greenmedic88 said:
True, but it would still be pretty odd if you took that to the extreme and offered a $700 upgrade to activate a $1000 i7 980x when the original purchase was for a $300 i7 930 (with two cores disabled, 4MB of cache disabled and a locked multiplier). Although that would actually beat having to sell a processor before upgrading it to a better chip. |
If done in the right way, both sides win. Intel doesn't have to manufacture another chip to get that sale, and the consumer only has to enter a code to do it, rather than order a boxed CPU and replace it. It may make the upgrade market actually viable among the majority of computer users who don't know/care about CPU tech.
The 'hardware piracy' potential is huge, however. Intel has stopped overclocking on the new Sandy Bridge CPUs, so maybe that will replace it?
