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Intel offering downloadable hardware upgrades for low end chips.

qubit

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You'll have to hack Intel servers first. I think hacking Gabe Newell's STEAM account would be easier. Same technology is probably employed as protection.

Possibly, but you never know, hacking the CPU directly might well be easier... and when the method's known, you can't just patch hardware to remove the vulnerability, like you can with software.
 
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I am sick of Intel making these crazy restrictions on how I can't upgrade my i7. It's a shame that I have to actually downgrade for a more open processing solution.

Want to upgrade your i7? Buy a new CPU.
 

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In my opinion if you paid for the actual silicon then you deserve it unrestricted. This should be illegal, and I think crippling any hardware is just plain ridiculous (ie: 6950/6970). Obviously it is PURELY a money game, and I fully understand that. It is, however, fucking stupid. The entire monetary system is stupid though, so F it. Time to move to Antarctica and say goodbye to the world.
 

cadaveca

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Obviously it is PURELY a money game, and I fully understand that. It is, however, fucking stupid. The entire monetary system is stupid though, so F it. Time to move to Antarctica and say goodbye to the world.

I was gonna say something, but you summed it up pretty well. This is basic practice for all tech companies that sell silicon, and is merely a way for them to gneerate extra income by providing what they kinda deem as a "guaranteed" overclock, of sorts.

They are gonna sell the chips at lowered prices and functiomnality anyway, but rather than permanently locking the chips with reduced function, they will guarntee teh extra functionality, for a small fee.

In the end, the ability to do this is going to cost them a bit more for the bining process, so it's only natural for them to look to capitalize on it.

Frankly, I don't think many, if any at all here will buy this level of product, so I don't quite understand all the uproar, either.

BTW, STEAM uses a three-pringed approach with thier security, while relies on local data, as well as remote data at two seperate locations, that together generate a code that can then be used to unlock functionality, whether it be hardware, or software. Since it's been a while since Gabe Newell of Valve gave out his password and account info, and challenged hackers to attempt to break into it, and noone has done it yet, I highly doubt anyone here is going to hack this, either.

Would be glad to be proven wrong, but becuase these are such basic CPUs in the first palce, there's little to gain by doing so, so I doubt anyone is really going to put in the time eeded to crack this tech properly.
 

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cadaveca: steam has been hacked, always has been. you can play any steam game offline if you know how.

same will apply to this - they'll find an offline activation, and make it work. sure it'll be illegal, or at the least, very dodgy - but it WILL happen.
 

qubit

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Would be glad to be proven wrong, but becuase these are such basic CPUs in the first palce, there's little to gain by doing so, so I doubt anyone is really going to put in the time eeded to crack this tech properly.

Yeah, you need a big fat target to motivate hackers into spending lots of time and effort, so a low-end CPU turning into a slightly less low end one will be a very small target.

However, if this marketing strategy proves successful, then they may well apply it to their better CPUs and then the hackers might come. It's impossible to say at this point.
 

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I actually just made a suggestion to Intel in their submittable contact form. I told them to stop what they are doing, and to give people what they want. I also told them people like myself would stop buying their high end chips if they started crippling them and forcing people to unlock them via software in the future. Maybe if more of you start suggesting this the chicanery will stop. Make Intel see their mistakes. If you don't voice your opinion, then you have only yourself to blame.
 
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ah hah! so you can unlock some features of an intel cpu... i wonder is someone will mod this to unlock features of others (i5 2500k to i7 2600k?)

Fundamental understanding fail.

The only chips affected are very low end i3s. The processors are cheap (~65 USD), because they are at the lowest possible performance. Anything Intel with chutzpah is "unlocked" fully, with caveats, by default. This statement is of course referring to L3 cache and default clock speeds, which these upgrade cards "unlock." It does not consider the non-overclocking cpus.

This is old news. It's somewhere in the new archives. I'll see if I can dig it up.

+1

I remember the discussion and hate. I believe the only conclusion from this thread was an overwhelming hate for this business practice. It will only be a matter of time before the process is cracked though, so I'm not too worried. Intel is creating concentrated consumer (albeit high end) hate that they will one day have to reap.
 

cadaveca

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cadaveca: steam has been hacked, always has been. you can play any steam game offline if you know how.

same will apply to this - they'll find an offline activation, and make it work. sure it'll be illegal, or at the least, very dodgy - but it WILL happen.

