Micro Transaction Drama in the Hardware World

[AZgreentea]

It seems that Intel is getting into the drama business.

http://www.webforefront.com/archives..._offering.html

That isnt the article I read, but the one I did isnt available online yet. Basically Intel tested a pilot program where you can buy a computer from someplace like Best Buy. Then when you check out, you can purchase a key to unlock features in the CPU like a larger L3 cache.

Needless to say, all of the drama that happened when Turbine went F2P happened all over again with Intel (or Greedtel, as they were nicknamed). Intel insists its test was successful, and is considering making it the new method of selling its CPU's.

I'm an AMD fanboi, just for the record.

[English_Warrior]

You've got to wonder how long it will take for 3rd party programs or detailed hardware tweaks to hit the net so that your average joe can just unlock his CPU for free.

[AZgreentea]

You've got to wonder how long it will take for 3rd party programs or detailed hardware tweaks to hit the net so that your average joe can just unlock his CPU for free.

If you want to be really technical, that already exists. For example, AMD's three core CPU were actually quad core CPU's with a failed core. They simply locked down the failed component and sold you the chip.

Intel has done this in the past. Many of its middle tier CPU's over the years that overclocked fantastically were found by the enthusiast community to be scaled down versions of the better chips.

I get what you are saying though. Given the anger over this, I would imagine that some of the worlds best hackers will be trying their hands at it. It will probably be as common as being able to use a Crackintosh.

[Angelus_dead]

It seems that Intel is getting into the drama business.

They were doing similar things 20 years ago. Back then their CPU was called the 486, and there was a cheaper 486sx with missing features. The 486sx was actually built by taking a perfectly good 486 and damaging part of it, so it took them more effort to build the worse version. But having a cheaper line allowed them to charge more for the good ones.

This illustrates that computer chip design has been an intellectual property business for a while: although fab is a crucial part of it, much of what consumers are buying is essentially a computer program, subject to the same arbitrary pricing as any software.