It seems nothing really changed for you as well. Any way you didnt buy Intel's chips for a while...
Maybe not for myself (main reason being this am2+ socket just wont die ;-) ,but ive build quite a few systems for clients /friends family around intel chips, mainly in the core2 era, getting a cheap FAST chip was pretty easy with intel then, so the price to performance ratio was solid.During phenom I fiasco i havent recommended even once this chip.

Hi.
Can I ask you an honest question?
Who ever said you have the right to expect a company to make low end items that can be clocked to equal the high end items so that people won't buy the high end items?
Was it nice to be able to buy a i7-920 and get the speeds of the 975?
Yup,you bet it was but it's not a given or even our right to expect it.
Now I like to OC my systems just as much as anyone else but I take what exists and do the best I can with it.
Of course i cant EXPECT getting low end chip that i can OC.
However, ocing for this relatively small (when you take into account all pc users) community isnt any big impact on intels financials, far from it, it looks like theyre doing ok finance wise, dont they ?
I as a consumer cant be happy by limiting my options by a provider of cpus.Thats reasonable isnt it ?
BTW i wouldn count i920 as being cheap ;-), most of the world is much poorer than US.People often forget that.
Intels tactics is just pure money extraction, no sentiment anymore for anyone.In a normal enviroment competetition would prevent this ,but currently there is none.
In summary, i cant expect any corporation to do what i want, however that doesnt mean i just have to roll over and do what im told, im no apple user dammit :P.
It just seems weird to me that someone on a forum like xs actually defends putting limits and blocks on OC.

Worst case scenario is AMD sees what intel has done and does it itself, because it would be better for them too.
Just like MS saw what apple did with its iphone and is cutting functionality from new phone operating system.
How boring and clone like world is gonna become if everything is gonna be stock/standard ?

Im flabbergasted by cheerfull acceptance for limiting overclocking here