You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy - Intel G6951 CPU

[James]

The Intel G6951 is a CPU that has features behind a paywall...but you can no longer buy them. Linus shares his opinions on the matter!

 

 

 

[Quickstrike]

For the record, all Canadian consumer association agree that extended warranties are at best a waste of money.

You guys want to be held at information standard instead of infotainment, you guys are gonna need to stop saying stuff like extended warranties have anything good to contribute aside from vendor bottom lines. 

Meanwhile BOO!

[NoPain]

We used IBM Mainframe at work. These was delivered with max power but you only got what you paid for. 
Whenever thing got sluggish, you just made a call to IBM and said you need extra oomph for an hour or so, paid a lot of money and problem was gone (at least for the hour you paid for)

[BeefSupreme]

7 minutes ago, Quickstrike said:

For the record, all Canadian consumer association agree that extended warranties are at best a waste of money.

You guys want to be held at information standard instead of infotainment, you guys are gonna need to stop saying stuff like extended warranties have anything good to contribute aside from vendor bottom lines. 

Meanwhile BOO!

Extended warranties are not inherently bad. There do exist worthwhile extended warranties and they can absolutely be worth it if you're purchasing something expensive enough and want the peace of mind that it'll work for years to come. Yeah, there are some scummy ones out there, but reading isn't that hard, people are just too lazy to do it. Thus, they get taken advantage of or pass on a good warranty based on their preconceived notions.

 

Especially in enterprise environments, I would never dream of purchasing new server hardware or anything similar without a service contract and/or extended warranty.

[McCarthy]

That title triggers me, badly!

[da na]

28 minutes ago, Schnoz said:

This is an interesting one, esp. given that some of Intel's current server CPUs apparently also have this CPU DLC feature enabled. As much as I hate stuff like this given how blatantly money-hungry and anti-consumer it is, I wonder how hard this would be to reverse-engineer.

There was an Intel CPU in the past where you could just turn on more cores... I forget what it was,  some Pentium or Celeron that had 2 cores but they were disabled

[Middcore]

3 minutes ago, da na said:

There was an Intel CPU in the past where you could just turn on more cores... I forget what it was,  some Pentium or Celeron that had 2 cores but they were disabled

Don't believe there was ever a CPU where you could pay to turn on more cores. There were only a total of four CPU's that were ever part of this "upgrade service" program and they all could just have higher frequencies and more cache turned on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Upgrade_Service 

[da na]

3 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Don't believe there was ever a CPU where you could pay to turn on more cores. There were only a total of four CPU's that were ever part of this "upgrade service" program and they all could just have higher frequencies and more cache turned on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Upgrade_Service 

it wasn't really that. There were two chips that were the same inside, but one had two cores turned off and was cheaper for product segmentation. I'll try and find that video

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, da na said:

it wasn't really that. There were two chips that were the same inside, but one had two cores turned off and was cheaper for product segmentation. I'll try and find that video

The phenom x3?

[da na]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The phenom x3?

No, this was def. an Intel chip. RandomgaminginHD  made a video on it a while back...

[Middcore]

2 minutes ago, da na said:

it wasn't really that. There were two chips that were the same inside, but one had two cores turned off and was cheaper for product segmentation. I'll try and find that video

 

I mean... as @jaslion alludes to, AMD used to use die harvesting to sell higher-end chips where some of the cores were supposedly defective in some way as lower-end chips with fewer cores... but then people realized that in a lot of cases there was actually nothing wrong with the disabled cores and you could simply turn them back on. Some motherboards used to be sold with "core unlocker" as a marketed feature for this. 

[Anfros]

3 minutes ago, da na said:

it wasn't really that. There were two chips that were the same inside, but one had two cores turned off and was cheaper for product segmentation. I'll try and find that video

A lot of Intel Core CPUs work like that, the lower models are physically the same as the more expenisve ones but are downclocked or have cores turned of due to faults in the manufacturing process.

