>>http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/
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>How is this different from developing an application and then coding various levels of functionality which are sold at different level licenses e.g. basic, advanced, professional? I don’t see any issue here.

Actually, I think this is nice for low-end buyers. It means they can "upgrade" their cpu without having to purchase a new one and pay for installation, lose time turning their pc into a shop to be upgraded or sending it back to the manufacturer to do so and hope they get their data back when it returns. Lower income folks can purchase the system with it locked and then later have it unlocked. It would be nice if they could actually start with a low-end chip and end up with a high-end chip actually (not just more threads and cache)...

There are actually a lot folks out there who buy a new pc to upgrade their cpu to more cache too (MSFT OS sales). I'm surprised that MSFT isn't trying to stop this - it would reduce their sales...