DLCs, for Intel CPUs

[Harry]

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.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/

 

 

YAAAAY INTEL!

[Jager]

surprising? no, ridiculously business savvy marketing absolutely. intel de binned those chips as rejects from their faster lines, so there is no issue turning them on "halfway" if it were. also most people can not comprehend swapping a cpu out for more power (joe q public) so a card /code /bios update tha does it for you for x amount is sheer marketing profit .

 

 

i would hope they dont roll that out on their oem/ retail boxed cpus, as well as what looks like their prepacked gateway pc boxes that it works on currently

 

 

the car industry has done this for years... you really think mercedes and bmw's top out at 155mph every year? hell no, they have the same speed limiter as most high performance cars then you pay "extra" for a model that doesnt have the limiter. (actually paying more for less electronics sensor etc that control the unit.)

[Bilbo Baggins]

Well I hope someone figures out how to hack this so you can get more cpu for less... wait isn't that amd?

[Cons]

Wow what fags.