[da na]

16 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

I mean... as @jaslion alludes to, AMD used to use die harvesting to sell higher-end chips where some of the cores were supposedly defective in some way as lower-end chips with fewer cores... but then people realized that in a lot of cases there was actually nothing wrong with the disabled cores and you could simply turn them back on. Some motherboards used to be sold with "core unlocker" as a marketed feature for this. 

Yes, indeed.

I might be crazy but I swear this Intel chip had it as a feature... buy cheap CPU now, upgrade it later for $20 without having to change the chip....... can't find  that video for the life of  me 

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, da na said:

Yes, indeed.

I might be crazy but I swear this Intel chip had it as a feature... buy cheap CPU now, upgrade it later for $20 without having to change the chip....... can't find  that video for the life of  me 

It's the i3-2102. You could pay to get an extra 300mhz of clock speed, but not more cores. 

[da na]

9 minutes ago, Middcore said:

It's the i3-2102. You could pay to get an extra 300mhz of clock speed, but not more cores. 

Awesome. Thanks, I guess I blended the idea of the AMD core unlock with this chip. 

[Quickstrike]

21 minutes ago, BeefSupreme said:

Extended warranties are not inherently bad. There do exist worthwhile extended warranties and they can absolutely be worth it if you're purchasing something expensive enough and want the peace of mind that it'll work for years to come. Yeah, there are some scummy ones out there, but reading isn't that hard, people are just too lazy to do it. Thus, they get taken advantage of or pass on a good warranty based on their preconceived notions.

 

Especially in enterprise environments, I would never dream of purchasing new server hardware or anything similar without a service contract and/or extended warranty.

You are muddying the waters here.
Enterprise and consumer environments are not the same. Yet you put them in the same boat. Consumer don't need business continuity. Not enjoying your device is not the same as loosing productivity because of a broken device.

I'm talking about consumer electronic extended warranties here:
It's been demonstrated (multiple times in the 90's and in the teens) that putting the amount you would pay for your consumer warranties on the side would be enough to replace your devices should it break early and you'll have a lot of money left over. That is unless you are really unlucky and your stuff keeps breaking. 

Vendors know what are the returns and they make sure those plan make plenty of profit if the plan is 4% of MSRP, you can be sure that the device failing after the manufacturer warranty expires and before the extended warranty does is 0.4% or less.

You need more proof? Ask a vendor that works commissions where he makes his money. the answer is upselling a warranty.

So in essence, if you buy "peace of mind" what you are really paying for is a small chance that you'll actually have a device replaced with an hefty fee on top. If that's not bad, I don't know what is. 

Here's a link, the best ones are behind a paywall unfortunately.
https://globalnews.ca/news/2314578/extended-warranty-is-not-worth-it-says-consumer-association-of-canada/
 

[BeefSupreme]

5 minutes ago, Quickstrike said:

You are muddying the waters here.
Enterprise and consumer environments are not the same. Yet you put them in the same boat. Consumer don't need business continuity. Not enjoying your device is not the same as loosing productivity because of a broken device.

I'm talking about consumer electronic extended warranties here:
It's been demonstrated (multiple times in the 90's and in the teens) that putting the amount you would pay for your consumer warranties on the side would be enough to replace your devices should it break early and you'll have a lot of money left over. That is unless you are really unlucky and your stuff keeps breaking. 

Vendors know what are the returns and they make sure those plan make plenty of profit if the plan is 4% of MSRP, you can be sure that the device failing after the manufacturer warranty expires and before the extended warranty does is 0.4% or less.

You need more proof? Ask a vendor that works commissions where he makes his money. the answer is upselling a warranty.

So in essence, if you buy "peace of mind" what you are really paying for is a small chance that you'll actually have a device replaced with an hefty fee on top. If that's not bad, I don't know what is. 

Here's a link, the best ones are behind a paywall unfortunately.
https://globalnews.ca/news/2314578/extended-warranty-is-not-worth-it-says-consumer-association-of-canada/
 

I'm not muddying the waters because Linus referred to BOTH in the video whose thread we're commenting on. Of course there are different use cases between a company and an individual, but the concept is the same. You pay a little extra money upfront so that you don't have to entirely replace the purchase in a few years.

