Overclocking halves the life of your hardware.
So, double the price of the intel.
What enthusiast that knows enough to overclock would hang onto an outdated processor for that long? Your point is moot.
Flipping a switch or changing your multiplier in BIOS isn't exactly
computer science.
OK, so it doesn't "halve" the life of your equipment per-se. To get any BIG boosts, you will need to do an extreme overclock.
These "overclocks" that people do of, 5, 10%, 15%, even 20% - those are pointless. What's your performance bonus going to hit? Why bother?
25% or 30% instead of 20%? Is it worth it to put the extra strain on your hardware, to get an extra 5% or 10% out of it?
Put it this way - people who buy hardware, will buy the thing that's good, and cheap. Now, let's head on over to that valve hardware survey that's done all the time. ( hah ) what's the percentage of people who swap out their hardware every 6 months, year, whatever - like, 1-5%.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/( So out of all of us here, only 1 has this "good hardware" we're talking about. Even me -lol- I've got a few old Amd X2's. Why? Because I upgrade RAM & GPU based on my personal needs, not based on who I need to impress with screenshots so I can join their WoW lardasses fap club. )
This user - likes performance. The kind where I never get a BSOD, hiccup, failure, error. I compute failsafe (*or should I say, fail resistant.) Overclocking, is something not in my vocabulary. I leave that to fools. ( like the type of fool who considers an extra 5 FPS - and other things the human eye is incapable of seeing, or the mind is incapable of processing - a "sizable gain". )
( This would be the same person buying into 64-BIT HD ULTRA-LOSSLESS AUDIO when Creative decides to release it - and pay $500 for it on top of it all. Even though, your brain & ears can only handle up to 24-Bit quality.

)
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So - when looking at Intel's low-ass offerings vs the thing they get you up the ass for - (i7 - the so-aptly-coined emergency edition, where they slapped on so much cache it HAS to be good) - what incentive do they have to lock the multiplier? Zero.
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But, what is pathetic here, is that such a piece of
pure steaming shit like the Phenom can come so close in performance to Intel, while being 1/5 of the price. That's pathetic. That's shameful.