Sure, the STEAM service itself has been hacked, however, Gabe's own account has not, since STEAM Guard has been enabled.

Perhaps you should investigate the technology a bit further before ocmmenting again about it:

Newell demonstrated the power of Steam Guard by revealing his Steam log-in email and password to the crowd (and now the internet). "You can try to log-in and steal my account if you can," he said. "But you can't."

Newell's Steam log-in email is "GabeN@valvesoftware.com," and his password is "MoolyFTW." Give it a shot! Perhaps the elusive Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is inside.

Simply getting a pswd is just not enough.

Using a two-factor authentication built into some second-generation Intel Core CPUs, Intel IPT combines a standard user name and password with a six-digit "One-Time Password" that changes every 30 seconds to ensure maximum security. When Intel IPT is enabled, identity thieves will have to gain all three pieces of information in order to gain access to user accounts.

I'm not saying defeating the system is impossible, but it's not quite as easy as you are portraying it, for sure. When you hack into Gabe's account, let me know.

However, if this marketing strategy proves successful, then they may well apply it to their better CPUs and then the hackers might come. It's impossible to say at this point.

I agree, and I do not think they will go that far. I am sure that Intel is ware that that sort of thing won't fly for enthusiasts, but really, becuase enthusiasts themselves are a small minority of PC users, it seems more likely that the affected CPUs are probably going to end up in office boxes and cheap Dell/HP/Acer machines that none of us really have any interest in.
 

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I told them to stop what they are doing, and to give people what they want

Give people what they want? I bet if you asked the common joe if they want a cpu upgrade as easy as running a program and typing in a code, they would say that is definitely something they want over taking the computer into a shop and paying to have the CPU swapped out.

It amazes me to see the number of people that don't realize that CPUs have been crippled for ages. Hell the 486SX was just a 486DX with the FPU disabled. This stuff goes that far back.

The only thing Intel is doing now is giving users tha bought the weaker chip an option to upgrade later on down the road.

You already are paying for unlocked features, you pay more for the high end CPUs don't you?
 

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Give people what they want? I bet if you asked the common joe if they want a cpu upgrade as easy as running a program and typing in a code, they would say that is definitely something they want over taking the computer into a shop and paying to have the CPU swapped out.

It amazes me to see the number of people that don't realize that CPUs have been crippled for ages. Hell the 486SX was just a 486DX with the FPU disabled. This stuff goes that far back.

The only thing Intel is doing now is giving users tha bought the weaker chip an option to upgrade later on down the road.

You already are paying for unlocked features, you pay more for the high end CPUs don't you?

Almost every time I see you reply to someone's opinion I notice that you assume a lot of things, and go off on a tangent unrelated to their original thought.

"It amazes me to see the number of people that don't realize that CPUs have been crippled for ages." - Who didn't realize they were crippled? I'm not sure where you got that thought from in this thread. Definitely not from my posts.


"The only thing Intel is doing now is giving users that bought the weaker chip an option to upgrade later on down the road." - Are you kidding? (obviously you're not, but come on.) Intel is not giving users an option to upgrade. They are simply sucking more money out of ignorant consumers, and you know this.

Obviously the common consumer is going to take a cheaper upgrade path instead of buying a new CPU, but that doesn't make the fact that Intel is ripping them off any better. If they actually knew how the upgrade worked they would probably be very upset. My posts were simply stating that it is wrong to cripple hardware and charge people to unlock it later. It's wrong to cripple things, period. That is all.

*after thought* Yes I pay for the high end CPU's, because I want the performance level it brings. Will I pay $1000+ for my own personal CPU's? No, because the performance difference is not needed in my case. However, if the cost of manufacturing a crippled CPU is the same as the unlocked CPU, then why should they charge more for the unlocked one? It didn't cost any more to make it. In fact, it might actually cost LESS, because it doesn't go through the crippling process. I am aware that almost every CPU they put out is crippled. Just because they do it, does not make it OK. If you're not for open source everything, then you are an enemy of progress. The monetary system in general is the enemy of human progress. However, you're entitled to your own opinions.
 
