Intel has been doing this for years. Way back when, the 486 DX chip was a better performing chip (and more expensive) than the SX. It also cost less to manufacture the DX since to produce the SX, they had to actually modify the DX.
Well, what about the Lynnfield CPUs? The i7-860 and i5-750 are the same CPU. Same design, same manufacture, everything. The i5 just has Hyperthreading turned off, and a slightly lower clock rate (but they seem to overclock just fine, so it's not a binning issue).
The only innovation here is that in the past they've done it with microcode or hardware modifications, and now they can sell a software tool to unlock the CPU and upgrade it. Trying to reach different price points has always been the goal of manufacturers, it's not a bad thing so long as the products are still competitively priced and perform well.
I'd wager they're doing this because they're getting better yields on the high-end chips than they expected. They've got to mark down sufficient quantities to supply the lower-grade chips either way, so this gives them an opportunity to get a bit more out of those sales.
As others have said, CPU/GPU manufacturers have been doing this for a while (marking down chips with minor defects, or even perfectly good ones if they need to meet low-end quotas). It used to be that you could enable many such disabled functions by soldering an open bridge, etc.
It does seem like something that'll irritate buyers, though (Pay only $X to uncripple your purchase!), and no doubt it'll be circumvented eventually.
If they were smart, they'd stop leaving their prices jacked up so high and return to the process of dropping them shortly after release. Then they could catch back up to AMD in the bargain market.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a logical or correct business move on the part of Intel, only that it's bad for progress and consumers.
[sarcasm]Yes, because Intel is obviously incompetent from a marketing standpoint...[/sarcasm]
Sorry, but I am sure they are a dozen steps ahead of you or any of us chiming in on this thread.
I don't think they care about AMD. I mean really... has AMD had a profitable quarter yet? AMD bleeds money every year and is only still alive because people keep propping it up. I wish they were better off (competition = good) but I really don't think intel is worried about them in any market.
Buying unlock codes for DLC that's already on the disc seems annoying but it's actually good since it saves you bandwidth.
This is very clever by Intel since they can now sell an I5 and you can upgrade it to an i7. I'll just get back to AMD but average Joe will probably pay up.
They have been profitable all year actually
Intel has twenty times the operating capital their rival does, yet can't make bargain processor sales. The 920 is so rare that the price has gone up a good 40% since release, the 960 sits in stock all over the place. They keep making bigger desktop processors, but almost no one needs them enough to pay the premium.
Publicly held corporations are typically the exact opposite of a dozen steps ahead, short term profitability will lose them market share over the long run. There isn't even a comparison between the two performance wise, if they'd just lose the brand premium on their modern architecture they'd put AMD out of business.
kryo is right on the money. There isn't anything new about selling chips with functionality locked. All the cool kids do it, both in the gpu and cpu markets. What is new is offering an official path to go about unlocking that functionality.
I don't see the problem.
As strange as this sounds, it's actually a more honest approach...
How much of the profit was due to the anti-trust money from Intel?
What difference would that make? AMD has several competitive products out right now.
http://www.guru3d.com/news/amd-makes-profit-again/
Most of my computers used AMD CPUs.
I am not making a value judgment on the settlement. But the statement was made they just NOW started earning a profit. So my question is - did it come from their product or the courts? It makes a great deal of difference as to whether they can remain a viable alternative to Intel.
Mac is INTEL based now...
This stopped chip development about 4 years ago...
Could people please stop calling it slippery slope? It's not a slippery slope. It's a cavernous fall into blackness.
Slippery slope implies something potentially good going bad, slowly sliding downwards.
This is a plummet. It started as a plummet and it's still plummeting.
There's nothing slippery nor slope-y about it.
Apple never was in chip development. They were using Motorola chips, and Motorola just was not investing enough in R&D for the Apple people.
If AMD goes, the chips are going to get a lot more expensive and innovation is going to suffer since Intel will be the only real dog in the lot.
If Intel did become truly the only horse in the desktop/laptop processor market, with an ensuing drop in innovation and rise in prices, then I could see the ARMs beginning to take a chunk out of their sales. Not in the sense that people would start to use ARM processors in their desktops but in the sense that the market will shift to ARM based devices to fulfill functionality currently provided by desktops. It's already happening to some degree as certain tasks do not have scaling processor requirements but I think a pure Intel monopoly would hasten the process.
A few months ago, I was about to write an e-mail to IBM and ask them if they couldn't get into the CPU desktop market and compete with Intel so the CPU desktop market goes into a Dark Age.
But really people, start buying AMD! AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is strong with an unlocked multiplier. With a good CPU cooler you can clock it to like 4Ghz and defeat Intel Core i7!
With a good CPU cooler you can clock the i7 to 4Ghz too...
There's nothing wrong with being the bargain processor, but they are the bargain processor.
Except that with time, the processor get outdated quickly and thus its price. And you can trade in back your old hardware.
Take your example, after one or two years the customer decide that the 2 core is obsolete and would directly upgrade the processor to 8 core thus he will only have to pay $20 + $80 = $100. And by them the 8 core may cost only $40 thus $20 + $40 = $60. The customer may even trade in, sell the old processor for $5 so the total cost will be $55 instead of $100.
Yes this is just an example and the price may differ so to upgrade the hardware may be not so costly, however think, with your experience how long will you upgrade your processor, half a year? 2 year? By that time now technology will come out e.g. 16 core processor and making the 8 core upgrade less attractive or the 8 core become so cheap that directly buying it is more worthwhile.
I don't have a problem with it on the level that I know they already bin parts that could perform so much better, I have a problem with it on a level that Intel parts are already expensive and they'll probably use it to artificially inflate the high end prices.
I'm already an AMD fan so no skin off my back.
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