AfterDawn: News

Intel to charge $50 to fully unlock their CPUs

Intel has begun testing a new way to fleece consumers of their money, selling "upgrade cards" that will allow buyers to fully unlock CPUs they have just purchased.

The first CPU added to the program is the cheap Pentium G6951 processor, which for an $50 upgrade card, can be unlocked to a full 1MB of L3 cache and HyperThreading support.



Each of those features are on the chip from the get-go, but stay hidden unless you buy the upgrade codes.

Once you purchase the upgrade code, you head to Intel's site, enter the code and run some software to unlock the full features.

Intel says it is currently only "testing this upgrade mechanism at the budget end of the market in selected markets."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Sep 2010 23:20

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• 24 comments

• ROMaster2

  Noted not to buy one of those.

  19.9.2010 23:29 #1

• KillerBug

  Yup...it is a scam, but it won't last...I predict a code generator within a week of the first sales.

  19.9.2010 23:57 #2

• DXR88

  What i see is a free upgrade, from an already cheap processor. What are they gonna do if we unlock unlegit, sue us.
  

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  20.9.2010 00:56 #3

• Frogfart

  Music to AMD. I will never buy into this. Intel have just shit in the nest.

  20.9.2010 03:59 #4

• Zealousi

  when will developers get it, it is like putting a bike chain on your bike in a bad area. If you leave that bike for too long it won't be there when you come back.
  
  Same deal when you take a vital computer part and screw with the consumer not only would the consumer break it open, a hammer will be taken to it. If the community can break Millions of dollars of research of protection like consoles, operating systems and leading software like Adobe, Mayar, every PC, Xbox, Wii, PSP, DS, Gamecube, gameboy, n64, omega, DVD, iPhone and blue-ray the list just goes on and on and on. i am sure this will be pawned with a generator like KB said, just give it time.
  

  20.9.2010 05:00 #5

• wiimatrix

  Originally posted by Frogfart: Music to AMD. I will never buy into this. Intel have just shit in the nest. Yes,goodnight Intel,never again.

  20.9.2010 05:00 #6

• Tristan_2

  When I originally saw this from Boing Boing my first reaction was WTFH. When it comes to this it makes you wonder,how many other CPUs are disabled
  

  20.9.2010 06:13 #7

• Mysttic

  Quote:When I originally saw this from Boing Boing my first reaction was WTFH. When it comes to this it makes you wonder,how many other CPUs are disabled A lot more than you would think....

  20.9.2010 06:25 #8

• plazma247

  Sounds like time for more Custom bios builds and/or the return of the pencil trick ?? :)

  20.9.2010 07:29 #9

• biglo30

  They shouldn't be locked in the first place, its our money.
  

  20.9.2010 10:07 #10

• ZippyDSM

  eerrr....wut? this will be so easily hacked.....
  
  How about you sell those 1K plus CPUs for 250$ or less that will make you some money right there!
  

  Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy!
  Ah modern gaming its like modern film only the watering down of fiction and characters is replaced with shallow and watered down mechanics, gimmicks and shiny-er "people".
  http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/

  20.9.2010 14:07 #11

• Clownzill

  Originally posted by biglo30: They shouldn't be locked in the first place, its our money. It's not your money after you give it to Intel. Don't give people money after they kick you in the groin.
  

  20.9.2010 16:42 #12

• DXR88

  all processor under the highest end are just locked counterparts due to 2 reasons.
  
  1) the cores or the L3 cache failed to meet Standards and strenuous testing.
  
  2) there mid and lower ranges are in short supply, so they take a perfectly good High End processor and they cut its feature set to match there low supply.
  
  this isn't new its been done since the Pentium 2 days. a Celeron is a Failed P4. intel has sold people faulty chips for years yet nobody complained.
  

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  20.9.2010 17:00 #13

• Zealousi

  Originally posted by DXR88:
  this isn't new its been done since the Pentium 2 days. a Celeron is a Failed P4. intel has sold people faulty chips for years yet nobody complained. hahahahahaah fuck intel lol
  
  in a way i think we enjoy fixing the issues tho
  

  20.9.2010 17:56 #14

• jerred121

  Say hello to getting better CPUS for probably half price! like others said on here, this is going to be cracked before it even hits shelves. Since it's only in the early phases, Intel could wise up and not go through with it. But that's not likely - 12 year olds will be making youtube guides on this in no time.
  

