Imagine unlocking the full power of your PC’s CPU via scratch-off card. That’s an (incredibly stupid) idea Intel is testing out. My PC industry analyst friend Rick called me yesterday and this is one of the topics we discussed. I was convinced that he was just f*cking with me until he sent the URL for Intel’s Upgrade Service program. I’m still having a hard time believing it. It’s just so….
Basically, you buy a PC. It comes with a gimped CPU. You buy a code to make it normal.
Does anyone else find this to be an amazingly moronic idea from a very smart company?!? There must be an awful lot of glue sniffing going on at Intel.
I buy AMD anyway, but this show how much of a monopoly Intel has. No competitive company would ever consider this a good business practice.
@Ray
Really?? I bought my i7 specifically for what it does. I don't get why this will be beneficial to a consumer. I guess "unlocked" will be a new buzzword for OEM? I think this is stupid. I think I do an inordinate amount of research before I buy a machine, and this would make me avoid a whole brand.
Bare in mind, we who know exactly what a processor does and look specifically for that when we shop for machines are a small demographic and nobody knows that as well as Intel (except for maybe AMD).
I think it's a smart way to capitalize on the ignorant while shafting a small demographic. Hell, it works for the democrats.
@N8
haha, nice analogy there.
@Intel
So if I understand this correctly I would buy an Intel chip that is totally tricked out and comes with all the bells and whistles. Then if I really want it to do all of those things I have to buy codes to unlock those features?? That feels completely like an upgrade system on a racing video game or something. I feel like people would write some keygens for these chips and the people who really know something about the processors and are getting screwed by Intel would be able to find one of those keygens and use their chips at full potential anyways.
I can't say I think this is the kind of great idea that I expect from Intel, but I do see how it would make an average consumer who is afraid and unsure of upgrading and working on a computer by himself actually feel like he/she can do something on their own. This takes away the hassle of physically opening the computer up and messing with all the small working parts- which is what I think scares people away a lot of time. Like N8 said, smart way to capitalize on an ignorant demographic.
So the idea is that the consumer who bought the low end PC will want to OC their chip? That doesn’t make sense.
I’d just assume start using AMD if this goes live in all of their chips.
@smartguy The way it was explained to me is that features like hyper threading and use of all the cores would be unlockable.
Holy crap! Bobby Kocklick is working at Intel, too?!
-M
lol
@Iceman Great call. To play into Bobby's "image", I dub this move Kotickian.
@smartguy That's what I was told. It just sounds absurd to me. Even after reading the Intel site multiple times, I'm still having a hard time believing it.
To clarify, hyperthreading and an extra 1MB of cache are the "unlockable" CPU options here. I still think it's insane.