Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
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Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
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Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#2How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ?
I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable.
My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#3How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ? I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable. My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
I think the only way to do it, is to somehow package an old and cheap chip in the i7 package. It still won't be cheap but it is doable.
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#4How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ? I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable. My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
The "counterfeits" don't work at all; the "processor" is just a piece of metal and the "heatsink" is made of plastic.
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#5How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ? I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable. My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
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Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#6How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ? I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable. My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
From the reports I've seen, the CPU was entirely fake -- it was an inert chunk of molded metal.
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#7How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ? I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable. My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
I think the only way to do it, is to somehow package an old and cheap chip in the i7 package. It still won't be cheap but it is doable.
An old chip would at a minimum have to be socket compatible, otherwise the system won't even boot.
Simpler to just take a rejected chip and package it in a retail box.
Note that the chip itself seems genuine enough but all the bits around it (hologram, manual) are of such low quality that they might as well not be there.
Late stage rejects are supposed to be destroyed in the factory, given the number of those rejects and the fact that the street price of these chips is as high as it is there should be little cause for wonder that maybe someone figured out a way to make some money on the side?
Blank pages in a manual vs packaging an old chip in a 'new' case is a bit of a difference in grade of accomplishment.
edit: turns out the chips are not 'counterfeits' but simply clumps of metal
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#8According to Tom Merrit of CNET & Buzz out Loud, the complete package was fake - foam fan, plastic heatsink, plastic processor, misspelled packaging, etc... It seems like a case or two (nearly 300 processors) of i7 processors were switched for fakes somewhere down the line, before making it to Newegg.
EDIT - Apparently, the processors were pieces of scrap metal.
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#9the news is that newegg is aware of a shipping error that occurred with certain recent orders of the Intel Core i7-920 CPU. After investigating the issue internally it appears one of our long term partners mistakenly shipped a small number of demo boxes instead of functional units.
Re: Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs
#10How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ? I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable. My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.
From the reports I've seen, the CPU was entirely fake -- it was an inert chunk of molded metal.
Counterfeit to me suggests 'functional', just like counterfeit money is not 'real' but it functions just like real money until you test it thoroughly.
more here:
http://hardocp.com/news/2010/03/07/intel_comment_on_fake_cpu...