  PSP-modded, ps2 fat-modded w/fliptop and swap magic, PS3-I wish was modded, DS Lite w/ Acekard 2i, Xbox 360 - JTAGed with no dvd-rom
  

  20.9.2010 19:23 #15

• xnonsuchx

  Originally posted by Tristan_2: When I originally saw this from Boing Boing my first reaction was WTFH. When it comes to this it makes you wonder,how many other CPUs are disabled
  Actually, LOTS of CPUs are 'stepped down' from what they can do. Often, different CPUs come from the same manufacturing batches and some are sold as lower end ones either because of not passing tolerance testing or just because they need more of the lower end part # or just to improve yields. That's why some CPUs can be overclocked up to 50% while others can only handle 10% or so.

  20.9.2010 19:49 #16

• mike.m

  Is this a joke? I can see this coming from companies like Apple or even Microsoft, but Intel???

  20.9.2010 22:26 #17

• KillerBug

  By Intel standards, this seems downright harmless. Yeah...some people will be dumb enough to buy the upgrade cards, but what do I care? This could actually be good for those who know what they are doing. Overclocking, extra core/cache unlocking, and other such actions can be so haphazard and unreliable. It would be nice if the bottom-end CPU was a high-end processor, and all you had to do to convert an i5 into an i7 was to run a small "crack" application. Who knows...mainboard makers may even start offering "Override" functions that automatically turn on any of the unlocked features when they are detected as existing.

  20.9.2010 22:49 #18

• NHS2008

  Yep..I've Phenom 2 X2 550 BE.. It has two disabled cores..I can very well unlock them from BIOS and then it becomes a quadcore!! massive improvement in perdormance!! but sadly it overheats on stock cooling so I've kept it as is..

  21.9.2010 04:21 #19

• i1der

  Never used intel on my computers, over priced and fanboy of AMD...
  Back on topic, do they extend the warranty when they sell these?
  If you fried ur cpu after this "upgrade" will they reimburse u for both?
  

  
  
  *̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ *̡͌l̡

  21.9.2010 12:46 #20

• Jemborg

  Originally posted by NHS2008: Yep..I've Phenom 2 X2 550 BE.. It has two disabled cores..I can very well unlock them from BIOS and then it becomes a quadcore!! massive improvement in perdormance!! but sadly it overheats on stock cooling so I've kept it as is.. A really nice cooler is so cheap nowadays. I scored a Noctua U12P-SE2 for $86 AUS the other day for a friend.
  
  
  Originally posted by xnonsuchx: Originally posted by Tristan_2: When I originally saw this from Boing Boing my first reaction was WTFH. When it comes to this it makes you wonder,how many other CPUs are disabled
  Actually, LOTS of CPUs are 'stepped down' from what they can do. Often, different CPUs come from the same manufacturing batches and some are sold as lower end ones either because of not passing tolerance testing or just because they need more of the lower end part # or just to improve yields. That's why some CPUs can be overclocked up to 50% while others can only handle 10% or so. Apparently the same goes for RAM. I'm really curious to know what CPUs have been knobbled too.
  

  Its a lot easier being righteous than right.
  
  
  

  23.9.2010 10:09 #21

• Mr-Movies

  Originally posted by DXR88: all processor under the highest end are just locked counterparts due to 2 reasons.
  
  1) the cores or the L3 cache failed to meet Standards and strenuous testing.
  
  2) there mid and lower ranges are in short supply, so they take a perfectly good High End processor and they cut its feature set to match there low supply.
  
  this isn't new its been done since the Pentium 2 days. a Celeron is a Failed P4. intel has sold people faulty chips for years yet nobody complained. Not only do they not complain they brag about how great they are even though they just got screwed. I love Intel fanatics they are just like the iCrap crowd.
  

  23.9.2010 11:25 #22

• Jimmer12

  Screw Intel.. ill stick with AMD all the way.. I hope Intel burns itself to the ground.
  
  

  23.9.2010 13:30 #23

• KillerBug

  After a lot of thought, I actually like this idea. If I can buy a basic i5, and convert it into an i7 using a serialz generator, that sounds a lot easier than some of the procedures I have gone through to unlock much less addition performance. It is true that often high-end cpus are remarked as slower CPUs when they don't meet the standards of the high-end line, but it is also true that many low-end CPUs would have been high-end CPUs if there were any customers for them. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to buy a CPU, already knowing that when you unlock the 2 extra cores and the extra 8MB of cache, they will all work perfectly, with a 800mhz overclock...sure, intel might charge $200 for the cards to do this...but the serial generator is free, assuming the mainboard does not simply override the CPU.

  23.9.2010 23:38 #24