Intel Resumes Shipping of Faulty Sandy Bridge Chip 203
arcticstoat writes "After causing chaos among motherboard makers by revealing a flaw in its 6-series motherboard chipsets, Intel has announced plans to recommence shipments of the faulty silicon, before the fixed chips have even started shipping. Intel claims it decided to start reshipping the chipsets after lengthy discussions with computer manufacturers. "As a result of these discussions and specific requests from computer makers,' says the company, 'Intel is resuming shipments of the Intel 6-series chipset for use only in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue." The announcement follows Intel's recent exposure of a well publicised design fault that affects the 3Gbps SATA ports (typically ports 2 to 5) in Intel's P67 and H67 chipsets. As such, we assume that the new systems based on the faulty chipsets will either come with a separate SATA controller card, or that they will only use the two (unaffected) 6Gbps SATA ports provided by the chipset."
Keep the Taint (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Keep the Taint (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure there's a list of affected processors with the range of serial #s. Something easy to check.
The defect is not in the processors, although people are going to be confused about that. The defect is in the Cougar Point P67 and H67 support chipsets.
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Which are, of course, significantly harder to replace.
Re:Keep the Taint (Score:5, Interesting)
And it's entirely Intel's own damn fault for forcing other chipset makers out of the game. There are plenty of companies that would make Intel chipsets, but Intel doesn't want them to and refuses to grant licenses necessary to make them.
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Re:Keep the Taint (Score:4, Interesting)
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the diff is that you query the chipset and unless it lies to you, it will say it has 6 ports.
if it does lie and show you only good ports, its not quite as bad; but then again, you don't always have to query the chip - by the make/model of the chip, you should know - at the driver level - how many X and Y ports to expect. the static mappings will need to be fixed, also.
I don't ever want a system to report these ports as even being there.
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If only two of those ports are physically connected, why does it matter ?
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This is why Intel would need to first update its specs so that model Sandy Bridge 1234 only has 4 ports or whatever. Yes, chips already sh
Re:Keep the Taint (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Keep the Taint (Score:4, Interesting)
Disable it in BIOS, remove the physical ports, update the specs. Sure it'll be an odd configuration to only ship with 2 SATA ports, but it won't be a "taint". I'd be very surprised if after all this, Intel will let OEMs ship machines with faulty ports. Personally I wouldn't mind a 4 port SATA card that I could bring along to my next machine.
In fact, I'm surprised that Intel hasn't made a cheap SATA controller of their own, the cheapest 4-port controller card I can find costs 313,- NOK while you can get a full H67 motherboard with 6 ports for 667,- NOK. Discrete controller cards are extremely overpriced.
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You also seem to be getting a bit stiffed in the SATA controller department, though. My Google overlord reports that you are looking at almost $55 for a 4 port. Prices stateside start at just under $40.
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Both include 25% VAT so $55 is around $44 without taxes. That combined with good warranty in law (2 or 5 year, depends) I'd say the prices are very close to global market prices.
with the low pci-e lanes and pci-e based usb3 ther (Score:3)
with the low pci-e lanes and pci-e based usb3 there not a lot of room to add pci-e sata cards and the pci-e x1 cards don't have a lot of bandwidth to work with.
Gigabit LAN also uses pci-e
also some boards also have a pci-e to pci chip on them as well.
Even if a board has light peak it will likely need 2-4+ pci-e lanes so 4+20? is not much with video at 16.
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But would that really bother most people? I'd wager the number of people who want to run 3+ disks (2 x 6 Gbps, 1+ 3 Gbps) at full capacity AND graphics at full capacity are a pretty small number who wouldn't buy these systems to begin with.
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the intel ICH hub chips (if they still call them that) are unequal in off-hub pci-e ports. the ICH sata ports also support port multipliers (nicely) and they are so fast and stable, I often buy intel cpus JUST for their northbridge chip.
I would not want to go back to pci-e cards for sata ports. not really. they are always 2nd best to the main sata ports.
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Specifically, with the exception of the graphics-specific 16/8/8 PCIe ports (the pair of 8's are optional), they all converge on the 20 Gbps DMI link that is specific to Sandy Bridge (regardless of the chipset.) The problem chipset supports 8 PCIe 2.0 x1's (or 4 x2's,
Totaling it up, 8 x 5 Gbps + 4 x 3 Gbps + 2 x 6 Gb
Re:Keep the Taint (Score:5, Informative)
It's simple - The manufacturer needs to commit to a situation where there is NO way a user can connect anything to the affected ports. Which is what Intel is requiring them to do.
