Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do

[Soleron]

LordTheNightKnight said:

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Those features were defective, so they can't restore them anyway.

You're making an incorrect assumption. That used to to be true, but since 2006 almost all Intel processors have had no defects in that sense - the majority of chips could be sold at the top spec. Intel disables cache and features almost excelusively because they want to segment the market rather than because they are defective.

In the case of VT, VPro and HT, it's impossible that they can be defective. I guarantee you that Intel is disabling them even though they are not defective on any chip.