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cadaveca: steam has been hacked, always has been. you can play any steam game offline if you know how.

same will apply to this - they'll find an offline activation, and make it work. sure it'll be illegal, or at the least, very dodgy - but it WILL happen.
Intel isn't stupid. The processor could be hard-coded to look for a 256-bit+ Verisigned digital ceritificate on the application that tries to access it and if it doesn't find that Verisign certificate, the processor refuses to accept the change.

The difference between games and other software is that there's only mainstream hardware involved. This, on the other hand, is like those hardware "keys" of yesteryear for expensive commercial software. As far as I know, none of them have been "cracked."

I'm sure some guy with a room full of equipment manages to pull it off but the odds it being a simple software mod are pretty slim. It ultimately depends on how hard Intel tried.
 
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This reminds me of the AMD 3 core/unlock crap... :shadedshu



What happens if someone fubars the instal of the driver? Wouldn't it brick the CPU?:confused:
 
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Almost every time I see you reply to someone's opinion I notice that you assume a lot of things, and go off on a tangent unrelated to their original thought.

"It amazes me to see the number of people that don't realize that CPUs have been crippled for ages." - Who didn't realize they were crippled? I'm not sure where you got that thought from in this thread. Definitely not from my posts.


"The only thing Intel is doing now is giving users that bought the weaker chip an option to upgrade later on down the road." - Are you kidding? (obviously you're not, but come on.) Intel is not giving users an option to upgrade. They are simply sucking more money out of ignorant consumers, and you know this.

Obviously the common consumer is going to take a cheaper upgrade path instead of buying a new CPU, but that doesn't make the fact that Intel is ripping them off any better. If they actually knew how the upgrade worked they would probably be very upset. My posts were simply stating that it is wrong to cripple hardware and charge people to unlock it later. It's wrong to cripple things, period. That is all.

*after thought* Yes I pay for the high end CPU's, because I want the performance level it brings. Will I pay $1000+ for my own personal CPU's? No, because the performance difference is not needed in my case. However, if the cost of manufacturing a crippled CPU is the same as the unlocked CPU, then why should they charge more for the unlocked one? It didn't cost any more to make it. In fact, it might actually cost LESS, because it doesn't go through the crippling process. I am aware that almost every CPU they put out is crippled. Just because they do it, does not make it OK. If you're not for open source everything, then you are an enemy of progress. The monetary system in general is the enemy of human progress. However, you're entitled to your own opinions.
Total and utter socialist bullshit. Without some sort of gain to drive the progress, it would stop. Capital gain is a motivator. Without it, nobody would care enough to move ahead, everything would just be "good enough". If the pure open source concept worked so well in everything, linux wouldn't be the utter piece of mixed up crap it is today.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with reducing performance to reduce price. If they didn't do it, they would just sell the bad chips as the lower binned ones (as is normal), and then when those ran out of stock, tough shit, buy the $1000 one or do without. Doesn't really make any sense from either a consumer or a business standpoint, now does it?

Sure, pure unregulated capitalism is also bad, but that still doesn't make your concept any better.

That said, I still disagree with newtekie that this is a good deal. $50 is entirely unreasonable for the performance gain.
 
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Who didn't realize they were crippled? I'm not sure where you got that thought from in this thread. Definitely not from my posts.

Obviously you with your statement about crippling high end chips, and a lot of other people as well. What do you think a i7 970 is? A crippled 990x. You lower the 2 nothces, and disable the feature of an unlocked multipler, and bam you've got a 970, a crippled 990x. You talked about not buying them if they "started" crippling their high end chips and forcing people to pay for an upgrade. You already are doing that, or didn't you know?

Are you kidding? (obviously you're not, but come on.) Intel is not giving users an option to upgrade. They are simply sucking more money out of ignorant consumers, and you know this.

Actually, an upgrade option is exactly what this is, that isn't obvious to you? I mean they are spelling that out for you. You are the one that is assuming it is a big evil scheme rip people off. Are they doing it to make money, yes of course. However, they are taking a situation that would likely lead to no extra money for them, and turning into something that will make them money. Because the fact of that matter is, the people that they are targetting with these upgrades are people that would likely never upgrade their processor at all until they buy a new computer. So now Intel has a chance to charge them $50 for a CPU upgrade and a fair number of people will probably do it that would have never considered a CPU upgrade otherwise.

