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Unboxing the Fake Intel Core i7-920

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the recognize-boo-yaka-shah dept.

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."

13 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. The irony here is... by Elbowgeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
    1. Re:The irony here is... by pesho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't count on this. I am sure somebody in China keeps on cranking thousands of those as we speak. They already have gone through the trouble of making molds for the fake fan and CPU. Why stop now when with all this publicity there will be a market for the fakes as collectibles?

    2. Re:The irony here is... by maxume · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please recycle.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    3. Re:The irony here is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Since he also misused "begs the question" I have assumed that the signature is intended to be ironic.

      (Not the GP AC)

    4. Re:The irony here is... by clarkkent09 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Was somebody actually dumb enough to believe they could sell enough lead "processors" to make the whole thing worthwhile?

      Probably not. Which leads me to think that the plan was not to sell fakes as the real thing but was to steal a whole lot of the real processors and replace them with fakes so it wouldn't be noticed for a while.

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    5. Re:The irony here is... by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If grammatical errors and spelling mistakes did not matter,

      The labels look very good; notice the embossed fake hologram in the left corner. But you can also see that that the word "socket " is spelled wrong. "Sochet"?

      and
      This processor is all set for use "ina Desktop PC.

      would hardly be worth mentioning. I, for one, like living in a world where fakes can be spotted so easily.

  2. No one cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is such a non story. NewEgg made it right, and everyone has moved on. It must be a slow news week in tech.

  3. No need to defend NewEgg by spun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:No need to defend NewEgg by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I feel bad for the distributer. NewEgg is probably a huge customer of theirs and I doubt they did this. If these had been mislabeled or relabeled chips I could say some company trying to pull it off. But this is a sure fail so no company would do this knowingly.
      Odds are somebody in some warehouse got a pallet of expensive CPUs for a good price when they "fell off the back of a truck".
      I am more interested in where in the supply chain this happened.
      Does the distributer buy straight from Intel? If so maybe the shipping company they used? or the Shipping company that was used between the distributer and NewEgg?
      Just wonder where the switch happened.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. Re:No way was this an accident by rednip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. Re:hey by __aagctu1952 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Are they saying a picture of a fan does not provide the same level of cooling as a real fan?

    That depends on if you're using an Intel Magritte or not...

  6. Display models? by teko_teko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:fine by RIAAShill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Q: What's the difference between a $50 brand-name pill and a $2 "fake"?
    A: $48.

    If you are lucky. Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are not like generics. If you purchase a counterfeit, you don't know who is providing you with the drug. You think you are buying it from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Roche, etc. But the counterfeiters have stolen the identity of the company, so you can't easily go after the suppliers of your drugs if their quality is poor.

    Generics, on the other hand, do not hide who they are. You (or the FDA) can go after them if their drugs do not contain the active ingredients promised. You don't get a fancy brand name, but you aren't being lied to about who the supplier is.