Re: @AC - @Zippy´s Sausage Factory - The plan is obvious
It's not quite that simple... a lot of the lower-end chips are the higher-end chips that didn't make the cut due to manufacturing issues, and so had some of their cores disabled, or were down-clocked because they couldn't handle the higher frequencies in testing. This is called 'binning' where the CPUs are manufactured, and then sorted into 'bins' based on their capabilities.
So, Intel isn't going to only sell high-end CPUs that have to be unlocked, because they would have to just throw out a lot of their lower-end CPUs if that were the case, and they'd lose money.
More likely, this is for things like enabling VROC via software instead of requiring a hardware dongle. Hardware dongles suck, they take up space on the system board, some OEMs won't add the socket for them and simply won't enable the feature, etc. If Intel can unlock such features via signed licenses, it saves on hardware cost AND becomes much easier for both the OEMs and the customers (imagine having to open 500 servers to install VROC dongles, vs. applying a software license via API).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