 

Nothing that you said in your post contradicts anything I said in mine. You are literally proving my point that you don't care to ever READ these warranties, you will just decline every time because of your preconceived notions that warranties are evil.

 

In the article you linked, the woman's warranty was declined because the warranty covered "accidental damage" and the company did not consider her child drawing all over the couch with pen "accidental." I could see both sides with this particular case. I think a better company would have just replaced the cushion no questions asked, but I don't necessarily disagree that letting your child draw on the couch is not technically "accidental."

 

Warranties on things like cars and furniture have long been known to be shady at best and malicious at worst, however, there are still good companies out there offering good warranties on their products. It's not fair to demonize every company that offers an extended warranty as trying to take advantage of their customers, even if it is a somewhat normalized practice at this point.

[Issac Zachary]

Awesome video!

 

This is one reason I hate subscription services and a lot of new, online store only stuff.

 

Yes, tech gets better over time and sometimes you actually do need to buy the new one. But at the same time I have to ask myself, what is there that's actually better on my current computer than the one I had in the 1990's? I'm not much of a PC gamer. I use it to do word processing and check emails and watch Linus Tech Tips. When Windows 10 or 11 dies and I have to upgrade to the next version with new hardware and such, what am I gaining other than paying more money??? I still use my 1990's keyboard by PC Concepts and have a two button, no scroll serial mouse I think I'm going to start using again. Why not? Mouse scrolling is messed up in UWP apps anyway. Maybe I'll break out the CRT monitor too, just because.

 

Maybe it's people like me the reason why companies try to find new ways to get money out of all of us. But I shall resist until!

[BeefSupreme]

Just now, Issac Zachary said:

Awesome video!

 

This is one reason I hate subscription services and a lot of new, online store only stuff.

 

Yes, tech gets better over time and sometimes you actually do need to buy the new one. But at the same time I have to ask myself, what is there that's actually better on my current computer than the one I had in the 1990's? I'm not much of a PC gamer. I use it to do word processing and check emails and watch Linus Tech Tips. When Windows 10 or 11 dies and I have to upgrade to the next version with new hardware and such, what am I gaining other than paying more money??? I still use my 1990's keyboard by PC Concepts and have a two button, no scroll serial mouse I think I'm going to start using again. Why not? Mouse scrolling is messed up in UWP apps anyway. Maybe I'll break out the CRT monitor too, just because.

 

Maybe it's people like me the reason why companies try to find new ways to get money out of all of us. But I shall resist until!

It's a whole system designed around planned obsolescence. I mean, take a look at the Instant Pot, which was such a good product that the parent company declared bankruptcy because they didn't have many repeat customers. Our current systems punish a company for making a product "too good" so-to-speak.

[Issac Zachary]

25 minutes ago, BeefSupreme said:

It's a whole system designed around planned obsolescence. I mean, take a look at the Instant Pot, which was such a good product that the parent company declared bankruptcy because they didn't have many repeat customers. Our current systems punish a company for making a product "too good" so-to-speak.

I see it as needs/wants/what truely makes us happy. Companies always try to find ways to convince us that their product or service will give us one of those three things. If people stopped and logically analized the offer before accepting it, then there'd be fewer purchases and therefore fewer companies, and those purchases would be even more expensive since they wouldn't be funded by as many buyers because having more buyers lowers the individual cost by means of mass production.

 

The problem with having companies that make all our products and services is that each company needs a way to continue to profit even after the need, want or happiness is satisfied. If we could all make our own tech then we'd make things to both fill those needs and wants and at the same time last as long as possible, as having things that last means less work for the user. But, that of course would be impossible to pull off (it's pretty hard to make an iPhone from scratch on a kitchen table) and thus shows the benefit of mass production.

 

The questions I have are:

1. Is there a way to make a profitable business model that makes things to last (the opposite of planned obsolencense)?
2. If not, how do we strike a ballance between being forced to constantly upgrade and upgrading only when there's something that's truely worth the upgrade?