Most low to midrange laptops are in this category - They have only two SATA devices (one hard drive, one optical drive), and no physical provisions for adding another. These laptops could contain a defective chip and it would not make ANY difference because there is no way to connect to the affected SATA ports. (Higher-end laptops support dual hard drives or eSATA and we won't see this with SNB unless they fall into the next category...)
A manufacturer can also produce a motherboard that uses the chipset SATA for the first two ports and an offboard controller for any additional ones - Manufacturers were probably doing this already in order to offer six 6 Gbps SATA ports instead of 2 6 gig and 4 3 gig ports. Users with a configuration like this also will not ever be affected by the issue.
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Thing is nVidia tried that and it didn't turn out so well for them. Slightly different circumstances but it should serve as a warning anyway.
Their chipsets were spec'ed to run at high temperature (80C+) continually. That suited laptop manufacturers as it means less cooling is required, making the laptop smaller, lighter and quieter. Problem is that after a few months the chipset would fail.
Their solution to this was to release BIOS updates that down-clocked the GPU in an attempt to keep temperatures down. T
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The NVidia problem was an issue with packaging reliability, extremely similar to the Xbox 360 RRoD problem. It also is a case where NVidia thought there were no problems and didn't realize there were problems until after lots of failure reports started rolling in. In the days of RoHS, reliable packaging and soldering of BGA chips is a VERY tough problem.
This is a whole other situation - Intel caught this in advance, and has identified the problem down to the specific transistor level. They know exactly w
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Which is what Intel is requiring them to do.
On what do you base this statement?
According to TFA (unfortunately the intel site linked from TFA seems to be down at the moment so I can't follow things back to the source) intel said "PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue". That is a bit of a vauge statement, does it mean systems that aren't impacted by the issue if kept as sold? or does it mean systems that can't become impacted by the issue through user upgrades?
I suspect and hope
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This will confuse people and make them wary of Sandy Bridge based machines for years. "Is this box tainted? I don't know, and the manufacturer won't tell me. I guess I'll buy something else." A nice clean break of recalling *all* defective machines and shipping only good silicon would have been better.
If the manufacturer isn't actually making use of that part of the chip, is it really taint? The consumer doesn't need to care if one of these chips is in there because all they should really care about is the specs of the board they're buying. If the specs are good enough, then what's the problem?
Processor designers have been doing similar things for years in a slightly different fashion, i.e Pentium vs Celeron, Athlon vs Duron. Also, these are chipsets so it's not as if the consumer will be able to use the
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I will certainly avoid that chipset if I can.
AMD will probably be preferred for upcoming purchases.
Capactior Plague (Score:2)
Does this remind anyone of Capacitor Plague? Look at the resale prices of potentially affected Dells to get an idea of the impact of these kinds of decisions. There will be all of these hardware rev numbers and manufacturers won't be forthcoming with information on which units have which. It's ridiculous.
No, it doesn't (Score:2)
The capacitor issue was pervasive and took years for the problems to manifest themselves.
Since the failed parts were made by a third-party, many computer makers were hesitant to acknowledge the problem as t
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intel probably thought it would pull back all SB chips.
then, the hungry mobo makers said 'we have cpus sitting here and we can't sell them you morans!'. semi true, too; I've seen cpu 'sales' on the new chips and people are debating if they should buy a chip and wait for the mobo later. that seems insane to me, though.
so intel got pressure from partners say 'we'll just NOT connect those ports'.
still, I would never buy SB now. the 'gene pool' is going to be polluted. am I buying a good board or not? what
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No it won't.
Only a vanishingly small proportion of customers will even know what a chipset is, let alone which specific model is in their PC.
Of *those*, probably half of them only ever buy along party lines, so a flaw in an Intel chipset is irrelevant to them.
Of the remainder, most will be aware of the issue and account for it. That's assuming, of course, one of these defective chipsets even gets into a system that has
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Only enthusiasts will know or care about this issue so long as the PC they are sold works as advertised.
Awesome! (Score:2, Interesting)
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"replace my aging PC (circa 2008 tech)"
Yeah , 2008 , thats like totally ancient dude. Not.
Christ , no wonder we have an electronics waste mountain and all its associated pollution issues when people like you bin perfectly servicable and upgradable machines.
Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Insightful)
"replace my aging PC (circa 2008 tech)"
Yeah , 2008 , thats like totally ancient dude. Not.
Christ , no wonder we have an electronics waste mountain and all its associated pollution issues when people like you bin perfectly servicable and upgradable machines.
