Sandy Bridge cpu question

[kfitzenreiter]

Does anyone out there know if there is any truth to the idea that a Core i5 (1155) is really just a hobbled version of a Core i7 (1155)? In other words Intel creates a flagship version, in this case the 1155 Core i7 and then simply disables some features to create Core i5s, Core i3s and soon sandy bridge versions of Pentiums and even Celerons.

I tried "chatting" with intel technical support and got nowhere. ( I wonder why???)

Any thoughts?

I'm not necessarily seeking an "exact answer," but the field above can't be changed.

 

[13thmonkey]

But the additional value isn't there. I can see charging a premium, but why cheat people especially when Intel is at the top of their game. It just shows where no competition would lead if AMD ever goes down for good, which I hope they don't.

Consider also the 775 cpus that they still sell. Why have these prices not come down? Certainly, these cpus are no longer the cutting-edge, top performers of yesteryear. And yet, Intel still sells them at prices comparable to and in some cases more than the new sandy bridge models. This is also a bit of a rip off.

Basic economics states that when better quality items come along the lesser ones are sold for less, but that doesn't seem to ever happen with cpus or Intel...

But suppliers brought them at a price, so would you sell them cheaper than you brought them? And to not have stock the bigger sin in business as your customers will go elsewhere.

Its not cheating customers, its basic economics...

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

If you can afford i7, go and get it. you get what you pay for. look at my sig

 

[kfitzenreiter]

But suppliers brought them at a price, so would you sell them cheaper than you brought them? And to not have stock the bigger sin in business as your customers will go elsewhere.

Its not cheating customers, its basic economics...

Yes, I understand that suppliers won't unilateraly lower their pricess, they are middle-men. I am talking about Intel. I am saying it is philisophically wrong to intentionally "hobble" a product to create a false economy and that this is exactly what Intel is doing.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

If you can afford i7, go and get it. you get what you pay for. look at my sig

Hello ATI,

Are you doing substantial gaming, video editing or heavy CAD processing?

If not, I wonder if you recieve substantially more performance than I do with my sandy bridge core i5 2400 @ 3.1 ghz (3.4 ghz turbo)??? The reason I say so is that turbo boost also "downclocks" (OMG say it isn't so....LOL) the cpu, in my case it frequently sits here, right now in fact at only 1.581 ghz, apparently saving heat and so on. If I open apps or start a pi calcuation or something it shoots immediately up to 3.4 ghz briefly and then goes back down. I chatted with intel and tech support said this was normal tubo boost behavior.

Just wondering.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Hello ATI,

Are you doing substantial gaming, video editing or heavy CAD processing?

If not, I wonder if you recieve substantially more performance than I do with my sandy bridge core i5 2400 @ 3.1 ghz (3.4 ghz turbo)??? The reason I say so is that turbo boost also "downclocks" (OMG say it isn't so....LOL) the cpu, in my case it frequently sits here, right now in fact at only 1.581 ghz, apparently saving heat and so on. If I open apps or start a pi calcuation or something it shoots immediately up to 3.4 ghz briefly and then goes back down. I chatted with intel and tech support said this was normal tubo boost behavior.

Just wondering.

That's not 'Turbo Boost' it's 'Speedstep' and has been on Intel CPU's since the C2D's

 

[kfitzenreiter]

That's not 'Turbo Boost' it's 'Speedstep' and has been on Intel CPU's since the C2D's

Hello mousemonkey,

Thanks for the info. Speedstep. I wonder why the intel tech support guy didn't mention it?

I'll have to investigate these setting in the BIOS.

I was in the dark because I sort of skipped the Core 2 Duo/Quad Era, er years. I went from a Pentium D (820) 2.8 ghz. to the core i5 2400.

Thanks.

 

[cbrunnem]

Yes, I understand that suppliers won't unilateraly lower their pricess, they are middle-men. I am talking about Intel. I am saying it is philisophically wrong to intentionally "hobble" a product to create a false economy and that this is exactly what Intel is doing.

bro chill out lol if you thought you were being cheated then why did you buy a 2400 instead of the un"hobbled" 2600k? I believe that your answer will be the reason intel does what they do.

 

[etk]

The 486 sx was just a 486 dx with the co-processor disabled. This has been done forever and openly in the world of electronics (Even LED's are binned according to wavelength)

Again, this is done openly and not some dark secret. As you further develop your knowledge of microprocessors and their manufacture you will see why is it necessary.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

bro chill out lol if you thought you were being cheated then why did you buy a 2400 instead of the un"hobbled" 2600k? I believe that your answer will be the reason intel does what they do.

