Next iMac to see this crippled processor scheme?

[wirelessness]

This is a silly argument. Intel has spent Billions developing these CPU's and some people think that by spending a few hundred bucks to purchase a chip you should automatically have full ownership of all the capabilities of the firmware developed by Intel? That is ridiculous!!! It's your chip and you can do whatever you want to the hardware, oveclock, under clock, resell it, whatever....but you don't own the intelligence that operates the chip.

Also, no way will there ever be a backdoor enabled allowing Intel to remote lock the CPU. This is not a freaking mobile phone. This is a CPU that will be installed on thousands of Defense Department PC's. This will not happen.

If you can unlock new features and additional cores in the future without buying a new chip this is a good thing for everyone....except maybe AMD!

 

[TennisandMusic]

I think it really depends on how this is used...

If all of you who bought i5 iMac's could upgrade to the i7 version for 90 bucks (the real price difference when these chips were released), wouldn't you be thrilled? Pay the money, flip a switch and bam, the whole machine is faster. Or would you rather sell the iMac, get a new iMac (with potential problems) then go through the process of installing all your apps, data, etc.? Of course I doubt people would do all that for that sort of upgrade, but it illustrates the point.

Now if you bought the i7 and got "i5 performance" and had to pay MORE to upgrade to the actual i7, obviously that's worse for consumers.

I have a feeling people's take on the news is dependent on if they see it as scenario 1, or scenario 2 occuring. I suppose the real issue is, we won't really have any way to tell which scenario is taking place.

 

[PatrickCocoa]

Analogies, CPUs, and Apartments

Yes, but when you lease something the hardware isn't yours. It's like if you purchased a 4 bedroom house but one of the bedrooms was sealed off and you had to pay another $30,000 for it.

Interesting that this analogy came up. My daughter rented (not bought) a three-bedroom apartment for a year or two while at university. She had one roommate so they only needed two bedrooms. The landlord just locked the third bedroom and charged them the two-bedroom rent.

I saw no problem with the arrangement. Philosophically, are you renting "the apartment" (which has three bedrooms), or are you renting "the right to use two bedrooms"? I'm guessing Thermonuclear would argue you're renting "the apartment", but I'd be happy to hear his/her response.

Also, they could "upgrade" to three bedrooms at anytime. So if they found a third roommate they could split the (higher) rent three ways. The analogy here is hellhammer's note that you can upgrade the CPU if you want, or not upgrade if you don't want.

Anyway, argument by analogy is mostly useless, but it is fun and occasionally illuminating.

 

[chrono1081]

Also, no way will there ever be a backdoor enabled allowing Intel to remote lock the CPU. This is not a freaking mobile phone. This is a CPU that will be installed on thousands of Defense Department PC's. This will not happen.

Lol I've worked on many military machines and I can say you'd be amazed what they allow on those machines. (Not to mention the US military just upgraded all machines to Vista. Stupid.)

 

[wirelessness]

Lol I've worked on many military machines and I can say you'd be amazed what they allow on those machines. (Not to mention the US military just upgraded all machines to Vista. Stupid.)

What happens and what is officially allowed on the Classified Network are two different things. No way will a CPU with a publicly acknowledged 'backdoor' be openly purchased by the US Government or most Corporations for that matter. It's not a valid argument.

 

[zmttoxics]

Apple may actually allow for this given that they charged $3 to unlock N capabilities on their airport cards for their 2007 Macs.

The whole thing has been done before and will likely happen many more times again.

Edit: its $2.49 and it is still available. http://store.apple.com/ca/product/D4141ZM/A

 

[JoeG4]

Interesting that this analogy came up. My daughter rented (not bought) a three-bedroom apartment for a year or two while at university. She had one roommate so they only needed two bedrooms. The landlord just locked the third bedroom and charged them the two-bedroom rent.

Some landlords are really cool people. We have another house, I've considered using one of the rooms as storage and renting the rest off, so that thought did cross my mind when I said what I said.

However, notice I said buy not rent, hehe - and THAT is why I made the point of saying I'm surprised hardware manufacturers don't turn to leases instead of selling hardware.

When you rent something, it's not yours. When you buy an object, there's an expectation that it.. all of it, is yours and you can do what you want with it.

I really dislike 'purchasing rights to use an object' because it opens a can of worms that isn't even necessary. This gets to where an artist can say (and they've done this), that if I buy their crystal ball, they can sue me if I smash it.

