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exp(x)

You Thought On-Disc DLC Was Bad?

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Wow! After Intel's perfectly clean and humble record I've got to say, I am honestly blown away by this! I would never have guessed that Intel would pull something like this.

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EDIT: Looked into this some more. Since the Pentium G9650 doesn't actually come with Hyperthreading enabled, and the L3 (note: not L2, article got that wrong, all L2 cache sizes on Nehalem are 256KB per core) cache difference between the Core i3 and the Pentium is 1MB, using this product key card apparently makes your Pentium G9651 processor turn into a Core i3 processor, except that your on-board clock multiplier will still be set to 21x and not 22x like the lowest model Core i3 is. I guess if it works for them I cant be bothered to care. Obviously the consumer is getting sold this upgrade at a huge markup, but you know if they buy it then they do.

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exp(x) said:

Where's Doom Marine?

ARGGHHHH MATEY! 'Tis these Intel scumbags rippin' off common folks again! Fear not! Yer Captain CoolFace be sailin' the Seven Seas and came back to liberate ye! I reckoned their crew's never met Captain Coolface's motley hackers nor their keygen cannons!

I sail into Intel's Sandy Bridge Lagoon with me greatest fleet, behold! the Northern Island Bulldozers! Their contraptions be fallin' apart, their engineers shall flee, their women shall be ours, and terror shall reign!

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All I can say is Intel has always struck me as a cheap and sleazy company, I remember before AMD came in, Intel stuff was hideously over priced. A pentium 2 costed the equivelant of $200 in South African currency, and this even when it was out of date and Pentium 3 was the all the buzz.

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Meh. Historically, the main reason for crippling a high-end chip and selling it as a mid/low-end chip was because it failed one or more performance/quality control checks. Chip makers have been doing that for decades in order to maximise production yields and keep costs down, so I'd be very wary of these "upgrades" since there's every likelihood they'll be less reliable than a factory-tested chip - if they work at all.

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As if disabled pipelines or feature-unlocking pins are something new. But having the CPU manufacturer sanction the "upgrade" is something new indeed. Perhaps they realized they were too conservative with their crippling and now they are -why not- trying to make a pretty buck out of it. That's Free Market for you.

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Krispavera said:

/strokes his AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

Well hello there Phenom II buddy. :) Mine is only a dual core but it's treated me well since I upgraded.

On topic, this isn't uncommon. A lot of processors have cores disabled and are released as budget models because they fail certain criteria. However, letting you unlock those cores after purchase is new.

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Krispavera said:

/strokes his AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

Ditto.

This is my first AMD, and I'm loving it, even more so now that I hear about this bullshit.

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Snarboo said:

However, letting you unlock those cores after purchase is new.


I think you just hit the nail on the head with that one: it seems that some pointy-haireds back at Intel decided to play the "license oriented" card themselves, but as a hardware company this time. That's not something new either, as the makers of the infamous CueCat also tried to play the "licensed, not owned" card in the past.

You were "licensed" for the inferior product when you purchased it, you now "upgrade" your license to something better. Anything else (overclocking, modding etc.) is like breaking said license, and thus costing them money in missed profits..

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Krispavera said:

/strokes his AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition


Which you totally stole from me.

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Craigs said:

Which you totally stole from me.

Krispavera said:

least i put it in by myself


... lol, owning 965's but you both are not overclocking it... n00bs.

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I wouldn't mind unlocking VT-x on my Core 2 Quad (the ONLY Core 2 Quad with it "conveniently" disabled). I'd probably even pay a small amount to unlock it. After all, I got stuck without it because I was being a stingy bastard and went for the cheapest C2Q. :P

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Okay, so who here ISN'T running a Phenom II Black x4 965?

I'm not overclocking it because...I forgot how. Also, it would probably be pointless until I get a proper video card.

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My desktop is a slightly older Core 2 Duo E7600. I can safely say though the only way I'd buy an Intel processor for my next computer is if I was buying an i7. Although AMD stagnated for a little while with the Athlon 64/FX/X2 was current, they've come a long way, and the price for performance is clearly tipped in AMDs favor. So the only really good reasons to buy Intel are Atom if you want a set top box or something, and the i7 if you don't care about price at all and just want power.

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Danarchy said:

Okay, so who here ISN'T running a Phenom II Black x4 965?


Me...



I'm running a 955.

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John Smith said:

... and the i7 if you don't care about price at all and just want power.

Hey now! I own an i7, and beg to differ.

http://www.yougamers.com/hardware/stats/3dmark06/priceandperformance/?mainnavi=true

It's true that the i7 is considerably more expensive than the Phenom II, but even at that, the performance per dollar is considered a bargain buy, especially if ran at 4.0 GHz like me.

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