I recognize that it is always about the money. And yes, you are correct, I purchased the core i5 2400 instead of the 2600k because I didn't want to spend over $100 more just for hyperthreading and 2 megs of additional L3 cache. But as I said before, this additional cost which is nearly equal to the total price of the lowly core i3 2100 does not deliver the additional value of a whole other processor.

This illustrates why if we lose AMD what will happen to processor development. Progress will be stiffled and costs will skyrocket as Intel lines their pockets without providing much new technology.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

The 486 sx was just a 486 dx with the co-processor disabled. This has been done forever and openly in the world of electronics (Even LED's are binned according to wavelength)

Again, this is done openly and not some dark secret. As you further develop your knowledge of microprocessors and their manufacture you will see why is it necessary.

I understand WHY it is done, obviously it is intended to make more money for Intel. But why can't they take a cue from AMD and offer more "black editions" for a small premium.

The vast majority of pc's used in this country are by people who don't know a cpu from a stick of ram from a hard drive. They couldn't overclock their cpu if you put the instructions on paper taped to the side of the tower. So why does Intel feel the need to punish home brew pc builders? You can bet that Dell, HP, and all the major OEM manufacturers don't pay anywhere near the price for individual cpu's that home enthusiasts do. Why not just charge a bit more per chip from eveyone and unlock these things to gain maximum efficiency? They could even market the idea to say they were promoting efficiency and being "green" to reduce work time to reduce the time people spend in the office and so on. Less time in the office means less time with the lights on and so on and so forth.

Why break your own chips, intentionally?

 

[etk]

1) The 2500k/2600k are available at a small premium, just like AMD BE's are available at a small premium on their higher end. It just so happens that Intel's higher end currently commands a higher price than AMD's-likely for the same reasons that you bought a 2400 and not a 965BE. You could have bough a 2500k for like $25 bucks more than your 2400.

2) OEM's don't get huge discounts on CPU's like they do for software. Ever notice how OEM's overclock GPU's and sell them at a premium? They would do the same thing if CPU chips were generally unlocked. Unlocked chips set up an arbitrage condition where a third party can test them and resell them at a higher price. This is what intel/amd avoid by locking most of their chips.

3) OEM's make up most of the market (especially for intel) , Intel will make whatever Dell and HP want. HP and Dell (for support reasons) do not want CPU's to be unlocked, thus they are not. Intel/AMD have both made CPU's for the enthusiast market that are unlocked, and reflective of the enthusiast market's appetite for higher end parts-the parts are all higher end. How many 2100k processors do you really think Intel would sell.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

1) The 2500k/2600k are available at a small premium, just like AMD BE's are available at a small premium on their higher end. It just so happens that Intel's higher end currently commands a higher price than AMD's-likely for the same reasons that you bought a 2400 and not a 965BE. You could have bough a 2500k for like $25 bucks more than your 2400.

2) OEM's don't get huge discounts on CPU's like they do for software. Ever notice how OEM's overclock GPU's and sell them at a premium? They would do the same thing if CPU chips were generally unlocked. Unlocked chips set up an arbitrage condition where a third party can test them and resell them at a higher price. This is what intel/amd avoid by locking most of their chips.

3) OEM's make up most of the market (especially for intel) , Intel will make whatever Dell and HP want. HP and Dell (for support reasons) do not want CPU's to be unlocked, thus they are not. Intel/AMD have both made CPU's for the enthusiast market that are unlocked, and reflective of the enthusiast market's appetite for higher end parts-the parts are all higher end. How many 2100k processors do you really think Intel would sell.

While it is true that I could have bought a 2500k or 2600k at a premium, $314 vs. $189 is not a "small premium." The extra value is NOT there.

I am quite certain that OEM's pay much less then you or I would at retail for the same cpu.

I agree that Dell and HP and other large scale pc manufacturers frequently dictate terms to Intel and AMD, which thus bolsters my argument that they are probably getting a better deal dollar wise than mere mortals like you or I. As for a 2100k cpu, if I had a reasonable shot at a fully unlockable 2100k that could become hyperthreaded and turbo boosted with 3 or 4 active cores, I'd say you'd sell a lot of these cpu's and you would create some excitement which is good advertising especially among the enthusiast crowd.

 

[cbrunnem]

While it is true that I could have bought a 2500k or 2600k at a premium, $314 vs. $189 is not a "small premium." The extra value is NOT there.

