09-18-2010, 06:47 PM | #1 |
He's Here
Posts: 60,735
|
Want to upgrade your CPU? There's now DLC for that...
From Engadget:
Hold onto your hyperthreaded horses, because this is liable to whip up an angry mob -- Intel's asking customers to pay extra if they want the full power of their store-bought silicon. An eagle-eyed Engadget reader was surfing the Best Buy shelves when he noticed this $50 card -- and sure enough, Intel websites confirm -- that lets you download software to unlock extra threads and cache on the new Pentium G6951 processor. Hardware.info got their hands on an early sample of the chip and discovered it's actually a full 1MB of L3 cache that's enabled plus HyperThreading support, which translates to a modest but noticeable upgrade. This isn't exactly an unprecedented move, as chip companies routinely sell hardware-locked chips all the time in a process known as binning, but there they have a simpler excuse -- binned chips are typically sold with cores or cache locked because that part of their silicon turned out defective after printing. This new idea is more akin to video games that let you "download" extra weapons and features, when those features were on the disc all along. Still, it's an intriguing business model, and before you unleash your rage in comments, you should know that Intel's just testing it out on this low-end processor in a few select markets for now. -- That's fucking ridiculous. |
09-18-2010, 08:17 PM | #2 |
Hazardous to Your Health
Posts: 21,730
|
This is so ridiculous, I am not sure whether to insult the whole notion or go buy one for myself.
|
09-19-2010, 01:50 AM | #3 |
BAY BAY
Posts: 36,524
|
Hacked in 5...4...
|
09-19-2010, 02:23 AM | #4 |
Mad
Posts: 26,227
|
This is great fucking news. Cheap CPUs that overclock even further. Awesome.
|
09-19-2010, 08:58 AM | #5 |
▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬
Posts: 16,011
|
AMD already has a bunch of those. I got a dual core chip for $35 and unlocked it to a quad core. But that is beside the point. If Intel locked these chips because of a defect then they shouldn't be trying to make money off of it. If they take good chips and lock it on purpose then that could be something although I'm pretty sure the software would be cracked or someone could engineer another program once they figure out how it works.
|