Is it Possible to Counterfit a Graphics or a Processor Chip?

[Tech_Dreamer]

Okay i know how weird this sounds, But it made me wonder, someone with enough resources would be able to do something like that & flood it on to the mainstream market, or is something like this super impossible? haven't heard of a counterfit chip , which made me suspicious..Like copy the architecture & make it themselves & rebrand & sell the products along the original..

[XTankSlayerX]

I don't think so.

 

You would only be able to take older chips and put a "Newest of the new" sticker on them

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

Okay i know how werid this sounds, But it made me wonder, someone with enough resources would be able to do something like that & flood it on to the mainstream market, or is something like this super impossible? haven't heard of a counterfit chip , which made me suspicious..

basically no. the companies who have the resources to do it value their reputation too much. unless you were global foundries or TSMC etc, you couldn't really do it

[AMICLG]

You could rebadge cheap GPUs but one look under the heatsink at the core would give it a way, that and the performance.

[deafboy]

There have been many instances of this... not so much as a legit counterfeit but relabeling a lower end chip as a higher end chip.  Just google Fake i7 Processor.

[slightlyjaded]

Okay i know how werid this sounds, But it made me wonder, someone with enough resources would be able to do something like that & flood it on to the mainstream market, or is something like this super impossible? haven't heard of a counterfit chip , which made me suspicious..Like copy the architecture & make it themselves & rebrand & sell the products along the original..

Sure it'd be possible, but why bother making up a counterfeit? Buy a job lot of poorly binned chips, package them, and sell them as 5960x's.

Okay so it isn't quite that simple, and you'd have to make them in bulk just to pay for the infrastructure needed to make the copies. Possible? yes, Probable, not really.

[PhilBoisvert]

Well... if you have a 14nm plant to fabricate it ... yes probably if you have the blue print and all. But intel and samsung are probably the only one to poses such thing... 

 

sooo not really

[W-L]

Okay i know how werid this sounds, But it made me wonder, someone with enough resources would be able to do something like that & flood it on to the mainstream market, or is something like this super impossible? haven't heard of a counterfit chip , which made me suspicious..Like copy the architecture & make it themselves & rebrand & sell the products along the original..

 

The cost alone to make a chip would be in the hundreds of millions to just even make one. I've seen falsely advertised cards and ones that are of a older card just made to look like a new one but never heard of a counterfeit.

[Enderman]

Not really because it takes billions of dollars to get factories established that can do such advanced processes.

What "fake" GPUs and CPUs are is just rebranded old crappy cheap ones to make them look like recent or new chips selling for less.

[Clyne]

You got fake GPUs from china that probably have a lower tier card and they modify the BIOS to make it a higher end card........

probably like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/new-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX650Ti-2GB-384Bit-DDR3-PCI-E-Graphics-Card-computer-/151579503564?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item234ad7abcc

[Nowak]

Yes. On some more questionable bidding websites and even eBay, there are fake GTX 780s that are typically rebranded, reBIOS'd older GPUs (usually with 1GB DDR3 RAM) with a cheap-looking cooler on them being sold for $125 or less.

 

Here's an example. Rebadged 9800 GT.

[Swndlr]

******counterfeiter market intensifies*******

[marioo1182]

Not really. These chips are manufactured in multi-billion dollar facilities. 

And I'm sure that if you have more than a billion dollar people will know what you're up to.

[GoldSrc]

Is it possible?, yes.

Could it happen?, nope, you would need equipment worth billions.

 

You can find some Chinese videocards who claim to be GTX-whatever but with a different bios that make it look like GTX-980.

[Speedbird]

I don't think so.

 

You would only be able to take older chips and put a "Newest of the new" sticker on them

AMD...

[KayTees]

I had fun watching this.

 

[kachel94]

Well this news story broke today or yesterday

Fake AMD processors in circulation!

 

I don't know if I'm allowed to link directly to other forums, so please tell me if I broke rules!.

[Humbug]

Incredibly complex to do. There's a reason why so few companies in the world make GPUs and CPUs.

[TwOne]

You got fake GPUs from china that probably have a lower tier card and they modify the BIOS to make it a higher end card........

probably like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/new-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX650Ti-2GB-384Bit-DDR3-PCI-E-Graphics-Card-computer-/151579503564?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item234ad7abcc

The DDR3 gave it away. AFAIK the GTX 650 Ti only has GDDR5 memory.

[MLGNOSCOPEHEADSHOTGETREKT]

Okay i know how weird this sounds, But it made me wonder, someone with enough resources would be able to do something like that & flood it on to the mainstream market, or is something like this super impossible? haven't heard of a counterfit chip , which made me suspicious..Like copy the architecture & make it themselves & rebrand & sell the products along the original..

North Korea should know how to

[Toddwjp]

sometime you see gpus whith rejected B grade chips from the far east

[Ertman]

Production is your barrier to entry.

Fake CPUs and gpus, sure it happens.

[Trik'Stari]

Best anyone could hope for is mailing a box of rocks over Ebay or something.

[Dabombinable]

If I remember correctly, before CPUs were locked some vendors would overclock a CPU to match a more expensive model, then sell it in a pre-built system as the more expensive part.

[Prastupok]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newegg#Counterfeit_Intel_processors