I am quite certain that OEM's pay much less then you or I would at retail for the same cpu.

I agree that Dell and HP and other large scale pc manufacturers frequently dictate terms to Intel and AMD, which thus bolsters my argument that they are probably getting a better deal dollar wise than mere mortals like you or I. As for a 2100k cpu, if I had a reasonable shot at a fully unlockable 2100k that could become hyperthreaded and turbo boosted with 3 or 4 active cores, I'd say you'd sell a lot of these cpu's and you would create some excitement which is good advertising especially among the enthusiast crowd.

if there was a 2100k it wouldnt be at the same price as it is now. but an i3 is just a dual core and not a disabled quad core. i dont think that a lot of dual core unlocked cpu's would be bought compared to a quad core and that is why they only sell quad core unlocked cpu's. also that unlocked dual core would probably be close to 150-200 dollars. worth it to you?

 

[kfitzenreiter]

if there was a 2100k it wouldnt be at the same price as it is now. but an i3 is just a dual core and not a disabled quad core. i dont think that a lot of dual core unlocked cpu's would be bought compared to a quad core and that is why they only sell quad core unlocked cpu's. also that unlocked dual core would probably be close to 150-200 dollars. worth it to you?

Once again my basic point is this: It wouldn't cost Intel anything to leave it unlocked. Let the enthusiast have a crack at overclocking the cpu. Why hobble your own chips when it doesn't gain Intel anything. What percentage of pc's out there are "white box" home brew pc's vs. dell, hp and so on??? Is it 10%? I doubt it is even that high. Why not let the home brew pc people "play with their toys" so to speak? I just wish they would quit hobbling their own chips creating a false economy of "broken" merchandise.

 

[cbrunnem]

Once again my basic point is this: It wouldn't cost Intel anything to leave it unlocked. Let the enthusiast have a crack at overclocking the cpu. Why hobble your own chips when it doesn't gain Intel anything. What percentage of pc's out there are "white box" home brew pc's vs. dell, hp and so on??? Is it 10%? I doubt it is even that high. Why not let the home brew pc people "play with their toys" so to speak? I just wish they would quit hobbling their own chips creating a false economy of "broken" merchandise.

i see what your saying but here is my opinion and you have been very easy to debate with. if intel did that then they would probably sell three to six cpu's an i3,i5,and i7 with maybe a low power consumption version of each. now that i7 will probably be about 330 dollars and the i5 around 230 dollars and the i3 around 150. why? because they are now the top in there range and therefor intel will charge top dollar for them but not everyone wants a decked out i5 or needs a high clocked one for that matter so intel lowers the specs for the people who dont need such a fast cpu and lowers the cost to other peoples price range.

basically their strategy is to have a cpu in everyones price range and within their needs.

now another reason that there are multiple cpu's within each series. this takes a front seat in laptops but a tad in desktops, power consumption. some companies want a lower power sucking monster for their pc's so intel gives them what they want.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

I still think yields are an important part of selling cpus.Not all yields and wafer quality are the same.
I think this is the main principle behind it.Yes all the processors cost the same but yields are often not the same.Sometimes yields of higher end products would be more than lower end.Yet they cost the same vice versa.

 

[Googlybear]

companies like intel and hp would lose money backing up a cpu the amatuer could tweek. there are too many variables to fend off. heat, voltages and general settings could ruin an unprotected cpu. it's too easy for a rookie to ruin a new computer. therefore, they order chips with safety features (for them) built in. the settings aren't available in the bios, and cpu chips are locked.

it's simply too financially risky for a corporation.

my 2 cents.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

Scouring the dark underbelly of the internet in the wee hours last night I happened upon a site that mentioned linux and microcode for various intel cpus. Apparently the linux kernel has the ability to access this information.

Now I for one will NOT be trying this out on my new PC. I'm NOT that studpid or adventurous. It is a tempting idea though.

In a related thread I was reading some gentlemen's post about trying to load the microcode for a better pentium than the one he had. This was the netburst series, but the idea was the same. Supposedly, linux can load the microcode for a "higher" grade a.k.a. "non hobbled" cpu. The idea is that the machine will be fooled into treating the cpu as a better version than it is or perhaps enabling features and so on.

Like I said before, I'm not going to chance "bricking" my new cpu in an effort to unlock hyperthreading and 2 megs of L3 cache, but it would be cool to try. I do have an older machine with a Pentium D (820) and I wonder if I could make it think it were an 830 or an 840. I probably don't have the technical mojo to make it work, but I'll bet someone out there could.

