What is engineering sample cpus??

I ve been looking through ebay and ive found many Engineering sample cpus. Are they better or worse than the retail product? If its better how are they better and if its worse how are they worse. The ones that im looking at were Intel Core 2 Extreme

 

Here is Intel's official page on their ES CPUs.

 

Better:
Some have more cache than the OEM version.

e.g. There was a T7100 on ebay with 4mb l2 cache, when the OEM ones had 2mb.

Some have an unlocked multiplier, though you don't see that a lot today.
But since you're looking at buying an extreme CPU, the OEM version will also have an unlocked multi, so the ES wont have an advantage in this case.

Bad:

Some have the temp sensor disabled.

Stolen, so you can't sell it on this forum after you're done with it.

I don't know if there are any other differences apart from the price.

 

Essentially, when you find them on Ebay, they are property that is stolen from Intel. Some of them will not have temperature diodes, and other features may be missing or not there.

BTW, before you go buying a Core 2 Extreme for the purpose of gaining a measly three FPS, I would strongly recommend that you have a good long think about it, because I know why you are doing this. The limiting factor in your gaming is your GPU, yet you can't seem to understand that.

Plus, your laptop already runs quite hot. The added heat of an X7900, X7800, or X9000 will most likely be too much for your cooling system.

 

ES processors that individuals can acquire are ones sent to motherboard manufacturers and OEM's to test and develop their systems. Most but not all of them are usually just like the retail and oem processors you can buy.

Also, I feel like there must be some other way to acquire ES hardware from Intel because there seems to be way too much consistent supply all the time for "stolen" processors and wireless cards from an OEM.

 

i know its my gpu thats the bottleneck but look at this guy! i mean hd3450 is at least better than the hd 3200!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwCXDbOJlcw
i just don't get it And about the heat problem im buying a cooling pad with 3 fans .

 

I heard that the ES extreme editions have unlocked multipliers does that mean ill be able to overclock it with dells even though they hate OCing?

 

Depends if dell put the option to change the multi in the BIOS.

 

Even non extreme has unlocked multi but there's no way you can Oc a CPU on that thing unless you pin mod it.

There's none , it's even worst than the MSI
The only decent option in the bios is that you can set a password to your system and hdd which will not reset itself if you take the cmos out. Unlike the one you get in our "crappy" msi.

 

How much performance gain will i gain from this compared to T8100 in gaming? I know my gpu is the bottleneck but any kind of performance gain would be nice. I just need that extra maybe 5fps in MW2 to play it at native res.

 

Most all the time, Extreme branded CPU's have little to no advantage over the T, P, Q or whatever model they are based on unless you overclock, and i mean by large percentages, to get any sort of useful performance boost in games. They may be higher quality and are able to tolerate higher voltages, but all i'm saying is you shouldn't get an Extreme CPU thinking it's literally Extreme and going to "pwn" for gaming, bottom line essentially is, unless you get a QX9300 or something, or overclock, performance is not going to increase dramatically.

 

i know im not expecting hta tmuch performance increase just decent performance increase.

 

With that videocard of yours, even the T8100 is enough processor for it.

 

u might want to get a T9300... an X series will run very hot even with undervolting and cooling pad... if u really want more power , get a T9500 at most... and i would stay away from ES..

1. they're stolen.
2. usually don't have thermal sensors..

 

Don't buy a new CPU , just pin mod it .. Moral Hazard is your man. Even though your GPU will hold you back ..

 

LOL, or just not get ripped off and simply overclock the T9300 to beyond T9500 speeds via SetFSB.

 

But i found the x7800 for a really cheap price right now. And i can't go up 100 dollars and i can't find any t9300 that are sub 100

Yup i saw that but its too confusing for me LOL

 

Understand that the hard drive and memory system on just about any machine out there will hold back a fast cpu.

A fast cpu does NOTHING for a slow hard drive. Or a slow GPU. Or slow memory.

If you're not careful, you will be spending a LOT of money for a cpu that will be spending most of it's time in wait states.

Or, we're going in circles real fast.

 

Well im talking about x7800 ES around maybe 70$. Is that a good deal?
After that ill be selling my T8100 and i MIGHT get a external graphics card solution.
Also will i at least gain some performance on source games?? Cuz im 99% sure that hd 3450 is enough for source games. And that they are CPU dependant.

 

If no one else has mentioned this about ES cpus I will.

Quite often, an ES cpu will be missing features found on a production cpu.