Who said he's throwing it away? Or even that he's replacing every part of it?
Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?
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"Who said he's throwing it away? Or even that he's replacing every part of it?"
Thats generally what "replacing my PC" implies assuming you have a reasonable understanding of the english language.
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Assuming he actually bins it. My desktop tends to replace my dad's machine that'll replace my mom's machine and sometimes a generation is used as my server. So barring hardware failure it can easily last 12 years even if I replace it every three. Or just sell it on the second hand market or whatever. If you are one of those still pushing the limits - even if it's just for entertainment like gaming - then three years is still a long time.
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Thanks for judging me, though.
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I didn't say I didn't like your comment nor that I didn't welcome it. You judged me unfairly, and I corrected you. And then you insulted me again. Flame on, my sensitive brother, I've been here way longer than you.
Re:Awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
This is highly relevant to my interests as I embarked upon an upgrade crusade about a week ago to replace my aging PC
I'm very happy with my four core Phenom II. Powerful, quiet, cheap - pick all three.
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What? 2008 is "aging tech"?
I've recently replaced a 2006 processor with 2009 processor (per date stamp on the chip casing itself) - AM2 Athlon64 X2 with AM3 Phenom II 820. It even fit in the same socket of my "aging" 2006 ASUS board.
So what is the point? This isn't 1995 anymore. You are not doubling performance every 2 years, heck, single threaded performance has been about the same for the last 5 years (more or less). 2008 is only 2 years old - today's chips are about the same performance as they used to b
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Some manufacturers are likely to offer motherboards with a discrete controller on the motherboard to offer additional ports. Manufacturers have been doing this for ages. My file server from 2006 has two SATA ports from its NVidia chipset and 4 from an on-motherboard but off-chipset Silicon Image controller.
In fact even before the flaw was announced I believe a number were offering this simply so they could advertise more than two 6 Gbps SATA ports.
Remember the good 'ole days (Score:5, Interesting)
At any rate, this is just great. I'm sure the lower end manufactures will be just pleased as punch to make sure those broken ports don't get used. You know, if it made it into production it must work just well enough to blame the problems on the OS when you call for a warranty swap.
Re:Remember the good 'ole days (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, but it's even better than that, from the manufacturer's point of view. The SATA flaw will take time to actually surface [anandtech.com], and even then it'll only gradually make your machine unworkable, so by that time you'll be out of warranty, and the manufacturer won't care.
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I had something similar happen with my bluray player, been fighting Samsung for almost a month about it. You have to install updates to play the new movies, and the update breaks the ability for the bluray player to play DVDs. They want to charge me $160 per device (3 players!) to fix functionality that their update broke. I think I'm getting my point across to everyone I talk to, but it has to get "elevated" and they never contact me back. Its BEYOND frustrating and they've probably screwed thousands o
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Which just means that my next upgrade will be AMD. Thanks for making the decision easy, Intel!
Cause AMD would never knowingly ship defective parts to the market? Remember the Phenom triple-core? Why do you care if a chipset has a few bad ports, if that chipset is put in a system where those ports will not be used? How is that any different than the ports simply not being on the chipset? You can bet that OEMs are getting these chipsets at a discount. So Intel sells inventory that they would otherwise have to trash. OEMs get parts for less money than they would otherwise have to pay. Consumers pay l
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Windows 98 won't used RAM past 256M unless you hack the registry, it'll use the page file instead
Um, no.
Re:Remember the good 'ole days (Score:4, Informative)
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They still do this, and don't tell you (though you can probably figure it out if you look hard enough). A mid-range CPU is probably the same silicon as the high-end one, but with a core or two disabled, or some cache disabled, or the clock speed lower, or whatever else they may have needed to do. Ditto GPUs - the GeForce 570 appears to be [wikipedia.org] the same silicon as a GeForce 580, but with one SM disabled, a narrower memory interface, and lower clocks. Each chip that is manufactured is slightly different from every
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Makes sense. Laptops for example. (Score:5, Insightful)
If a Laptop uses a faulty chipset, but is only configured to use the two 6GB SATA ports, it will be entirely unaffected by the bug, as it only effects the 3GB SATA ports. Since there is really no way for the consumer to actually use the 3GB ports, it will never have the bug problem.
So yes in cases like that, it makes sense to keep shipping. Those laptops are perfectly fine.
When I read the title I was a bit leery until I thought about it for a second. I know when I buy my new desktop one eventually, I don't want there to be a chance I get a faulty one!