Now what say you folks out there. Suppose, just for the sake of argument that I or someone else for that matter could make this work. Would this be unethical?

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

not all the additional features would have worked.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

not all the additional features would have worked.

You may be right. It may not work at all. Supposedly, when you reboot, cold start, the cpu resets to the old microcode so I don't know if you could start windows from grub to gain access to the hacked microcode or not.

It is all theoretical, since I'm NOT going to try this, at least not on my new system. I may get around to trying to hack my old Pentium D, but maybe not. I'm not that good with Linux, well compared to the UeberNerds anyway.

I just thought it was cool...

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

i might get around to trying it.If you give PM me the link to the kernel i would like to have a go.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

i might get around to trying it.If you give PM me the link to the kernel i would like to have a go.

http://kerneltrap.org/node/2678
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/723/
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?ProductID=483&DwnldID=14303

Just google intel cpu microcode; linux...

Good luck.

 

[gamerk316]

Remember the Phenom II X3's, you know, the X4 with a disabled core? Yep, thats binning in a nutshell. You "probably" can enable that 4th core, but its not a gurantee. Likewise, you can "probably" overclock a processor 200MHz, but you never know for sure...

Quality issues aside, its also far cheaper to just down-bin everything then to have seperate wafers for every CPU out there, hence why some chips [Q6600 anyone?] tend to be great overclockers, and why some aren't.

 

[palladin9479]

The more I read kfitzenreiter's posts I come to realize he just wants a free lunch. He wants to pay the price for a "C" class CPU but feels hurt that its not an "A" class CPU. Everything else is just crap throw into the mix for flavor.

This isn't a car, or a diamond, or whatever bad analogy you want to assign to it, its a CPU based on silicon and created in a multi-billion dollar facility. This process isn't perfect and its known that imperfections render certain parts of the die unusable. These would otherwise be perfectly fine CPU's provided the unusable functions are disabled. The manufacturer has two options, throw them away as they don't meet the product specifications, or down-clock / down-feature them and sell them at a lower price point. They chose option B. Eventually a significant market demand was created for the lower processors and with high yield rates there simply wasn't enough "bad" CPU's to meet the requirement, so the manufacturer just takes otherwise perfectly good CPU's and makes them into the lower grade ones to satisfy market demand.

This is in response to a market, its not creating a fake market. Intel doesn't hold a gun to people's heads and tell them to buy this CPU or they'll shoot. People choose to purchase a product, OEM's choose a model to put in their products, the manufacturer then provides what the market demands. If Intel abandoned this practice you'd pay MORE for a CPU not less. Supply / Demand being what it is, you'd end up paying the same for a 2400 as you do a 2500 or 2600, this wouldn't make sense. Basically your advocating for the manufacture to remove an option, that or give you a free CPU. I'm guessing your thinking of the later.

 

[kfitzenreiter]

The more I read kfitzenreiter's posts I come to realize he just wants a free lunch. He wants to pay the price for a "C" class CPU but feels hurt that its not an "A" class CPU. Everything else is just crap throw into the mix for flavor.

This isn't a car, or a diamond, or whatever bad analogy you want to assign to it, its a CPU based on silicon and created in a multi-billion dollar facility. This process isn't perfect and its known that imperfections render certain parts of the die unusable. These would otherwise be perfectly fine CPU's provided the unusable functions are disabled. The manufacturer has two options, throw them away as they don't meet the product specifications, or down-clock / down-feature them and sell them at a lower price point. They chose option B. Eventually a significant market demand was created for the lower processors and with high yield rates there simply wasn't enough "bad" CPU's to meet the requirement, so the manufacturer just takes otherwise perfectly good CPU's and makes them into the lower grade ones to satisfy market demand.

This is in response to a market, its not creating a fake market. Intel doesn't hold a gun to people's heads and tell them to buy this CPU or they'll shoot. People choose to purchase a product, OEM's choose a model to put in their products, the manufacturer then provides what the market demands. If Intel abandoned this practice you'd pay MORE for a CPU not less. Supply / Demand being what it is, you'd end up paying the same for a 2400 as you do a 2500 or 2600, this wouldn't make sense. Basically your advocating for the manufacture to remove an option, that or give you a free CPU. I'm guessing your thinking of the later.

I don't want the cpu for free. I'm just saying basically leave the damn thing unlocked. If they sell it as stable at 2.9 Ghz and I try to run it at 3.3 Ghz and it turns out that it is unstable at that speed well then that is my tough luck, but let me try. That's all I'm saying.