Obviously the common consumer is going to take a cheaper upgrade path instead of buying a new CPU, but that doesn't make the fact that Intel is ripping them off any better. If they actually knew how the upgrade worked they would probably be very upset. My posts were simply stating that it is wrong to cripple hardware and charge people to unlock it later.

That is just the thing though, they don't care to know how the upgrade worked. They don't care to learn how to do it themselves either. Again, it isn't ripping them off when you consider the cost to bring it into a shop to upgrade the CPU for you. Then there is also the fact that you have to buy a totally new CPU, yes you might be able to sell the old one, but not for retail, and the people targetted for this aren't technically savy so figuring out where and how to sell a CPU is another hurdle they face.

And why is it wrong to cripple it then charge to unlock it later? Because the person should just get those features for free? They bought a low end CPU, they paid less for it. If they wanted those features they should have bought the higher CPU right away. Things are cheaper for a reason. Paying less now and wanting the features later means you end up paying more in the end, but that is sometimes how life works.

It's wrong to cripple things, period. That is all.

Go complain to every major silicon manufacturer, because they all do it. AMD(CPU and GPU), nVidia, Intel they all do it.

*after thought* Yes I pay for the high end CPU's, because I want the performance level it brings. Will I pay $1000+ for my own personal CPU's? No, because the performance difference is not needed in my case. However, if the cost of manufacturing a crippled CPU is the same as the unlocked CPU, then why should they charge more for the unlocked one? It didn't cost any more to make it. In fact, it might actually cost LESS, because it doesn't go through the crippling process. I am aware that almost every CPU they put out is crippled. Just because they do it, does not make it OK. If you're not for open source everything, then you are an enemy of progress. The monetary system in general is the enemy of human progress. However, you're entitled to your own opinions.

You are right, it does cost pretty much the same to make a G620 as it does a i3-2120, it costs basically the same to make a i5 2300 as it does to make an i7 2600k. However, there are realistic reasons why an i5 2300 core wouldn't make a good i7 2600K core. Processor binning is part of the reason why we need different CPU levels. Of course, in todays day and age, the processors don't all bin as low as they are classed though. However, demand means that higher binned processors have to be used to make lower end SKUs. The fact is that the lower end SKUs sell waaaay more volume then the higher end SKUs. So for every 2600K processor sold, there are say 15 2300 processors sold. But each 2300 is only making intel say $5 while each 2600k is making Intel $135, so in the end the 2300 sales only amount to $75 in profit and the 2600K sales amount to $135. I'm just making these numbers up of course, because only the people that work and Intel know the true cost of each processor, but I'm just providing a senerio where your "sell everything super cheap" doesn't work. They they sold everything at the price of the 2300 price, they have less money for developement and progress is actually slowed.
 

LordJummy

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Total and utter socialist bullshit. Without some sort of gain to drive the progress, it would stop. Capital gain is a motivator. Without it, nobody would care enough to move ahead, everything would just be "good enough". If the pure open source concept worked so well in everything, linux wouldn't be the utter piece of mixed up crap it is today.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with reducing performance to reduce price. If they didn't do it, they would just sell the bad chips as the lower binned ones (as is normal), and then when those ran out of stock, tough shit, buy the $1000 one or do without. Doesn't really make any sense from either a consumer or a business standpoint, now does it?

Sure, pure unregulated capitalism is also bad, but that still doesn't make your concept any better.

That said, I still disagree with newtekie that this is a good deal. $50 is entirely unreasonable for the performance gain.

I'm not talking about capitalism. I'm talking about the monetary system plain and simple. Money doesn't work, and especially the way the money is setup now. It's a mathematical equation. It will never work.

You seem to have derived some assumptions from what I wrote, and I am seeing that is very common here. Kind of makes debating here pointless. I am going to end it here. You disagree, and that's fine. Thank you for your opinion.
 
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LordJummy

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@newtekie1: I'm not going to bother replying to that. You didn't even bother to really read what I wrote. The dribble you replied with is nonsense, and doesn't even address what I really said. Do you think you just helped me with those replies?

