How much does it cost to for intel to add hyperthreading & OC?

t99

Honorable
Jul 16, 2014
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Sorry if this sounds kind of dumb, but I've been wondering about it lately. This example comes to mind as I've had this cpu up until recently and I know the newer Intel's changed a bit on how they do this.. so a 4th gen i5 is basically a non threaded i7 that cost much less.

Does it actually cost Intel much to add threading or is it something that basically exist in both CPU's, but the 5 has it "off"? If it does not exist in both does the cost of adding it equal the extra cost between the 2? Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe an i7 cost a bit to give it HT and it makes less profit than selling an i5.

The same with overclocking. Is this just something that Intel enables at their factory and every cpu technically is capable, but they only enable it if you pay extra, but it cost them nothing to enable it? Maybe the K model actually requires something different that actually cost more to justify the price?

I've always thought that maybe these things don't cost much to add and Intel just split them up so much in order to make more $$$.
 
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awolfe63

Distinguished
Nov 10, 2007
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The simple answer is that it is already in all of the CPUs and costs nothing to turn on.

The more complex answer is that the same CPU die with hyperthreading on may have to be sold at a lower clock rate since the power consumption goes up with hyperthreading - so a 3.5GHz i7 is probably a better binned CPU than a 3.5GHz i5.
 

luckymatt42

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May 23, 2018
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At least some of the differentiation between processors is "binning"...because of the extremely complex nature of cpu manufacture, not every chip that comes off the line operates at full 100% capacity. There are manufacturing defects in almost every chip. If you hear the term "silicon lottery" that's kind of what it's referring to. The chips with the fewest defects become the "top of the line" cpus, those with more defects become lower class chips with some of the defective cores/functions disabled.

"Perfect" chips are rare. Most are just average quality. So the perfect chips are more expensive simply because they are more rare.

Thats only a small part of the answer, lots of different factors involved.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


That's not something you can apply a direct $$ number to.

How much does it cost Ford to deploy a 5 speed automatic vs a 6 speed?
All the R&D, design, testing, prod line establishment....all that gets folded in.

Now, there have been direct instances of disabling functions to differentiate product lines.
The 486SX and 486DX were the same CPU, just that the SX had the math coprocessor disabled.
This allowed selling SX systems a little bit cheaper.
Of course, you could buy the 487 coprocessor chip as an add in. Which was really a fully enabled 486DX, and it turned your existing 486SX off...:heink:
 
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