The Intel Upgrade Service was a relatively short-lived and controversial program of
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...
that allowed some low-end processors to have additional features unlocked by paying a fee and obtaining an
activation code that was then entered in a software program, which ran on
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearl ...
.
The program was introduced in September 2010 for the
Clarkdale-based
Pentium G6951 desktop processor (operating at 2.8 GHz), and immediately met with criticism from the specialist press.
For a $50 fee, this processor could have one additional megabyte of cache enabled, as well hyper-threading, making it almost like the Core i3-530, except for the slightly lower frequency that remained unchanged—the i3-530 operated at 2.93 GHz.
The official designation for the software-upgraded processor was Pentium G6952.
In order for the activation software to work, the motherboard had to have the DH55TC or DH55PJ chipset.
One reviewer noted that at the market price of the time one could actually buy the i3-530 for only $15 more than the baseline Pentium G6951, making the upgrade premium card a very questionable proposition at the official price.
The program was extended in 2011 to the
Sandy Bridge
Sandy Bridge is the codename for Intel's 32 nm microarchitecture used in the second generation of the Intel Core processors ( Core i7, i5, i3). The Sandy Bridge microarchitecture is the successor to Nehalem and Westmere microarchitecture ...
series of processors as follows:
* the
Core i3-2312M (2.1 GHz, 3 MB cache) laptop processor could be upgraded to the Core i3-2393M with higher frequency and more cache (2.5 GHz, 4 MB cache)
* the
Core i3-2102 (3.1 GHz, 3 MB cache) desktop processor could be upgraded to the Core i3-2153 with a higher frequency (3.6 GHz)
* the
Pentium G622 desktop processor (2.6 GHz, 3 MB cache) could be upgraded to the Pentium G693 with a higher frequency (3.2 GHz)
The Sandy Bridge upgrade program was available in U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, the Netherlands, Germany, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
Intel initially defended the program,
but it was eventually discontinued in 2011.
See also
*
Crippleware
Crippleware has been defined in realms of both computer software and hardware. In software, crippleware means that "vital features of the program such as printing or the ability to save files are disabled until the user purchases a registration key ...
*
Overclocking
In computing, overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. Commonly, operating voltage is also increased to maintain a component's operational stability at accelerated spe ...
*
Product binning
Product binning is the categorizing of finished products based on their characteristics. Any mining, harvesting, or manufacturing process will yield products spanning a range of quality and desirability in the marketplace. Binning allows differing ...
*
Total cost of ownership
Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate intended to help buyers and owners determine the direct and indirect costs of a product or service. It is a management accounting concept that can be used in full cost accounting or even ecolo ...
References
{{Intel
Intel products