Intel Crippleware

[Aloone_Jonez]

According to this article, Intel is developing crippleware: pay an extra $50 to unlock extra cache.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/

I wonder how long it will be before this is cracked?

I don't know why they bother. Cirppleware is bad enough for software but getting everyone to pay for hardware they have to pay again to use just looks bad.

[davidnix71]

That's a dick move on Intel's part, esp. since it's software that probably only runs in one version of Windows. That should prompt a lawsuit for illegal restraint of trade. What happens if you sell the machine? Is the software transferrable?

[Refalm]

This is a potentially a huge loss for future old hardware. I suspect that in five years, Intel forgets about or shuts down the website, and then poor people who have computers that were donated to them have an intentionally slowed down rig.

The same thing happened with infamous winmodems, which was almost no hardware and a lot of software. The companies that made those things are either bankrupt or give you the finger if you ask for the drivers. Reverse engineering at that point is pretty useless, and people have to look on spyware riddled driver websites or find a real PCI modem at bazaars, which is an absolute hell.

[reactosguy]

Intel is developing crippleware: pay an extra $50 to unlock extra cache.

What a bad idea. First, I'm against high powered processors because no average consumers really need the extra power that is supplied, and said processors waste too much energy.

Intel is making a bad move on its part: Sell software that will unlock extra cache no average consumer needs or will waste some form of something.

I wonder how long it will be before this is cracked?

I hope it will be cracked soon. <outoftopic>PC manufacturers spend way too much money on Intel and MS products.</outoftopic>

I don't know why they bother. Cirppleware is bad enough for software but getting everyone to pay for hardware they have to pay again to use just looks bad.

Crippleware is already worse than it looks. Having to unlock something that your processor already has disabled is a waste of time and money for consumers. Intel's trying to be a giant cash cow when they are already a giant money vacuum.

[Aloone_Jonez]

I don't know whether the disabled cache will still consume power.

You lot all assume that the unlock is stored on the hard drive but that might not be the case. It could be in the BIOS or even on the CPU itself: there could be a fuse which is blown when the correct code is executed, like on a old fashioned PROM, which I hope is the case.

I hope the idea will prove unpopular but I don't suppose that would stop them, if people won't buy the upgrade or the crippled CPUs, they'll still sell them anyway and perform upgrades before they're sold in the factory, as needs be. In a way, I hope they do sell crippled CPUs but a crack gets developed and most consumers are using it within a month so they don't sell many upgrades.

[Refalm]

It will be popular, the PC's they are going to be installed in are likely € 300 PC's from Tesco.

[adiment]

Although I don't think they will benefit much from this idea other than pissing off end-users smart enough to know about it, I'm kinda surprised they never did this before.

This brings me back to old days of overclocking (or not so old 2005) where having a chip with an unlocked multiplier would allow you to get great performance (like Intel ES chips, AMD's FX was also unlocked then; no idea about them these days though). I think multi's are locked on everything these days but I'm probably wrong.

[Aloone_Jonez]

If a crack becomes available I might be tempted to buy a PC with a crippled CPU, simply because it's a way of getting better hardware vor less.

[reactosguy]

If a crack becomes available I might be tempted to buy a PC with a crippled CPU, simply because it's a way of getting better hardware vor less.

Yeah, and said CPU could break in a few months. So much for spending less.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Yes, I suppose you're right and hacking it would probably invalidate the warranty.

[WMD]

This is basically what IBM has done on mainframes for decades.  Just one problem: IBM has a way different customer base than Intel.  It's not gonna last.  (Unless, of course, Intel's yields on CPUs are so good now that they no longer have "semi-bad" chips to cripple out of necessity.)