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May as well wait a few months for the C or D stepping then. By then, Llano and Bulldozer will have come out too, which'll hopefully put some downward pressure on the higher-end chips for both companies (at least I hope it does; AMD really needs a win to keep in business).
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AMD is fine, remember they are also ATI, so a bit diversified. However they do need to get their CPU/Chipset ass in gear or get left behind in the dust. About the only thing I would buy AMD for in the CPU/Chipset market right now is the low end, where performance really doesn't matter much at all, only price. Even then I might think twice. I think their GPU is competitive right now however and is doing just fine. In the CPU they really need to come out with a game changer, something really significant. I me
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Or if you want to build an ECC system without paying the inflated price of an Intel Xeon CPU and motherboard.
Third-party SATA controllers. (Score:2)
Well, if newer boards ship with a third-party controller to bypass the 3GB issue, we're set there too.
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But a number of boards already do this so they can offer more than two 6 Gbps SATA ports.
Fine for people with hardware RAID cards. (Score:2)
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Even low-end systems with nasty little softraid setups(either cards or embedded into the motherboard) shouldn't notice.
The only people who it really bites, potentially hard, are the midrange/enthusiast types(who, unfortunately, are just the sort who might be early-adopting the second-gen i5s...). Getting 6 SATA ports, all from the chipset, with zero PCIe lanes sacrificed, is much better for your stack
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There's quite number of configurations where this won't be a problem; laptops, which almost universally only use one HDD, are mentioned above also. That's why the request to keep shipping makes a lot of sense. The only questionable part is whether manufacturers will only ship those configurations. I mean, surely no motherboard manufacturer has ever produced something that violated the chipset maker's recommendation. No computer manufacturer has ever produced something that violated the motherboard mak
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This isn't just a recommendation, it's a requirement.
As in: Promise to only ship unaffected configurations, or we're not going to ship you any parts.
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High end systems are not based on SB technology, because SB technology is aimed at the consumer market.
The enterprise versions of SB are not due for release until much later.
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separate SATA controller card (Score:2)
So long as it is priced accordingly (i.e. discount) and the specifications are transparent (i.e. they don't try to trick people), then that is fine, I can base my decision to buy on features, which will include one less PCI slot than others due to extra card etc...
If I was Intel, I would be hesitant to do this however (outside of laptops that are unaffected), as it is ripe for possible abuse by less reputable manufactures, and in the end it will be Intel's reputation at stake.
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I agree. It will be OK if it is completely transparent. For example a different part number.
The Pentium bug was different. It affected all processors and there was no trivial work around. It probably did not actually affect many people, but there was no way to know if you might be affected by a real-world computation error or not.
Most folks don't know what is in a computer anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Although us geekier types read, "recommence shipments of the faulty silicon," and scream, "Well that's a fine idea of how to get rid of a warehouse of faulty chips!"
Didn't we have this with Intel already, with floating point division? Oh, yeah, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug [wikipedia.org] .
And Devo did a song about it, years before it happened:
"When chip bug comes along . . . you must ship it! Ship it! Ship it good!"
I wonder if the sales kid at your local super-computer store will inform you, "Oh, by the way, this model has a faulty chip." Or, maybe a sticker on the computer: "Faulty Intel Chip Inside!" That should do wonders for sales.
I remember that once the floating point division problem got mainstream press coverage, folks got all ornery, despite statements from Intel that most users would never see this problem. Most folks don't even know what floating point is. Intel eventually bought off the math prof who discovered the bug, by giving him testing contract. He deserved it, because he did a damn good job tracking down the bug. He is really, "a geek's geek."
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More garbage titles...thanks! (Score:5, Informative)
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Do we really have to keep calling this a Sandy Bridge issue? This isn't a sandy bridge issue, the name Sandy bridge is for the CPU. The issue is NOT with the CPU, it's with the chipset Cougar point.
In summary, the problem is with the Cougar Point Bridge to Sandy Bridge?
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Right, just because there are absolutely no other chipsets that work with Sandy Bridge CPUs doesn't mean you can't go off and build your own at home!
Probably Jeri Ellsworth [wikipedia.org] has made one out of some bits of an old wok [flickr.com] and a satellite dish [makezine.com] already.
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Guess calling the CPU Sandy Bridge and not the chipset taking the role of the northbridge and the southbridge must have confused the hell out of people.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Now add in that AMD is putting out its own major revision in two months (the first in many many years), and all the signs currently indicate that they wi
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The more I read about this the more it seems like Intel really went overboard halting production on everything. For starters this flaw doesn't impact all the SATA ports. For the ports it does impact it only happens in a small % of devices and even in those devices it is a progressive problem (meaning they won't be DOA).