If you don't think everything these companies are doing is a big evil scheme to make tons of money, then you are completely blind. The entire world is making big evil schemes to make tons of money, because we have a failed system and it drives people to do stuff like this. Call it "socialist bullshit" if you want, but that's not doing anything to address the real problems. I don't have all the answers, but only when people stop fighting and start working together will anything be done, which will probably never happen. I wonder if you will still be yelling "socialist!!" blindly when the US economy crashes again next year. Probably.

Thanks for trying though. I understand you have a burning desire to argue with everyone and feel right. Whatever makes you feel better.
 

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@newtekie1: I'm not going to bother replying to that. You didn't even bother to really read what I wrote. The dribble you replied with is nonsense, and doesn't even address what I really said. Do you think you just helped me with those replies?

If you don't think everything these companies are doing is a big evil scheme to make tons of money, then you are completely blind. The entire world is making big evil schemes to make tons of money, because we have a failed system and it drives people to do stuff like this. Call it "socialist bullshit" if you want, but that's not doing anything to address the real problems. I don't have all the answers, but only when people stop fighting and start working together will anything be done, which will probably never happen.

Thanks for trying though. I understand you have a burning desire to argue with everyone and feel right. Whatever makes you feel better.

Competition drives innovation. Some great open source developers have said that. If everyone worked together and all that hippy crap came true, then a product would get released, people would say it is good enough, and we'd never see anything new. No one would release something better because they wouldn't have a reason to, and hence no one else would release something even better than that, and so on.
 

Kreij

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Companies are in the business to make money, not blow sunshine and unicorns up anyone's ass.
Intel has every right to sell their products anyway they choose.
If you don't like the way they go about it, don't buy it. It's that simple.
 

LordJummy

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Competition drives innovation. Some great open source developers have said that. If everyone worked together and all that hippy crap came true, then a product would get released, people would say it is good enough, and we'd never see anything new. No one would release something better because they wouldn't have a reason to, and hence no one else would release something even better than that, and so on.

Of course competition drives innovation. I'm not telling everyone to join a fucking hippy commune, are you joking? You're being ridiculous now. I take full advantage of the monetary system myself, because it is the only system. Unfortunately there are no alternatives.

Again I will say it though: the monetary system is inherently flawed. It will never work, and eventually the economy will always crash. This is a fact.

"Economists, bankers and most government leaders choose not to discuss a very significant mathematical flaw in our present money system. The flaw is that under our present money system all money is created by the banking system and put into circulation as interest-bearing loans. This process makes it mathematically impossible to repay the loaned principal plus the incurred interest because when all the money is created as loans, only the principal is created-never the interest. There is simply no way to create the additional money needed to pay the interest incurred by the loan. Money does not grow. Only the principal is created by the loan. The principal is uncreated when it is repaid. When the interest comes due, the debt becomes greater than the money supply! A SHORTAGE OF MONEY IS CREATED THAT CONSTANTLY GROWS.

Time and Interest always makes the debt grow but neither makes the money supply grow! Money does not grow. The money supply only increases with more loan creation."


The problem is competition is based solely on a monetary prize. I am well aware people won't feel the incentive to produce results if there is no monetary reward, because they have been trained to do so their entire lives.
 

LordJummy

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Companies are in the business to make money, not blow sunshine and unicorns up anyone's ass.
Intel has every right to sell their products anyway they choose.
If you don't like the way they go about it, don't buy it. It's that simple.

Also a ridiculous solution. If you don't like it don't buy it?

So do you LIKE buying cars, houses, and paying your bills? NO. But you pay them don't you? YES. So listen to your own advice.

This has become pretty silly. /unsubscribe - feel free to hate and argue now.
 

Kreij

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Also a ridiculous solution. If you don't like it don't buy it?

So do you LIKE buying cars, houses, and paying your bills? NO. But you pay them don't you? YES. So listen to your own advice.

I have no problem paying for the things I want and/or need. I don't see the logic in your statement.
I bought a Jeep Wrangler. It was priced reasonably and I like it a lot.
I like the house we live in and have no problem paying property taxes for the services we get.
I pay for gas, electricity, TV, internet, insurance, etc. etc.
If I feel that a product or service is overpriced I look for other options (and often do so), if they are available.
If nothing else is available and I still want the service, I pay for it (although with a reasonable amount of bitching. :D )
 
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