Engineering Sample CPU question

So I recently won an auction for a t9800 cpu off ebay. Turns out the cpu was an engineering sample. Does this mean it's unstable? Filled with bugs? I did find out one thing though, the speed is unlocked...whatever that means. I suppose that means it's easier to overclock? Not that I would. Anyways, is there any tid bits of info that any of you guys can share about engineering samples or if there's anything I should be wary of?

And on a total side note, what do you guys use to overclock your 9800gts? rivatuner doesn't seem to have all three things I hear aabout

 

some say they're unstable and downright risky to use, others say they work perfectly fine and are perfectly usable.

i guess there's a bit of trial and error involved.

 

I've heard the same thing, however you also should keep in mind that engineering samples were never meant for human (I mean public) consumption, and that they were NEVER meant to be sold. I am under the impression that some of the negative press that you hear may actually be generated by the manufacturers themselves as they would rather have you buy a traditional boxed CPU.

The way I see it is that Intel or AMD is giving these processors to manufacturers so that they (the manufacturers) can develop new products as soon as the CPU is ready to be released. If the Intel and AMD did not do this you would be seeing CPUs being released with companies like Dell, Toshiba, et al not being able to utilize them for months because of the need to engineer a new motherboard around the CPU. It would not make sense for Intel or AMD to release a buggy CPU for computer manufacturers to build a system around.

 

I have always purchased my Intel Extreme CPU's on Ebay as Engineering Samples such as my X9000 and X9100 and have never had any problems with it. In my opinion since they are called 'Engineering Samples' they may be built a little more robust than the regular consumer ones as these ES CPU's would be going thru the wringers with the different computer manufactures, etc. Again just voicing my opinion and exprience. God Bless

 

Just make sure the CPU revision is the latest one, otherwise most software won't be able to access the DTS of the CPU, as they won't have the particular code for that revision.

Apart from that, if it has a small warranty or something, it should be fine, so that once you get it, you can heavily stress test it for a couple of 24 hours, and see if there are any errors.

 

ES chips generally do not have temperature monitoring enabled which is a bad thing as your laptop will not be able to adjust its fan speeds accordingly. QS chips however do have temperature monitoring enabled and they are usually the last revision which is used for retail (unless there are any major issues). QS chips still show as ES chips in CPU-Z so the only way to find out which you have is to use the full stepping code and reference Intel's processor database.

 

Yeah, receiving an es cpu is kind of iffy unless, like iaTa said, it was the last es received (which i believe is the same as the retail version). My cpu is an es, it's been wonderful to me.

 

Well, it seems like the cpu is an ES chip. Is there a way I can enable the temp monitoring or is it a lost cause trying to figure it out?

(And oh, what do you guys use to overclock your gpus?)

 

Excellent advice, thanks alot for taking the time to write that.

 

do post a cpuz pic
gpu oc is done by nvidia ntune 6.03

 

If you have a true ES chip (not QS) then there is no way to enable temperature monitoring unfortunately. Have you got the full details of the chip that you purchased - stepping etc - and I will confirm exactly what it is for you.

 

Here, I'll link to the auction itself. Hope this doesn't break any rules.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=180313014213

I say it's ES because I noticed the ES printed on the cpu itself. Not sure if that makes it definitive.

And t hanks royk50 for the ntune link.

 

Yeah that's Q6KV B2 stepping which is ES not QS. That means you have no temperature monitoring unfortunately.

 

It's ok if there's no monitoring, the only thing I'm concerned about is, does the bios or my computer know what the temp is? Or in short, will my fans work normally or will the fans be always on full blast or never on? If they'll operate just fine, I don't need to worry about temps, I'll just put some AS5 on it, and undervolt and viola!

 

Well no that's the problem, without any way of monitoring the temperature the BIOS wont know either. I would assume (and hope) that the BIOS will just run the fans at full speed in this situation. Not ideal if that is that case though as the CPU fan is quite noisy, but it is better than the fans not running at all and your CPU frying itself.

 

The Fan Algorithm is based upon the temps recorded by one of the many Thermal Sensors, and has nothing to do with the CPU's DTS.

 

I didn't know that. I thought they were based on the internal CPU temperature monitoring. Where are the thermal sensors then - one in the bottom of the CPU socket?

 

The Fan-CPU temp table is based on the ACPI thermal zone sensors (THZx, x=0,1,2,L,R,etc). Now, there might be about 4 thermal sensors in the 17" notebooks, so yeah, the one which is near the socket, well it'll be in the socket - that controls the Fan. The Fan algorithm is hard-coded into the ACPI.

 

Good info.

 

So when I put this cpu in, do I just let the fan stay on full blast 24/7? Or is there a way to control the fans blindly? Or heck, what if the fan doesn't even turn on? o.o

 

The fan will run fine and you can't change the speeds it runs at.

 

Well, guess I won't know until I put it in.

^ Not what you think it means!