Or, if I buy an old historic house in Cupertino that I hate, I can't demolish it (yes, Steve Jobs I'm thinking of you lol).

Sadly we've already been in the "ownership with limitations" idea for a long time now. Still, I think if the device is absolutely useless (ie, a brick) without firmware, the part unique to that device should be open source and free game.

I know some of you will protest (particularly the developers that make garbage apps and have the guts to try and sell them to us [usually in those box bundle packs]), but you've jumped to conclusions.

What I mean is, if you buy a router you should be able to change the way it works, and the manufacturer shouldn't be able to stipulate how exactly you use that router. If for example, you wish to turn your router into a wired-> wireless bridge, and that functionality isn't provided by default in the firmware, you should be able to change it so that it is.

"But Joe," you would protest, "If I come up with some unique feature they'll copy it!"

That's what patents are for, and no amount of DRM or abstraction will prevent a sweatshop in China from ripping off your invention to the last detail (heaven forbid you actually have it made in China lol).

\\

 

[wirelessness]

^^^
Point not made.

 

[definitive]

knowing apple, they'll charge the same full price for a crippled cpu, and then extra for the additional features.

 

[Jason Beck]

How? If the price of G6951 is the same as G6950 (87$), how are people paying more? Nobody is forcing you to buy the upgrade It gives you an option to upgrade your CPU without buying a new one.



And the point being? So in your opinion, it's not right that Intel is suing people who broke the law? Everything can be cracked but that doesn't make it legal.

Intel only cares about money, just like any company. Intel dominates the market and has no viable competitor so they can do whatever they want, as long as it's legal. As I and AppliedMicro said above, Intel has been doing this for ages. Now they are just changing the way they do it.

Yep. Most of the time it was just them overclocking their cpus and selling them. Omg my p133 runs higher than my p75! (I think the 75 was ocable to 133, don't remember. ) Now they have more modern modes to rip us off. Go Intel! Nah I really don't care what they do. Like someone said, I buy my Apple for what it is @ the store, and what it will be when I get it home. I don't care about overclocking my macbook, or if I had an Imac, I wouldn't with that either.

 

[wirelessness]

This is already happening in the chip industry all over the place. I don't see anyone ripping on AMD for selling the Phenom II X3 at a lower price than the Phenom II X4. It's the same chip with one less Core enabled. No way to be sure why they picked that chip to run one less core. In some cases it could be the chip did not pass QA w/ 4 Cores running. Or it could be no reason at all. It's more cost effective for them to build the chips on the same platform and then modify them with software. This will ultimately lower the price for everyone eventually. (not to mention the possibility of unlocking some of these features for free down the road. The X3 can easily be turned into an X4 w/ the right motherboard).

 

[Thermonuclear]

Consider the case of what could happen if Apple and Intel conspire to make this so-called feature mandatory the 2011 iMacs. Say that you who live in the US buy one of these models for yourself and somehow you figure out how to unlock your iMac's CPU without help from Intel. Then you proceed to unlock it. And then you give a copy of the unlocker code to your kid in college so she can unlock her iMac.

Guess what? Under the DMCA, you've just committed THREE federal felonies! And all for working on your own machine. (And your kid's machine, although you had to pay for that one as well.)

I just don't understand why anyone would want to be a tenant instead of being a landlord.

 

[JoeG4]

yea, but as it is turning an X3 into an X4 can be done with no legal consequences - what Intel is doing suggests that in the future overclocking without their $50 card or whatever will be illegal with punishment for violating DMCA or something.

 

[Thermonuclear]

As Intel has already threatened legal action over the breaking of their HDCP copy protection, you can bet that they'll do the same to anyone who dares to tamper with their CPU unlock codes.

It's a sad transition from the early days of personal computing nearly forty years ago. I remember them well; it was common for experimenters (and we were all experimenters in the early 1970s) to use, misuse, and abuse hardware and software on a regular basis. The systems that survived were instrumental in advancing the entire industry and it was all done at no cost to equipment manufacturers. And now these same manufacturers want to take away our freedom to hack.

 

[tears2040]

Interesting that this analogy came up. My daughter rented (not bought) a three-bedroom apartment for a year or two while at university. She had one roommate so they only needed two bedrooms. The landlord just locked the third bedroom and charged them the two-bedroom rent.

