[cesarb]

> when they killed parts of the CPU to match the SKUs they needed to sell

Or that part of the CPU was dead to begin with; every wafer of silicon has some defects, but if these defects hit a part of the chip they can disable, they can avoid wasting a whole chip. Of course, if there's high enough demand for the SKU without that part, and low enough demand for the SKU with that part working, they might kill that part even when it's defect-free.

(Of course, if the part can be enabled "on demand", it means that the disabled part must be working, so they cannot be reusing partially defective chips; it smells like a cash grab.)

[rbanffy]

OTOH, if all I need is a powerful CPU and I have no use for any of the accelerators right now, I can pay a lower price than I would be able to, without Intel needing to make a different part for me.

For Intel, it also helps to fine tune the product lineup by getting more detailed usage information.