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Unboxing the Fake Intel Core i7-920
SkinnyGuy writes "The only thing more remarkable than NewEgg shipping fake Core i7 CPUs to customers is getting your hands on one and checking it out. Apparently there are only a couple hundred of these things in existence and Gearlog somehow managed to get and unbox one. The images are fascinating."
to have added a third g to their name.
Sent from your iPad.
That the fakes could become more valuable eventually than the real item, simply by dint of their fame and rarity.
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
They are saying the processor is actually made of lead, so the overclocking potential is dismal.
That combined with the underpowered foam cooler relegates this processor to HTPC uses only.
This is such a non story. NewEgg made it right, and everyone has moved on. It must be a slow news week in tech.
The cpu "cooler." The misspellings on the box. This was fraud.
My friend once bought an Alpine stereo from someone. When we looked closer at the box it was actually "Alphine" with an h. Okay so typical story. The funny part was the box. It had a picture of a Lamborghini on it. But the one they took a picture of was actually a toy. You could see this when you looked close. They didn't even bother to use a real Lamborghini picture! Even that was a fake! We couldn't stop laughing for at least an hour. The lengths some people will go to dupe people, if they spent that energy on creating something with actual worth..
How long until these things go for over $280 on eBay?
"L@@K!! Own a piece of computing history -- the fake i7 920!!"
The cpu "cooler." The misspellings on the box. This was fraud.
Are you sure?
Wah Sig!
Its the same computer that brought you the moon landing.
just as long as we catch the fake lead PHARMACEUTICALS
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The mispelings on the bocks, the led processor, the fake distributor.
Best Slashdot Co
Wow, you think? That's some fine detective work. Tell me, was it the lead "processor" or the solid plastic "fan" that gave it away?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Yes, but by whom? I really doubt NewEgg would try to pull something like this. Their reputation is the only thing that separates them from any number of other online parts sellers.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Are they saying a picture of a fan does not provide the same level of cooling as a real fan?
This story is not "OMG! NewEgg is so bad!! They shipped fake CPUs!" okay? No one is bashing NewEgg, you can relax, your job there is probably safe.
The story is "Wow! Look at these hunks of lead and plastic blocks with stickers that look like fans on them!" I mean, someone went to a lot of trouble to make these things. It's an interesting story.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Oh yeah! This is the same processor found inside a P-P-P-Powerbook!
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
Dude, I bought a fake i7 on eBay, but it turned out to be real! What a ripoff!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That's some darn good police work there, Lou.
Your statement made the baby jesus cry.
Surprised they didn't call it "kewler".
"Apparently there are only a couple hundred of these things in existence..."
And now, due to all the stories about them, they have become modern-day artifacts and will probably sell on eBay as collectibles for more than the real thing.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I seriously doubt these lead processors are ROHS compliant.
Someone who wanted to pull a couple of hundred processors out of the supply chain. By making fake boxes and shipping them they might be able to hide at what point they were stolen.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Seriously, how many stories are needed on this topic? It was a very minor, localized issue that has already been dealt with in a manner that has garnered almost universal Slashdot love; stories over, nothing to see here.
The original story linked to a youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDU7Xoju4LM that showed a buyer "unboxing" the fake processor.
What, no benchmarks?
This thing becomes a collectors item worth more than the original proc, and people start going nuts on ebay over these, and then some company in China will make knock offs of the knock offs selling the fakes as the REEL ORIGENAL NEWEGGG FAKES.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Windows 7 - Primitive Edition is certified by Microsoft to run on this processor.
Keep an eye on the blogs for announcement of the Ubuntu lead-block remix for this real soon now.
Here's another earlier unboxing. http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6422351#post6422351
for my p-p-p-powerbook
Erm, the fakes are NOT functional in any way. They are just a piece of metal. Even the average consumer will notice something's wrong when the computer won't turn on.
Growing up in Fremont, it became quickly apparent to me that there are a lot of crooks there. Seeing that IPEX was based there does not surprise me. On the edge of Silicon Valley, huge foreign population, a lot of well-educated people, and most of all, the opportunity to rip people off.
I hate to be stereotypical, but I would wager my home desktop that I could profile these cons with a pretty good degree of accuracy.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
"The failure on the part of the manufacturer of these fakes is that they shipped them to precisely the wrong market. Thousands of these puppies could have ended up in desktop computers and nobody would ever have known. The average consumer has no idea what's inside the case. Instead, though, the fakes end up at Newegg, where they get purchased by exactly the kind of people who can recognize them for what they are. It's almost like they were trying to get caught."
Subtle troll is subtle... Either that or you didn't even bother to RTFS and figure out that these things are not just fake, but totally non-functional. In which case, Obvious troll is obvious...
Uh... If you had looked at the pictures you would know that "thousands" of these couldn't have ended up in desktop computers. The "fake" processors are not actually functional. It is a hunk of lead. It doesn't even have pins. It would be impossible for anyone to actually install this in a computer.