On top of the temp sensors, you can be missing cache, missing virtualization, missing error detect bits, missing power down/sleep/hibernate capability, missing just about any feature you can list. Just because one or three users here are happy with their ES cpus doesn't mean the next one along (you?) won't be the one who gets screwed.

No way to tell in advance. No way to tell once you receive the ES cpu unless you take the trouble to load up and run Intels board-level diagnostics.

Looking at ebay, production rev P8400s seem to be going for around $100- and P8600s seem to be going for $135-. More cash than the ES cpu you are looking at but at least you have some kind of assurance that the cpu is fully functional.

 

Alright i guess ill give up now i have a more crazy idea. Installing linux on ps3 and somehow connecting it to the laptop monitor and install steam on the ps3 and play steam games on it! is it possible?

 

Soviet Sunrise has a good review on the 920xm ES

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5970341&postcount=47

 

Or you can buy 920xm from ShirleyFu on eBay $500.. I don't trust it though, it might be missing features


Intel® Core™ i7-920XM

 

My suggestion is to run a CPU monitor while gaming. If the cpu load isn't hitting 100% on one of the cores a faster CPU will do little to nothing. Also if while you aer FPS limited the core is stressed at the 100% you will not realize the FPS increase where you really need it.

ES cpu's usually are fine so long as you know the limitations. Like said earlier if your bios will not overclock getting the extreme edition is useless be it ES, OEM or RETAIL.

 

yes the cpu load does hit 100 many times when gaming

i just looked at the item again and after where it says engineering sample it says (QS version - QZXR) does this change anything?

 

Wrong socket.

 

Why not, uh, buy a new computer? That GPU of yours isn't going to play anything recent decently, even if you somehow shoved a desktop i7 CPU in there.

 

This is what I would suggest as well. Although, it's kind of hard when OP is a high school student.

Anyway, OP, why not keep the heavy gaming to your desktop? It's not like your meant to be playing games at school anyway, and if you use your laptop for gaming to take to friends' houses and stuff, migrate your desktop rig to a Micro ATX case or something.

 

haha im not even a high school student. Middle schooler
Well you guys won i lost the bid even though i was sniping. it was at 50 and i bid 90 6sec b4 it ended but it was too low.
I know i ll do most of my gaming on the desktop but still i don't want my laptop to be tooo weak. Im really interested in the vidock solution now. I really want to sell my laptop but my parents are kind of not sure about it. If i do i don't know how to package it for shipping. I do have those packaging peanuts. And the usps can probably provide the box

 

cpu-collection.de - Sample chip information

Sample chip information
Sample chips are processors made for evaluation- and testing purposes. They sometimes have features the final production versions miss, like an unlocked clock multiplier or other features later deactivated in the production version. Some samples might also lack features of later development stages that are integrated in the final product. There are different kinds of sample chips for different purposes:

Engineering Sample
A chip revision from within the product development stages, a prototype or beta version. It is a working sample of the planned final product with all its characteristics and properties. Engineering samples are used for development and evaluation of all kinds of issues related to the chip, like electrical specifications and heat dissipation. They are also sent to mainboard- and component manufacturers to provide ways for them to develop their product around an upcoming production version.
Engineering sample chips have markings like 'ES' or 'Sample'. Intel versions also are marked with a Q-Spec number (like Q525 for a Celeron ES) in comparison to the S-Spec product code number of the production version (SL2TR for the same Celeron type). There are also markings like 'not for resale' or 'Intel confidential'.

Qualification Sample / Customer Sample
A final chip revision identical to the commercial product. It is sent to OEMs to let them validate their hardware with the upcoming final chip.
Older Intel qualification samples where called 'Customer Sample' and marked with 'CS', newer chips are marked with 'QS' and have a Q-Spec number. Most also have prints like 'not for resale' or 'Intel confidential'.

Mechanical Sample
A non-working dummy version of a chip that has the same mechanical properties as a final production version. It uses the same package and pinout of a working version but does not have working internals. Mechanical samples are given to component manufacurers to allow them mechanically adjust components like sockets, chip coolers or mainboard layouts to the chip.

Thermal Sample
A processor version used to validate the thermal specs of a chip. A thermal sample usually does not boot but only generates the amount of heat the final chip is specified for. They allow testing heat dissipation technologies and design aspects regarding temperature issues.

Marketing Sample
A chip especially made for presentation, usually with nice, polished surfaces and big logos.

http://www.cpu-collection.de/?tn=0&l0=cl&l1=Sample

 

I want a marketing sample.