QUIET! wrote:Intel knows what they are doing but their motives are questionable.
Their motives aren't questionable at all. They may not be very agreeable, but they are very clear - make as much money as possible for as little outlay - which is what any business should do, including their competitor if they want to survive.
They probably use crummy TIM to save 50¢ each just because they can. Its not a big deal unless you bought a k processor for over clocking...
*shrugs* To me overclockers seem to overestimate their share of the market. It's a marvel to me that Intel sell unlocked processors at all.
There is a pretty large gap between what Intel could do and what they actually sell (no vt-d on k processors, wtf?)
Yes there are some bizarre combinations of features in their line-up. Most mainstream uses of virtualization are in environments where over-clocking is inappropriate though - servers and the workplace in general.
Hobbyist virtualisers are a small fraction of the market I would guess, hobbyist over-clockers are a small fraction of the market, so hobbyist virtualising over-clockers are likely a small fraction of a small fraction of the market. So if Intel, say, have to decide whether to spend the money to validate Vt-d on over-clocked processors, they may decide it's not worthwhile.
Who knows. It's not like disabling Vt-d on the 4770K is going to push people to an even more expensive part in the Haswell range. Maybe they're trying to shift piles of unsold SNB-Es.