Further, I don't know who you think buys retail processors besides techies? Mom n pop buy their computers from dell, and dell would certainly stop these processors from reaching them, no PC with this part could pass even the most remedial QA.
um..it was a joke.
I thought he just bought an limited extreme performance edition, now with 50% more lead...
Postage stamps mis-printed are worth quite a bit of money. One with a post mark can potentially make you a millionaire.
Interesting that a few of these could end up worth more than their original bretheran.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
"Hmm. Mis-spellings on the box. A sticker of a fan. A solid block of metal for the CPU.
I'd say the buyers were
<removes sunglasses>
mis-lead."
YEEAAAAAAAAH!
www.eFax.com are spammers
Well NewEgg takes the easy road and blames their supplier "IPEX", but what really is to blame is the system! Why is a 3rd party involved when NewEgg wants to sell Intell CPUs?? Why do we need those endless supply chains from the producer to the reseller, each one taking their share and potentially increasing the chance of fraud? Do companies like Dell also get their CPUs from a 3rd party supplier?
Newegg.
Not NewEgg.
Stop it.
I was bored so I tried scanning the bar codes from the various pictures I could find of the fakes. Maybe my Gimp skillz are lacking but even with resizing, filtering, converting to gray scale, printing in different scales blah blah, the only thing I could get to accurately scan with my Symbol Technologies handscanner was the MM# 902258.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!!!
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers"
They could be units that were made by a separate company for display model purposes.
Just like those fake TVs in IKEA. They're only the shell without anything inside.
I've recently purchased an antenna from them that was also not as they advertised it.
Newegg's sucking eggs in a big way these days. They refused to correct the situation. I've got email, screen shots, and since I'm in Texas I can record telephone calls without them knowing. I've got them all if anyone is interested in hearing them!
I'm setting up a temp email for people to contact me if there is any interest. It's repairman@ssrecords.us
All in a days work, chief.
It would be impossible for anyone to actually install this in a computer.
You underestimate the stupidity of some users, even those that attempt to build their own machines. I would not be surprised if someone tried to install the lead chip sideways into a PCI slot or insert it into the optical drive.
I thought he just bought an limited extreme performance edition, now with 50% more lead...
There was a misspelling on the box, it should have read "extremely limited performance edition"
clearly not obvious if it got you to reply
you can't use a conditional to get out of losing to a troll
You sure about that?
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
I would guess that most non-slashdotters have no idea what a CPU is even supposed to look like. My first job was working for Circuit City, in a department called Answer City. I sat in a cubicle and took calls all day from people who bought a computer and had issues with it. Probably 5% of the calls were people who didn't know to plug the power into the wall, or connect the monitor to the PC. Only once did I actually get the "I broke my cup holder" call.
the french version is fairly well written. Much better than the english
I think seeker_1us was referring to the possibility of it being an accidental swap with a display model.
Which only makes the "ya think?" replies funnier.
Then again, maybe that was just an accident?
What??? No one would have known? You mean besides the fact that they ARE NOT REAL? The fact you can't really install them? They fact that even if you could, your new door stop wouldn't even start? Hey, moron, why not RTFA?
how come no one has managed to blame microsoft for this yet?
I got one, but instead of a picture of a fan, it was a picture of Patrick Swayze. However, I did think it would have been bigger.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098206/
Great buy. A++++
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
Some misspellings and a fake cooler?
Things are about to
get hot.
YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!
Sadly, this isn't an actual Simpsons quote, but it is misquoted all the time... the actual quote: "Good work Lou, you'll make Sergeant for this."
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
This is a Clear and Unequivocal sign that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, Please think of the Children.
When you say the optical drive do you mean the motorized cup holder? And if I install one of these in my pci drive, will that increase my ram and let me store more m3ps?
I for one welcome the i7 cloning overlords.
Someone who wanted to pull a couple of hundred processors out of the supply chain. By making fake boxes and shipping them they might be able to hide at what point they were stolen.
Who ever did this probably did not expected their decoys to make it as far as they did. It more likely that the fakes were meant to cover up the theft just long enough to get away with the goods. At best they probably thought the switch would go unnoticed for a couple of days. They are probably laughing their asses off about decoys to make it all the way to the very end of the retail chain, i.e. being shipped to customers.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
Right. A pallet of these things is a couple million dollars. Produce enough to replace a pallet and sell the real ones on the black market. All you need to do is convince on warehouse worker to do the dirty work for you. Even if they get 1/4 or 1/8th the value its still a nice chunk of change.
I wouldnt be surprised if this was connected to organized crime.
I ordered one and Duke Nukem Forever (the Linux version) works really well on it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Famous-Newegg-Genuine-Fake-Intel-Core-i7-Demo-Processor_W0QQitemZ330411508071QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCPUs?hash=item4cee0f8167
I'm not gonna lie to you Marge, it's the thought that counts.
The guy filming the video that I saw was just a whinny b*tch. I do feel bad for him, but newegg is one of the best out there. They are fixing their mistake and it is not newegg but the supplier. Get it right noobs. NEWEGG RULZ!!!!
