Short question

Hey,

I am currently looking around to buy a new laptop as mine broke last week. I use it mainly for gaming, but it should not be too expensive. Thus, I was looking at the Asus S96J and Z96J. When I customized one of those at Gentechpc.com, I saw that they even had the new memron core 2 duo cpus avaiable for those. I thought they were not avaiable yet (read something about necessary bios update) and asked if it is a mistake. Gentech said those cpus are engineering samples....so what does that mean? is this a normal core 2 duo or some kinf of early version which does not work properly? Any help is appreciated as I am not really familiar with laptops.

Kind regards

 

s96j or z96j is the best for gaming for chooing a not expensive barebone laptop. The chipset for s96j is ready to support Memron cpu once the BIOS is updated. Normally, before updating a BIOS, a previous edition cpu must be put, otherwise, no another way to fresh the BIOS.
I guess that engineering samples should be used for testing and it is not for commerical sale, their architecture design is finalized.
Cheers

 

Thanks for the fast answer.
I appreciate your time. So, I should order the normal core duo cpu. Gentech.com lists core 2 duo as an option for the barebone...however, the engeneering sample. So, me as a normal user should better go with the normal core duos and then update later when bios update avaiable.

 

If something went wrong, the last thing I would want to tell customer support is that my processor is an engineering sample. Just give it a couple of months until Merom is completely released as the stock configuration in computers or buy what you want now with a Yonah, go to newegg or a similar retailer and buy the final chip now (which has been released on a small scale). Doing so may be tricky though and will almost certainly void your warranty.

~ Brett

 

So GenTech has managed to get some leftover engineering sample Merom chips from somewhere, and is turning around and representing them to the public as retail stock and "selling" them at *retail* prices? I too wonder if the chips may have a disclaimer from Intel about whether they can be offered for commercial sale....and then there's the ethics involved. And yes, ES chips are based on pre-finalized architecture which Intel could have altered by the time the chips are put into full production, so there is always the risk of functional problems depending on which ES run the chip is from.

I'd steer clear and follow Nrbelex's suggestion if you must have Merom but can't wait a couple of months until Intel gets them flush into the retail channel.

 

thanks I appreciate your help