In the UK, the manufacturer has to fix a computer for six years _if the fault was present when the computer was sold_. If the customer buys a computer with a perfectly fine SATA port and it breaks after one year and one day because of bad luck, that's the customer's problem. If the customer buys a computer with a chip that was broken on day one, but only affecting operation after a few years, that is the manufacturer's problem.
OEMs usually don't ship SSDs very often (Score:3, Informative)
Let's take a step back and look at what SATA 6 Gbps actually offers: 6 Gbps signal rate. Do the usual Shitachi or Fushitsu hard drives favored by OEMs even come close to 6 Gbps ? No. They can't even hit 1 Gbps, but they're inexpensive and most of the time the PC around them is limited in countless other ways.
Even a high-end, performance-oriented hard drive will barely scratch the ceiling of first-gen SATA's 1.5Gbps, so your little gamer friend is also not seeing any tangible benefit from SATA 6Gbps.
So this leaves two very small niches: SSDs which already hit the 3Gbps mark, and port multipliers. I pity the fool who drops a small fortune on a port multiplier enclosure, only to plug it into a low-cost Sandy Bridge PC. As for the SSDs, well you still need to buy a special one whose controller also runs at 6Gbps, and surprise: none of the OEMs ship these yet. Heck, they rarely offer anything better than an Intel X25M or old-stock Corsair/Kingston, which top out at 2Gbps on a good day.
So really, Intel continuing to ship these B-grade boards to select OEMs is simply common sense. The people who might be affected by the tainted SATA ports 3 years down the road, do not even figure in the target demographic. It's not like these boards will wind up in mission-critical systems, and there's still the OEM's warranty to handle any lemons down the road.
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If you are reusing an old board for mission-critical applications, you deserve what you get. That goes double for one that is clearly faulty in some way.
From Google:
The term mission critical (or mission-critical) refers to any factor (equipment, process, procedure, software, etc.) which is essential to the core function of an organisation. That is, it is critical to the organisation's 'mission'.
By this definition, your leechers and gamers are not organizations and thus have no need for mission-critical-leve
"Aging tech"... (Score:2)
Sandy bridge is not that much faster then a Core 2 machine, in fact the i7 was roughly on 40% faster at most, in the majority of applications. The Sandybridge as of this time is just i7 redux with slightly higher clockspeeds.
No one should need to upgrade until you see at least double the performance of a core 2 machine unless one is doing specialized work where every gain is important to the task/business.
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Once you are talking about the mid-range Sandy's, then you also have to consider the AMD offerings because they do keep up in that segment as well. No point replacing any of the AMD "Thuban" chips with a mid-range Sandy either, as they are all about equal in performance.
The Sandy CPU's are very competitive, for sure. That high end 2600K Sandy is a great bargain for the performance. If you are buying a Sandy, i
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Man somedays I wonder what is wrong with the internet....
The i7 is not even 30% faster then the core 2 E8400 in UT3, and Sandybridge is barely faster then the i7 at the same clockspeed. Everyone benching using nothing less then the latest apps is fudging the data purposely.
http://www.techspot.com/review/353-intel-sandy-bridge-corei5-2500k-corei7-2600k/page13.html [techspot.com]
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/11390-intel-core-i7-nehalem-920-940-965-xe-processor-review-17.html [hardwarecanucks.com]
Using the latest
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You are missing the point ENTIRELY... you made no rational numbers backed points what-so-ever, just rhetoric. As for the GPU limitation bullshit comment, you are just lying out your ass. There are plenty of other games which aren't GPU limited which show the same or worse trends.
When people upgrade they look for significant performance increase over what they already own, so if you are a gamer and I7 is only 30% faster then there is no point in upgrading and this is true for all PC gamers. Most modern
What's next? (Score:2)
Ford will be restart selling the Pinto?
Don't worry, there's only an issue if you get rear-ended, avoid that and you'll never have any problems!
Hmm... interesting, that same advice applies when in prison too.
Laptops and ... eom desktops too. (Score:2)
This probably covers a fair range of desktop machines from the OEM's too. Has anyone here actually looked inside a low-midrange dell/etc lately? Your lucky if there is a PCIe slot much less extra SATA ports.
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Probably they're selling to OEMs based on the OEM's specs.
Still... if you're an OEM, or planning to scratch build a system, it looks emptor had better caveat pretty carefully...
