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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."

40 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Wow, newegg must be getting huge... by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Funny

    to have added a third g to their name.

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
  2. 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 istartedi · · Score: 4, Funny

      the fakes could become more valuable eventually than the real item

      At least until somebody starts faking the fakes.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    3. Re:The irony here is... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Funny

      At least the lead used to make these things won't end up in childrens' toys or in baby food.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:The irony here is... by maxume · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please recycle.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.

    7. Re:The irony here is... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2, Informative

      Rarity alone does not cause higher prices. Demand is also required. The unexpected part is that there might turn out to be collector demand for these.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  3. Warning! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Warning! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

      If the processor is made of lead, the cooler had better be cast from Melamine... I demand the authentic fake experience.

    2. Re:Warning! by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nah, the cooler can't be made of melamine.

      They used all that up in the baby food.

      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
  4. No way was this an accident by seeker_1us · · Score: 3, Funny

    The cpu "cooler." The misspellings on the box. This was fraud.

  5. Alphine Stereo for sale by e2d2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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..

    1. Re:Alphine Stereo for sale by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Funny

      >They didn't even bother to use a real Lamborghini picture! Even that was a fake!

      Its like a movie where the killer is always giving the police hints on his next crime. The fraudster gave your friend at least two hints, but he still bought it. Even fraudsters have the occasional attack of conscience.

    2. Re:Alphine Stereo for sale by JumpDrive · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey if it works for the US financial system and government it can't really be that bad of a business model.

    3. Re:Alphine Stereo for sale by pspahn · · Score: 3, Funny

      They must have mistaken you for a real troll. The packaging was too believable.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
  6. Re:No way was this an accident by rock217 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The cpu "cooler." The misspellings on the box. This was fraud.

    Are you sure?

    --
    Wah Sig!
  7. fine by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
    1. 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.

  8. Re:No way was this an accident by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  9. hey by nomadic · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    1. 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...

    2. Re:hey by sconeu · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Ceci n'est pas une heat-pipe

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  10. 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.
    2. Re:No need to defend NewEgg by dsoltesz · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's an ancient rumour. According to NewEgg, the supplier was IPEX.

    3. Re:No need to defend NewEgg by flappinbooger · · Score: 2, Informative

      thanks for clearing that up. D+H is a good vendor, good prices to integrators, etc.

      --
      Flappinbooger isn't my real name
  11. How long before the first fake fake? by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  12. Re:No way was this an accident by Knara · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's some darn good police work there, Lou.

  13. ROHS compliance by dziman · · Score: 3, Funny

    I seriously doubt these lead processors are ROHS compliant.

  14. 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.
  15. Performance? by ventmonkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    What, no benchmarks?

  16. Windows 7 - Primitive Edition by number6x · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  17. Re:No way was this an accident by hypergreatthing · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought he just bought an limited extreme performance edition, now with 50% more lead...

  18. CSI Sillicon Valley by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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
  19. 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.

  20. Re:Umm Dup? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 real stroy is where exactly did the fakes come from. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to create these fakes and I find it hard to beleive they only made 100-200 and then quit.

  21. Re:It's a sign of the forgery. by fm6 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Eye don bee leaf any ting yu sey.

  22. Re:IPEX to blame? by Zerth · · Score: 2, Informative

    Another reason is that Intel won't sell to stores smaller than, say, Amazon because they don't want to ship less than a truckload.

    A good chunk of the "distributer overhead" covers the customer service, accounts receivable, and other staff that Intel doesn't have to handle, as well as the logistics to cover warehousing & shipping SKUs smaller than pallet size.

    If they took over distribution to stores, prices wouldn't fall as much as one might think because Intel would take over those functions and charge accordingly.