I mean, they never stopped, did they? This is what chip binning is and for chips, it makes a lot of economical and even ecological sense (since a chip where the yield is such that only 6/8 cores function properly can be sold as a lower-tier product without issue instead of being scrapped, for example)
It’s also what made overclocking so popular.
Unless you and GP are referring to something else, of course. Wouldn’t put it past Intel to be nefarious 😅
I mean, they never stopped, did they? This is what chip binning is and for chips, it makes a lot of economical and even ecological sense (since a chip where the yield is such that only 6/8 cores function properly can be sold as a lower-tier product without issue instead of being scrapped, for example)
It’s also what made overclocking so popular.
Unless you and GP are referring to something else, of course. Wouldn’t put it past Intel to be nefarious 😅
I read an article recently that talked about enabling and disabling cores on the fly.
I think chip binning is perfectly reasonable.
Chip binning is great because it creates less waste, cheaper product and more profit for the manufacturer. Rare case of where everyone seem to win.
But there was this case where intel was designing chip that could be sold at lower price and more cores could be unlocked in software for a price.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/facepalm-of-the-day-intel-charges-customers-50-to-unlock-cpu-features/
When IBM did this with mainframes it launched Amdahl into existence. His machines were basically the same machine except they were unharnessed.