Those T9300 / T9500 CPUs on eBay from Taiwan or mainland China...

...are they 'safe' to buy?

Hi, newbie to this board and this topic but member of many others.

I'm in the process of getting my 7th laptop, since our Sony Vaio losts it HD and processor is kinda outdated. Some thing for my wife to browse the web with in her week-day residence, and so she can bring our 17" Dell back to our primary residence. At the same time, looking for a faster machine to do RAW -> JPEG processing in Lightroom than what I'm using now.

As a side note, I'm quite disgusted at all the major manufacturers in that 768px, and only sometimes 900px, vertical rez is about all you can get now'days. You hardly see any of a webpage with 768! 900 is 'ok' (my everyday work-issued laptop has that), but I much prefer 1050 or higher vertical rez, especially being a software developer; but I'm no longer able to use my personal machines for work, so stuck with 900px high.

Back on this topic, I therefore decided I'd go back to my Dell Inspiron 1720 with gorgeous 1920x1200 graphics and an NVidia card to do my RAW -> JPG conversions. And so decided to upgrade its processor to the max it will support at this time; a T9300 or T9500; has a T7500 now.

Much to my surprise, and moreso chagrin, I find supplies of new T9300 / T9500 chips are basically non-existent anywhere around the world, except Taiwan or mainland China (or I can pay $100 over list on Amazon, or $400 over list for 'refurbished' from Dell). It's not that old of a processor is it... two-ish years? Ouch!!!

So aside from getting a good used one off eBay, or lucking out and getting good used from a seller here, the only ones I find new are in Taiwan or mainland China. But it doesn't appear you get the box from them. I worry, what those are. So to finally get to the point... Does anyone have experience with these new T9300/T9500 chips from Taiwan or mainland China? Are they perfect, stable and reliable? I worry these might be duds or operated but operated "out of spec" when tested, and made it to these sellers. Is my cation unfounded?

Thanx much,
-steve

 

HP has had the top of the line of the T for some time a decent price, in case your laptop supports it (im not sure) check T9900 $339

 

I had an X9100 OEM from a Chinese seller. Worked like a charm.

 

Be very careful when buying CPU's from ebay. Some of them are Engineering Samples, which is used for testing purposes.

Most of the CPU's sold are OEM. Make sure you get a 90 day warranty.

 

@ Abula, The Inspiron 1720 uses a GM965, and will not be able to support any 1066Mhz FSB processors. Currently supported Penryn 800MHz FSB processors are the T8100 (2.1GHz), T8300 (2.4GHz), T9300 (2.5GHz), T9500 (2.6GHz) and X9000 (2.8GHz) respectively.

@ m8o, You should be alright to buy the CPUs from ebay. Practically the users "Shirley's CPU" and "ExtremeProcessor" are recommended sellers, I've bought from them before, they're fast and they possess excellent shipping standards. Sure, their English may not be their language but their service is. They do sell OEMs from time to time as well. In fact, many users have ES chips running their computers and they're fine.

BTW, good choice on choosing the T9300 for your 1720. I have the same setup as yours just that with an X9000 in my sig, yes it does work and runs well and cool under 60*C max. Now currently using a T9300 as the X9000 is transferred to my M1730 for its one purpose: OC'ing.

 

ShirleyFu is a good seller afaik, I got my Q9200 from him for $200 and so far no problems.

 

I have a friend, also a NBR forum member, actually, that bought T9500 from ebay seller
And he received the item with good condition and fast too.
And good thing now ebay has a buyer protection program

 

Bought an E8435 off ebay and it runs great. Only $250Cdn shipping included.

 

This is a safe, OEM processor.

 

Thanx for the comment everyone. I feel much more comfortable with the idea of buying from one of the overseas sellers. Especially thankful for everyone that pointed out to beware of ES chips; I did not know of that until now.

 

I'd like to get a T9300/T9500 later this year, will the prices go further down this year or until 2011 or 2012. I can't justify paying the cost of a PS3 just to upgrade the processor on a 2 year old laptop.

 

E8435(T9900) is only $150ish? http://cgi.ebay.ca/INTEL-CORE-2-DUO...34QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCPUs?hash=item3cab31343e

 

That E8435 is a 1066MHz FSB processor, incompatible with the OP's PM965 chipset; it's limited to 800MHz FSB.

 

would E8435 E0 work with thinkpad T500 or vostro 1320? just not sure if their bios allow this apple cpu...

 

who is it Gan..? Ctantra isnt he..? good for him...ebay protection program could you explain for more detail gan:malu:

thx

 

yes, ctantra

about ebay buyer protection, I'm not too good with explanation,
but this link covers all terms and condition:
http://pages.ebay.com/coverage/index.html