This may be a plausable answer.
I guess at the end of the day, I am philisophically oppossed to intentionally "breaking" something in an effort to create what I call a "false economy." It would be as if I operated a small, imaginery lemonade stand in my neighborhood, fully licensed by the proper state and local agencies, of course (LOL). And then I create high-quality, full bodied lemonade in my commercial kitchen to sell at my lemonade stand.
But instead of giving more to the highest paying customers, perhaps a real lemon wedge or extra sugar sprinkles or a special keepsake glass, I simply give them the lemonade.
What I also do is give "other" customers the same lemonade that has intentionally allowed to get stale or whatever. Not that I have extra, but I want to sell them something lesser, so I do this....You get the idea.
It isn't just intel. I have been also looking at Phenom ii x2 for a system upgrade, but I decided against it because many of them are simply hobbled Phenom ii x4 or Phenom ii x3's. Now I understand that a percentage of these may actually be cpu's with defective cores, but the fact remains that many of them are, in fact, hobbled intentionally to create a false economy. To AMD's credit, at least with the right motherboard you have a shot at "unlocking" your x2 into and x3 or maybe even an x4. And that's kind of "cool" and then at least there is some gamble, some excitement to the whole process.
Instead, I opted for the Athlon ii x2 250. It seems to be very capable, has low thermals and works quite well. It doesn't seem to have anything to unlock and nothing hobbled. And I'm happy to report that on one of the "pi" speed/stability tests it trails the core i5 by only a second or so, at standard clock. (Just under 6.8 seonds compared to about 5.5 or so for the core i5) Not bad for a $60 cpu.