EDIT:

One thing I do hate about planned obsolencense is when things I enjoy get nixed and stop working...

[BeefSupreme]

14 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

The questions I have are:

1. Is there a way to make a profitable business model that makes things to last (the opposite of planned obsolencense)?
2. If not, how do we strike a ballance between being forced to constantly upgrade and upgrading only when there's something that's truely worth the upgrade?

I don't think I can answer your second question, as that's a personal choice that everyone has to make for themselves. But the answer to your first question is complicated. Most of these companies, and I'll use Instant Brands as an example, ARE profitable. There's a huge distinction between what's MORAL and what's LEGAL but companies will always examine the legality of something and almost never the morality. So, you have a product that is still profitable, but it's not selling as much as it used to and the hedge funds that own the company wants to see rapid growth (not slow growth, ew). So, what do you do? Launch a ton of new products to try and be profitable again. Those products didn't take off like they were hoping, so they have to file for bankruptcy.

 

It's almost never an issue of a company not being profitable -- it's usually something to do with not being profitable enough. Hedge funds or private equity firms put arbitrary goals for how much increased profitability they want to see every year, planning on limitless growth. Well, endless growth is impossible, so they end up in a situation like this and then the people who suffer are all the employees who are fired and the consumers who lose out on good products, while the "people" who own these companies generally receive huge settlements and go on to destroy the next company. So on and so forth.

[Zodiark1593]

Experience the new GPU Boost 5.0 available with the RTX 5000 series to take reality to the next level! Only available with an active subscription of GeForce Experience Plus. 
 

Could use a pitchfork for the reactions tab. 

[NullPointerError]

At 5:18, you accused Nvidia of using exactly the same GPU for both gaming cards and professional cards, but I would disagree that this is a good example. Professional GPU by Nvidia also used ECC memory as it is not required for gaming environment. Let alone extra units to enhance FP64 calculation and extra bandwidth memory bus. The die is almost the same, of course, but all of those things I just mentioned can't be upgraded afterwards.

 

Moreover, for the A series professional card, the difference is much bigger as those professional cards used the TSMC fab while the RTX 30 series used Samsung, so the professional cards don’t have the power spike problem that gaming cards had.

[Anfros]

5 hours ago, Quickstrike said:

You are muddying the waters here.
Enterprise and consumer environments are not the same. Yet you put them in the same boat. Consumer don't need business continuity. Not enjoying your device is not the same as loosing productivity because of a broken device.

I'm talking about consumer electronic extended warranties here:
It's been demonstrated (multiple times in the 90's and in the teens) that putting the amount you would pay for your consumer warranties on the side would be enough to replace your devices should it break early and you'll have a lot of money left over. That is unless you are really unlucky and your stuff keeps breaking. 

Vendors know what are the returns and they make sure those plan make plenty of profit if the plan is 4% of MSRP, you can be sure that the device failing after the manufacturer warranty expires and before the extended warranty does is 0.4% or less.

You need more proof? Ask a vendor that works commissions where he makes his money. the answer is upselling a warranty.

So in essence, if you buy "peace of mind" what you are really paying for is a small chance that you'll actually have a device replaced with an hefty fee on top. If that's not bad, I don't know what is. 

Here's a link, the best ones are behind a paywall unfortunately.
https://globalnews.ca/news/2314578/extended-warranty-is-not-worth-it-says-consumer-association-of-canada/
 

Yes, selling warranties is profitable, so is selling insurance. There are many insurances and warranties that are not worth paying for, and some that are. Paying for a warranty that covers user error and accidents has been good for me in some cases, but it is in the nature of such contracts that they only benefit a small proportion of the buyers. Predatory business practices should be discouraged, and one should always consider whether extended warranties, service agreements, insurances, etc. are worth it, but non of that invalidates them as concepts.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

10 hours ago, jaslion said:

The phenom x3?

Granted those were never a for sure performance improvement You could've ended up with an X4 chip that really had a defect. Some didn't unlock at all. Others ended up being unstable af.