Groo (charlie.delete@this.semiaccurate.com) on January 30, 2023 6:17 am wrote:
> dmcq (dmcq.delete@this.fano.co.uk) on January 29, 2023 3:32 pm wrote:
>
> > From the other point of view - who would like to pay less for their chip if they'd
> > already paid for an external GPU and didn't need the one on the chip?
> >
> That is a logical fallacy, Intel isn't charging less, they are charging more for the features
> to not be artificially turned off. If you don't believe me, go look at how much the hyperscalers
> pay for such trivialities. Similarly, go look at AMD pricing. What you are basically saying
> is that Intel was giving a discount to ALL of their consumer CPUs because they didn't want
> the AES-NI instruction set that the enterprise variants used. Yeah right.
>
> The line is simple and distinct, if it has a noticeable yield effect, things like cores,
> clocks, and TDP/leakage, then it is fair game to bin on and charge for. If it is arbitrary
> and can in NO SANE WAY affect yields, it is extortion.


For some creative definition of the word extortion which does not mean extortion, sure. If you need to support your position around misleading and inflammatory rhetoric, then it is pretty flimsy.

A lot of hardware and software is sold with with this kind of differentiation. Increasingly out in the real world, non-computer space too. A manufacturer is perfectly free to segregate and differentiate and price their products entirely as they see fit, and if it is cheaper to manufacture and ship the same physical thing with differentiation done with firmware or software settings or blowing some fuses than to run two different manufacturing lines, good on them. Better than everybody having to pay slightly more and still winding up with differentiated products.

Of course it offends the hardcore tech-nerd's sensibilities, but surely someone like you can understand business and economic realities here. I mean sure we'd all love to smash the patriarchy and abolish money and live on communes where everybody contributes to grow wheat and silicon ingots and nobody goes without food or RTX 4090s, but until the utopia is ushered in you can't really fault Intel for operating according to the reality in which they find themselves.