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Purchasing Used Intel Xeon QS (Quaification Sample) Chips or ES (Engineering Sample) Chips?

Speedfreak954
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In the process of building a workstation that has a dual cpu socket setup for intel Xeon E5 2600 v3 series chips.   I have pretty much have everything for the build purchased except the two xeon chips.  I have been looking online for used chips on ebay and ran into some great used prices but they are labeled as the ES or QS versions of the chips.  Here is an example of one for a E5 2697 V3 QS version .  From what I have read the Engineering sample is the version of the chip put out for more testing and making sure there are no bugs with the chip before retail sales.   The QS version is the second round of chips released before retail that are much more closer refined versions pretty much identical to retail/oem but is not labeled as such.

 

Has anyone had experience using QS or ES intel xeon chips?? If i purchased one I think I would only look for a QS version because it sounds like it is pretty much the closest to retail version but at a cheaper price. However, I am worried that these chips might not be recognized/boot correctly with certain motherboards, or not finding a bios that works correctly.   I contacted Asus and asked them specifically about these chips and if they would work with the board.  They were only able to say "Theoretically they should work because they are the same as the retail version, but they dont support any troubleshooting or support for those chips"  

 

Would love to hear some feedback or thoughts on this. Thanks all!

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I don't think it's legal to sell your engineering sample, otherwise Linus wouldn't need our support other than for views...

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Oh wow, really?  Interesting. Well there is quite a few people breaking some rules on ebay selling those chips then lol.  

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Oh wow, really?  Interesting. Well there is quite a few people breaking some rules on ebay selling those chips then lol.  

yes its illegal to sell them. as long as they dont ask for it back your good. i have a couple of E6000 ES which never even went retail, but the work fine and are very very fast for a Pentium. They overclock really well :P

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Harrynowl's 775/771 OC and mod guide: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/232325-lga775-core2duo-core2quad-overclocking-guide/ http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/365998-mod-lga771-to-lga775-cpu-modification-tutorial/

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"desperate for just a bit more money to watercool, the titan x would be thankful" Carter -2016

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Intel engineering samples actually tend to overclock better than normal chips, but I've never heard anything about that second set.

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yes its illegal to sell them. as long as they dont ask for it back your good. i have a couple of E6000 ES which never even went retail, but the work fine and are very very fast for a Pentium. They overclock really well :P

Crazy.  Heheh, gotcha.    That is good to know you have had no problems with your experience with them. Interesting that they overclock better.  Suppose maybe these ES and QS chips might be unlocked with more settings to overclock then retail? 

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Intel engineering samples actually tend to overclock better than normal chips, but I've never heard anything about that second set

Interesting,  thanks for the heads up on the overclock potential of the ES chips. 

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Crazy.  Heheh, gotcha.    That is good to know you have had no problems with your experience with them. Interesting that they overclock better.  Suppose maybe these ES and QS chips might be unlocked with more settings to overclock then retail? 

well these overclock better as they are a really high bin that they couldn't get good enough yields on so they didn't release it. they dont have anything unlocked that the normal retails chips wouldn't. i don't think intel would be too fussed about these es chips, if they are older models, but they may be more likely to try and get them back if they were current or next gen chips. 

Rig Specs:

AMD Threadripper 5990WX@4.8Ghz

Asus Zenith III Extreme

Asrock OC Formula 7970XTX Quadfire

G.Skill Ripheartout X OC 7000Mhz C28 DDR5 4X16GB  

Super Flower Power Leadex 2000W Psu's X2

Harrynowl's 775/771 OC and mod guide: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/232325-lga775-core2duo-core2quad-overclocking-guide/ http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/365998-mod-lga771-to-lga775-cpu-modification-tutorial/

ProKoN haswell/DC OC guide: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/41234-intel-haswell-4670k-4770k-overclocking-guide/

 

"desperate for just a bit more money to watercool, the titan x would be thankful" Carter -2016

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  • 1 year later...
Posted

Is it possible that someone has additional information on Speedfreeks question?

On 7/29/2015 at 1:38 PM, Speedfreak954 said:

Has anyone had experience using QS or ES intel xeon chips?? If i purchased one I think I would only look for a QS version because it sounds like it is pretty much the closest to retail version but at a cheaper price. However, I am worried that these chips might not be recognized/boot correctly with certain motherboards, or not finding a bios that works correctly.   I contacted Asus and asked them specifically about these chips and if they would work with the board.  They were only able to say "Theoretically they should work because they are the same as the retail version, but they dont support any troubleshooting or support for those chips"  

Thanks,

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I know Intel doesn't want their current ES/QS chips being bought, but I've been wanting to know recently, what about buying older CPUs off ebay?  I'm thinking CPUs that are officially End-of-Life, or were released ling enough ago that even a 3-year warranty would have likely expired.

 

For example, I've been looking at Westmere/Nehalem Xeons on ebay, for possibly building a NAS server.  Since hearing about FB selling some Sandy Bridge Xeons, and the plummeting prices on those, I've been considering them as well.  I think Ivy Bridge would be too new (expensive), and LGA775 or older wouldn't support enough ECC RAM for my use.  (FreeNAS, with deduplication, 30+ TB actual usable storage with future upgrades eventually to/beyond 100+TB, etc; also might consider UnRAID, hoping it has deduplication, integrity checksums, etc.)

 

One possible concern with the NAS build idea, though ... My dad was complaining about my laptop (with desktop CPU, geforce GPU, etc) pigging out on 40 watts while plugged in sitting in windows, not gaming. :/

 

So is buying Sandy Bridge & older ES/QS CPUs okay?

 

P.S. rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd ask here.  I might reask the nas stuff later elsewhere too.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Yes, in theory if the retail chip is compatible it should work and boot up fine.   However, there is that small risk if there is an issue of not booting or working correctly to quick assume it is the ES/QS chips that are not working with the board,. Like Asus said they wont support any help and you run the risk of if there is a problem they will immediately tell you it is the chip. And thats it, no other help from support lol. I guess that is the risk you run for buying these cheaper priced CPUs. I personally have not had any compatibility or boot problems myself though. 

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