IntelUpgradeService
Latest
The Intel Upgrade Service: Once again charging you $50 to do stuff your CPU already does
Fans of creative nickel-and-dime schemes will love this: Buy an Intel i3-2312M, i3-2102 or Pentium G622 and it just isn't powerful enough, you can grab a $50 upgrade card. Enter the card's code online and hidden capacity in your chip will suddenly become available for use. Those with longer memories will find this offer familiar, because Intel did the same thing last year with the Pentium G6951. You may be peeved at the idea of buying the same thing twice, but remember that the company is only targeting the limited service at low-end consumers who want a little bit extra from their budget desktop. If you're interested in how much performance can be wrung from these chips, check out the source link below.
Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do
Hold onto your hyperthreaded horses, because this is liable to whip up an angry mob -- 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. This isn't exactly an unprecedented move, as chip companies routinely sell hardware-locked chips all the time in a process known as binning, but there they have a simpler excuse -- binned chips are typically sold with cores or cache locked because that part of their silicon turned out defective after printing. This new idea is more akin to video games that let you "download" extra weapons and features, when those features were on the disc all along. Still, it's an intriguing business model, and before you unleash your rage in comments, you should know that Intel's just testing it out on this low-end processor in a few select markets for now. [Thanks, Brian]
