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Xeon Engineering Sample

jj9987
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How reliable are Engineering Sample CPUs? Is there any real difference?

I was offered Xeon E5-2628L v4 (Broadwell-EP) for a good price (150€). At this price, I am considering one or two of them for a server build.

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ES2, QHV8 is the identification code for it.

HAL9000: AMD Ryzen 9 3900x | Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black | 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 MHz | Asus X570 Prime Pro | ASUS TUF 3080 Ti | 1 TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus + 1 TB Crucial MX500 + 6 TB WD RED | Corsair HX1000 | be quiet Pure Base 500DX | LG 34UM95 34" 3440x1440

Hydrogen server: Intel i3-10100 | Cryorig M9i | 64 GB Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz DDR4 | Gigabyte B560M-DS3H | 33 TB of storage | Fractal Design Define R5 | unRAID 6.9.2

Carbon server: Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX100 S7p | Xeon E3-1230 v2 | 16 GB DDR3 ECC | 60 GB Corsair SSD & 250 GB Samsung 850 Pro | Intel i340-T4 | ESXi 6.5.1

Big Mac cluster: 2x Raspberry Pi 2 Model B | 1x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B | 2x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

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The problem with engineering samples (which may or may not be "stolen" property -- we are not privy to the exact agreements between Intel and the OEMs that acquire them) is that you really don't know what you're getting.  And the processors themselves may have been mis-treated in the overall process of vendor testing and integration. 

 

Its hard to put a 'reliability' figure on them.  Some could be seriously flawed or damaged.  Some could be identical to what you would buy, brand-new, at retail.  Unless you are privy to all the errata, and the history of the chip, they are best avoided. 

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16 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

we'll they are illegal to buy, but that doesn't stop people from buying them.

 

They are illegal for the original recipient to sell as they almost certainly signed a contract saying they wouldn't. There is nothing illegal about buying them.

 

I'm running 2 e5-2665 Engineering samples in my server, never had a CPU related problem. then again I looked up the exact version of the chip I was getting and checked online to see if anyone had had issues with it. Servethehome is a good resource for that.

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15 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

we'll they are illegal to buy, but that doesn't stop people from buying them.

 

Xeon engineering samples are a mixed bag. The early revisions tend to have problems and the later engineering samples tend to be better. Ask the seller what revision the xeon is to make sure it is not one of the early revisions.

not illegal to buy. its illegal to sell ;) 

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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/

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Spoiler

Iq1QXWB.jpg

A0 stepping, is this the very first in the line?

HAL9000: AMD Ryzen 9 3900x | Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black | 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 MHz | Asus X570 Prime Pro | ASUS TUF 3080 Ti | 1 TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus + 1 TB Crucial MX500 + 6 TB WD RED | Corsair HX1000 | be quiet Pure Base 500DX | LG 34UM95 34" 3440x1440

Hydrogen server: Intel i3-10100 | Cryorig M9i | 64 GB Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz DDR4 | Gigabyte B560M-DS3H | 33 TB of storage | Fractal Design Define R5 | unRAID 6.9.2

Carbon server: Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX100 S7p | Xeon E3-1230 v2 | 16 GB DDR3 ECC | 60 GB Corsair SSD & 250 GB Samsung 850 Pro | Intel i340-T4 | ESXi 6.5.1

Big Mac cluster: 2x Raspberry Pi 2 Model B | 1x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B | 2x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

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8 hours ago, Jumper118 said:

not illegal to buy. its illegal to sell ;) 

But the chips are actually never the property of the person who buys them. They still belong to Intel.

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/processors/000005719.html

 

And make sure to check what the seller's description of the chip says there are some that basically say that the chips are almost gaurenteed to fail, and don't accept returns.

 

 •E5-2670 @2.7GHz • Intel DX79SI • EVGA 970 SSC• GSkill Sniper 8Gb ddr3 • Corsair Spec 02 • Corsair RM750 • HyperX 120Gb SSD • Hitachi 2Tb HDD •

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8 hours ago, jj9987 said:

How reliable are Engineering Sample CPUs? Is there any real difference?

I was offered Xeon E5-2628L v4 (Broadwell-EP) for a good price (150€). At this price, I am considering one or two of them for a server build.

By who?  Those aren't supposed to be "in the wild" I would turn them in to Intel.

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17 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

By who?  Those aren't supposed to be "in the wild" I would turn them in to Intel.

If you go on ebay you will find hundreds of es sample cpus.

 

 •E5-2670 @2.7GHz • Intel DX79SI • EVGA 970 SSC• GSkill Sniper 8Gb ddr3 • Corsair Spec 02 • Corsair RM750 • HyperX 120Gb SSD • Hitachi 2Tb HDD •

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6 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

If you go on ebay you will find hundreds of es sample cpus.

Well I'm pretty sure it's illegal

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4 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Well I'm pretty sure it's illegal

100% illegal because they are selling intel's property, just Intel isn't going to waste the money to track the sellers down, and most will probabbly be selling from overseas.

 

 •E5-2670 @2.7GHz • Intel DX79SI • EVGA 970 SSC• GSkill Sniper 8Gb ddr3 • Corsair Spec 02 • Corsair RM750 • HyperX 120Gb SSD • Hitachi 2Tb HDD •

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10 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Well I'm pretty sure it's illegal

Yeah but Intel tolerates the chips not being returned.  At some level, Intel needs to do due diligence over their "property" if indeed the chips are Intel's property (which they may or may not be).

 

A moderately publicized incident of an Intel customer being severely punished (or threatened with punishment) for not returning ES CPU's and/or allowing them to fall into the grey market would fix the problem.  But surprise surprise, Intel hasn't taken many visible steps.

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6 hours ago, SLAYR said:

But the chips are actually never the property of the person who buys them. They still belong to Intel.

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/processors/000005719.html

 

And make sure to check what the seller's description of the chip says there are some that basically say that the chips are almost gaurenteed to fail, and don't accept returns.

i know. does stop put.

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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