Intel is beginning to offer (again) a CPU that can be upgraded by software. If you look back to last year, Intel provided a software update that cost $50 that allowed you to add an extra 1MB of L3 cache to your CPU. This year, the company is bringing the service to three Intel CPUs. As well as upgrading cache, the software update will also unlock some extra speed for the CPU. The chart below was put together by AnandTech.
The 3 models are the i3-2312M, i3-2102 and the Pentium G622 which each will get a performance boost of about 10 – 23 percent depending on which CPU you have.
The i3-2312M for example is a 2.1GHz 3MB CPU. After the upgrade it will be renumbered to the i3-2393M and will run at 2.5GHz with a 4MB cache.
The upgrade process requires that you buy a card which has a code on it. When you get the card you’ll need to download some software to your computer and when installed you input the purchased security code and your CPU is then upgraded.
One thing to look out for is a comparison of how much speed and performance you will gain by doing this upgrade. Prices are not known just yet, but if over priced you might be wiser to look at upgrading your CPU rather than running an expensive software update for little gains.
We recommend you read more in to this when Intel release the prices as you might end up with an expensive update that doesn’t help too much.
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