Intel holding your CPU for ransom

Talk about being nickeled and dimed to to the point of extreme pissed offness.

I understand that companies – especially gaming companies of all types – are looking for new ways to increase their profits any way the can. With gaming companies it is the increasing use of DLC’s (downloadable content) that includes everything from cool new content to accessories you need in order to play better, but one has to wonder just how far this type of thing will go.

Well it seems that we may have the beginnings of an answer.

News is out that Intel is selling a processor that has been intentionally hobbled. The CPU is their low-end Pentium G6951 where they have limited both the cache and the hyperthreading features. However you can remove the limitation by paying Intel $50.00 for an unlock code.

When you pay this blood -money you can then use the unlock code to download and apply some software that unlocks those features of the CPU. This of course means that in order to unlock the features they already had to have been there which means you are paying twice for that processor.

According to the story in Engadget this is just a test being done by Intel in the lower-end processor market.

images courtesy of Engadget