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Virtually all laptops, excluding on a few high end workstation/gamer beasts, are 1HDD and (still common; but getting rarer) 1 optical drive. And, in a laptop, there isn't exactly much room to monkey with the shipping configuration...
Given that Intel has held the crown for reasonably high performance at laptop-friendly TDPs, I'm assuming that laptop makers would really like to get their hands on the latest silicon so that their roadmaps stay mostly accurate.
Small form factor and very small form factor desktops may also want in, for the same reasons. If you can only physically fit 2 drives in the case, only having 2 ports isn't a huge issue(Joe Tweaker who wants to put one of those 4-2.5inch-trays-in-one-5.25inch-bay devices in place of the optical drive will have to suffer; but nobody else will care...
It will be more interesting; but less certain, to see if production of standard motherboards resumes. By all accounts, the built-in intel SATA ports are(when working) competitive or better than most outboard ones cheap enough to integrate on a mass-market motherboard, plus they don't eat PCIe lanes. From a design perspective, it'd be easy enough to not solder headers for the faulty ports, and leave people with just the 6GB/s chipset ports and 4-6 provided by a 3rd party controller; but it remains to be seen if that will be acceptable to enthusiasts...
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Correction: Joe Tweaker who wants to put one of those 4-2.5inch-trays-in-one-5.25inch-bay devices in a Dell will have to suffer.
FTFY, and while I would love to watch Joe Tweaker get electrocuted in a freak SATA port accident, chances are he won't even be affected by the bug until well after his Dell gives up the ghost.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
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Virtually all laptops, excluding on a few high end workstation/gamer beasts, are 1HDD and (still common; but getting rarer) 1 optical drive.
A lot of current laptops have a hard drive, an optical drive and an eSATA port which takes things up to 3.
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It will mean one less item for the spec sheet, un
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My guess would be that what they really mean is they will insist that motherboard vendors don't connect any ports to the bad controller.
If the ports don't exist you can't use them.
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This is Intel's fault all the way.
Here's an article that describes the problem in pretty simple terms.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug [anandtech.com]
It appears to only affect the 3gb SATA, and not the 6gb.
I suspect manufacturers will buy these cheap and just not implement the 3gb SATA feature, at least those that understand the problem.
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As long as the systems are advertised as only having 2 SATA ports, I fail to see what the problem is. If someone is foolish enough to do the research and conclude that their are more ports without doing enough research to discover those ports don't actually work, that's their problem.
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Re:Fuck Intel (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, that will(in some ways) be worse and more confusing than the straight crippling. With the chipset ports, basically all motherboards of a given chipset will get the same performance out of those ports. With a 3rd party controller, performance will be substantially variable; based on how many PCIe lanes they give the controller, and who makes it(anybody who remembers the god-awful JMicron[seriously, what is it with JMicron? their IDE controllers sucked ass, and then so did their SSD controller chips...] IDE controllers that some motherboard makers started using when Intel's chipsets went SATA-only should be getting nervous right about now...)
For 1-2 drive only systems, like laptops and very small form factor systems, no problem. The two good chipset ports will do just fine. For motherboards purporting to offer more, though, you'll have to really do your reading before you buy....
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It's the laptops that will suffer if the manufacturer of the system doesn't know about the bug. That'll mean dead systems for the most part for anyone buying a board that uses the 3gb SATA only on those laptop motherboards.
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So if they've already physically removed the connectors, what's the point in all that DRM BIOS bullshit? To keep some moron with a soldering iron from using the port? (which violates the warranty anyhow) And it's a problem with the chipset, not the CPU, so the chip is always soldered down and can't be re-used in another computer.
It's not like it affects any other part of the chip when it does go bad; it just kills the output that never had a connector until dickless over there decided to rig one up to it.
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So if they've already physically removed the connectors, what's the point in all that DRM BIOS bullshit? To keep some moron with a soldering iron from using the port?
Prevent someone who plus the laptop into a docking station from using ESATA on these ports, for example?
Or prevent someone from switching out his HD with a RAID0 "sandwich" SSD with the same footprint?
The thing is that you don't know, so you shouldn't make assumptions.
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Alternatively you could plan for it and leave a PCI slot open for an add in card.
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If unscrupulous parties get a decent number of cheap 'n shady parts produced before the problem was known, it is entirely likely that we will see some misrepresentation.
If intel just continues producing the defective silicon; but lasers out or fails to connect the affected ports when packaging the die, it will be rather uneconomic for anyone to try to restore them and ship them as g