back to stock speed as an upgrade, that would be fine with you. thats an interesting point of view you have
if I also partitioned the 2tb hdd into 2 1tb partitions and made one of them hidden would it be fine with you if at a later date I unhid the partition and sold you that as a hard drive upgrade ?

Yes, as long as you made it clear you were selling a 1TB drive the first time. In fact, this would even be better as your customer wouldn't have to open the case or migrate data and still have double the storage capacity.

Imagine if we had this with videocards. Buy a Radeon 6990 for the price of a 6950 now and at anytime just pay something, flip a switch and instant double* performance.

That's how your internet connection works. When you upgrade your fibre from 50Mbit to 100Mbit they don't replace the cabling on your house.

As long as Intel doesn't advertise the upgraded performance when you're buying the original it's not a problem.
 
So thats what it is. Nowhere on that page to intel describe what it is your buying



So if I sold you a pc that I had purposely downclocked so at a later date I could sell you setting it back to stock speed as an upgrade, that would be fine with you. thats an interesting point of view you have
if I also partitioned the 2tb hdd into 2 1tb partitions and made one of them hidden would it be fine with you if at a later date I unhid the partition and sold you that as a hard drive upgrade ?

I am always happy to pay the stated amount for the stated product. Only some people with a rather funny way at looking at life would feel otherwise. If however I found later that I could have had the 2tb version for the same price, then I would feel it was poor research by me, but if the 2tb version isn't available from anywhere else for the price I paid for the 1tb, then where is the beef ?

Is it a scam when you buy 2-user software and pay $500 more to make it 5-user...all you are doing ultimately is changing a setting ?
What about adding another currency to your financial software, or another company, its only changing a few settings, but it costs many $1000s.
Or is it somehow intrinsically different because its hardware instead of software.

I bought a 205bhp volvo car, and they supplied a 205bhp volvo car, why wouldn't I be happy with that ? Should I jump up and down because 6 months later volvo started to offer a performance "enhancement" to 225bhp via an software change ?....its the identical engine.
 
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We really don't need to have this argument here again do we? This is done is so many industries by so many companies. It's a very common way to both streamline your product manufacturing and spread your costs over various models. It's a win for all.
 
I find it interesting that they can enable more cache with a software switch. Thought that stuff was fused off in the factory.
 
Intel is very vague, having read the page I have no idea how your supposed to acquire the update
do you purchase a cd or download, is it available to the public or to oem's.
Is it meant as a mid life upgrade or a pre sale upgrade.
How are they going to protect it, is intel's vpro involved if they can remotely disable a pc or erase a hdd they could use it to do a microcode update
 
I find it interesting that they can enable more cache with a software switch. Thought that stuff was fused off in the factory.

More advanced electronics have made it feasible to disable it via microcode rather than a physical "fuse". In purely hypothetical terms, there's very few limits to this.

You could disable any number of things in microcode without having to purposefully blow a fuse to hide it. Extra optional instruction sets such as AVX, AES, VT-X and maybe even QuickSync process. Then you could do other hardware-level things like Hyperthreading and various cache blocks, maybe even unlocking (or expanding) turbo capabilities along with core multiplier bumps.

My example in the old thread was to buy an i3-330m sort of chip for your current Windows 7 needs, and then later paying Intel to upgrade you to an i7-640m when you upgrade to Windows 8. You pick up hyperthreading, several extra clock steps, another 1Mb of cache and AES instructions while keeping the same 35W envelope as your original chip. In reality, the i3-330m and the i7-640m are the exact same die with those features turned off -- maybe you don't need that horsepower today when buying, but in a few years that extra ~40% bump (clock + hyperthreading + AES for maybe some disk encryption) might make a world of difference for your two year old laptop.

I think it's an entirely valid practice, and I think whoever mentioned the internet FIOS speed upgrades hit it directly on the head -- giving you more speed isn't always about replacing a physical device.
 
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