I saw no problem with the arrangement. Philosophically, are you renting "the apartment" (which has three bedrooms), or are you renting "the right to use two bedrooms"? I'm guessing Thermonuclear would argue you're renting "the apartment", but I'd be happy to hear his/her response.

Also, they could "upgrade" to three bedrooms at anytime. So if they found a third roommate they could split the (higher) rent three ways. The analogy here is hellhammer's note that you can upgrade the CPU if you want, or not upgrade if you don't want.

Anyway, argument by analogy is mostly useless, but it is fun and occasionally illuminating.

I just spent $1000+ for a new imac because my 2.2ghz MBP was lagging in certain applications. If I could have upgraded my very same laptop for only a couple of hundred dollars more I would have done it instead of buying this iMac........

Case in point I wish I could have paid money to upgrade my Cpu in my MBP........

 

[wirelessness]

And now these same manufacturers want to take away our freedom to hack.

This is a major assumption on your part and assumes facts that are NOT in evidence.

It's actually the OPPOSITE of what you are saying. AMD and Intel in combination with almost all major motherboard manufacturers have gone leaps and bounds ahead of where the hacking/overclocking world was just a few years ago. Overclocking is now a built in feature in almost all motherboards with much easier methods then have ever been available before. AMD releases special CPU's designed for for easier overclocking. They also do nothing to prevent HARDWARE OWNERS from unlocking the 4th core on an X3. The same goes for GPU's.

Now, Intel wants to sell you a lower cost CPU with the potential to unlock key features in the future at a much lower cost than the present model which requires chip and or system replacement and you are somehow feeling like this is infringing on your 'legal rights' as a hardware owner. As the freaking hardware owner, you have one right. Buy or don't buy. You have no ownership of the technology. Just because you were able to do something in the past doesn't infer actual ownership of the intellectual property and everything inside the hardware. Your arguments are not supported by facts and or logic.

 

[alust2013]

Ok. Here is my thought, and I think it really makes sense. From a business side, this really is smart for intel. Producing mass quantities of the same hardware is more cost-effective, so it's simply easier for them to do it that way, and it costs less. So then when someone wants better performance, they offer a service to the consumer to upgrade at a much cheaper price than replacing the chip (if that's even possible). Bonus for the consumer. While I understand not liking the whole idea of having the hardware, but not being able to use its full potential, you have to remember the price difference. If you pay less, you get less, it's that simple. If it was more cost effective to make less capable hardware, then that's what they would do. I don't think that they will go as far as charging to overclock (far easier to do yourself than unlocking HT and such), but what they are doing makes perfect business sense.

 

[Thermonuclear]

... Intel wants to sell you a lower cost CPU ...

And here's where you're wrong; you have used the word "sell" where you should have used the word "lease". Once you understand the difference between the two, you will understand my argument.

 

[BigTroll]

I just spent $1000+ for a new imac because my 2.2ghz MBP was lagging in certain applications. If I could have upgraded my very same laptop for only a couple of hundred dollars more I would have done it instead of buying this iMac........

Case in point I wish I could have paid money to upgrade my Cpu in my MBP........

Yeah I feel for you, wish apple could be like the rest of the industry and offer a socketed CPU in there laptops so you could later on down the road buy a better cpu.

 

[wirelessness]

And here's where you're wrong; you have used the word "sell" where you should have used the word "lease". Once you understand the difference between the two, you will understand my argument.

Either way, your arguments don't stand up to scrutiny. Just because you say 'lease' doesn't make it leased. This situation has already been going on forever. Intel has been selling CPU's with various capabilities disabled since the inception of the microprocessor. Now they are offering to unlock those features for you at a lower cost without having to replace your hardware and somehow this culminates in some vast conspiracy to deprive you of your imagined rights as the hardware owner? It just doesn't add up.

 

[Hellhammer]

yea, but as it is turning an X3 into an X4 can be done with no legal consequences - what Intel is doing suggests that in the future overclocking without their $50 card or whatever will be illegal with punishment for violating DMCA or something.

Sandy Bridge will make overclocking impossible unless you buy K-series CPU since the BCLK can only be OCed by few megahertz. I think this is bigger issue than this "upgrade scheme" as Intel will force people to buy more expensive K models if they want to do ANY OCing.