Call me crazy when I think this was the real objective. I think that COMPETITION (namely AVALON and BASIC) forced them to give away this paid ($$$) upgrade "FOR FREE".
Sounds awesome to me. This is how IBM, SUN, and other big iron vendors have offered processor entitlements for ages (although this is now more commonly managed at the software application level now with per-core and per-socket licensing).
Because of demand, later 486SX chips were viable DX chips but had the FPU disabled instead of being binned DX chips.1
Are all these people cheating you too?
It is a common practice, but one that is often uncovered only by reading obscure literature on a processor. Most consumers do not know this. (Beyond the Server licenses and Admins topics I mean...etc)
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486SX
----------------------
I have been catching up on this thread and noticed that someone mentioned BFL making a delay in their shipments. If that is the case then, I wonder if they are pulling the boxes and flashing the firmware on all the boxes?
Didn't they used to have an 80Gh system? [EDIT: It seems I confused one of Deepbits offers for that of BFL] I thought they had a 40Gh, a 80Gh and a 1Th system. I noticed upon looking at their website just a moment ago that they now only have a 30Gh, a 60Gh and 1.5Th system. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. Could someone confirm this was the case?
BFL offers 4.5gh,30gh,60gh & 1.5TH.They just announced the 30gh unit a few days ago & the bump in gh per units from 3.5gh,40gh,1TH
Click the link in my sig,I don't get a reward for that,just in case you think so..............
Look under :BitForce 'SC' Pre Orders for the info on them.
I personally wish ngzhang all the luck in the world & hope to be getting one or two of his products to spread my money around