"The laws of science be a harsh mistress." --Bender
another pathetic cunt with no life. I fucked your mom by the way. great lay!
It's actually a good thing they put the obviously fake fan in there. If they'd sold it as an OEM no-fan box, you know some people wouldn't have looked close enough and tossed the fake chip into the socket. That would've set off some interesting fireworks on initial power-on ;)
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
I think you just found... *takes of glasses* ...a lead.
YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAH!
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Correction, the last few generations of component desktop CPUs from Intel don't use "pins" on the processor per se, they are in the socket. The CPU has a bunch of contacts on the bottom; LGA == Land Grid Array.
aaaand...whee!
So I guess this product isn't ROHS compliant, then...
What do you want to bet the counterfeits were made in China...
Are they from china?
It could be theft, but often the point is not to fool the end buyer or even a company like NewEgg, but Intel.
Pretend you are a large Intel authorized distributer. You buy processors in the tens of thousands at a time. Lets say, for sake of this story, you buy 10,000 procs at $100 from Intel and sell them at $110. But, due to the nature of the industry (and Intel's tight control on the pricing), a few months down the road Intel gets to adjust the cost of that processor to $70. But, to keep their distributors happy, Intel offers price protection, which means they will pay you the $30 difference on any existing inventory when the price drops.
So you have two options:
A: You could take the honest road and continue selling the procs at $110, lower your price when the price drops, and take the Intel price protection on any remaining inventory.
B: Or you could just scam Intel.
Here's how:
1. Upon hearing about the price drop, you start selling your procs at a slight loss, say you sell them at $90. The point here is to move them as fast as possible w/o loosing too much money. But hey, your procs are cheaper than anyone else's, so they will sell like used panties from a Japanese vending machine.
2. Lets say you manage to sell off 9,000 of your original 10,000 procs by the time the price drop hits. At this point you are down about $90,000 on your original investment.
3. When Intel comes around to ask how many processors you have left, you tell them 8,000 units. In your spare time, you managed to fill 7,000 boxes with lead procs, so that if you get audited by Intel, they will see that you do indeed have 8,000 boxed units. Intel then pays up on the $30 price protection on 8,000 units. You get a check for $240,000.
After it is all said and done, you just netted a cool $150,000. It is certainly easier than, you know, actually competing in the commodity processor market.
Oh, right, so how do these lead processors make it to the end user? So, imagine that the above mentioned scenario happens a lot. At any point in time, there are quite a few warehouses with fake processors waiting to be destroyed after they duped the Intel auditors. Well, every once in a while, the warehouse staff ships the wrong palette. But, these palettes of fake procs don't usually make it to the end user as there are almost always at least one middle man between you and the Intel authorized distributer. Often, the fake procs are noticed by the middle men (many have X-ray machines to scan all deliveries because this happens often enough). Usually, the authorized distributer makes up a goofy story to explain this and quickly replaces the fake procs with real ones.
I don't know the details of the NewEgg issue, but I suspect this time they just made it past the middle man.
...or simply the product of a modern-day cargo cult?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
This is actually a leaked prototype of the next generation Celeron processors.
Imagine what you could do with a Beowulf cluster of those things!
That it is one of the better built Chinese products.
For $5 more you can get the 930 which is 1 multiplier higher for a 133 mhz gain. Easily overclock that on air to 4ghz if you want.
If this were so prevalent, wouldn't Intel think to have their auditors open the boxes of processors and have a look?
Le français vous intéresse?
Honestly, id have pity on anyone that fucked my mom.
"Bad egg working at a NewEgg supplier?"
I wonder who hatched this plot?
Do they now have new egg on their face?
It's no yolk you know?
(:
The cpu "cooler." The misspellings on the box. This was fraud.
Are you sure?
Ah, you must be the guy who designed Windows Vista!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
My French is not very good, but it sure looked like the French text on the package had correct spelling and grammar, while the English text was abysmal! That cracks me up. I wonder if Google translate (or whatever package they used; machine translation errors tend to be common in Chinese products) is better at Chinese-to-French than Chinese-to-English...
Any francophiles care to comment?
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
It looks like you're trying to produce fake processors! Would you like assistance?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Does your dad know?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qKcJF4fOPs
"In
There's one of these on ebay !
Read the questions and answers. Hilarious.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330411508071
A black man that dad let sleep with his wife, after he put herpe in tharrrr, will know how many of his friends kissed his wife's no-no spots.
Dad has plenty of Fist-Class stamps to mail remedy to suitors...
I think I'm just going to start only reading the trolls on slashdot. This shit really makes my day.
zosxavius photography
Gearlog paying out good money for a fake CPU?
And what are the listing fees to put up a joke eBay sale starting at $288?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I still have my portable Panascanic cassette recorder.
Most of my friends got caught, the name is pretty good. Meanwhile I bought it in full awareness of what I was buying, and it was still pretty good and very cheap.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2