Andre Yoskowitz
19 Sep 2010 23:20
Intel has begun testing a new way to fleece consumers of their money, selling "upgrade cards" that will allow buyers to fully unlock CPUs they have just purchased.
The first CPU added to the program is the cheap Pentium G6951 processor, which for an $50 upgrade card, can be unlocked to a full 1MB of L3 cache and HyperThreading support.
Each of those features are on the chip from the get-go, but stay hidden unless you buy the upgrade codes.
Once you purchase the upgrade code, you head to Intel's site, enter the code and run some software to unlock the full features.
Intel says it is currently only "testing this upgrade mechanism at the budget end of the market in selected markets."