AMD giving away engr samples for retail?

[BaronMatrix]

Word has come down from The almighty Inq that AMD is delivering free Barcelona engr samples to customers with the promise that they will get retail chips to replace them with.

We can perhaps assume that these are B3 samples smuggled out of Russia on the back of a pregnant camel.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/18/amd-starts-shipping-quad-cores

 

[randomizer]

I'd take one just so I can say I've got an engineering sample of anything

 

[BaronMatrix]

That would be cool. But then free always has been.

 

[croc]

Word has come down from The almighty Inq that AMD is delivering free Barcelona engr samples to customers with the promise that they will get retail chips to replace them with.

We can perhaps assume that these are B3 samples smuggled out of Russia on the back of a pregnant camel.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/18/amd-starts-shipping-quad-cores

Nope, they are B2 samples.... Note the comment about virtualization. Guess giving them away is better than using them for landfill.

 

[Gravemind123]

It would be cool to have an engineering sample, they are something I have always wanted to get.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Nope, they are B2 samples.... Note the comment about virtualization. Guess giving them away is better than using them for landfill.

Crap that spoiled my joke.

 

[randomizer]

I want to get my hands on one

 

[croc]

Crap that spoiled my joke.

But hey... If you don't use virtualization, or a DB that can use all four cores and don't expect much of an overclock... For free, not a bad deal.

 

[Evilonigiri]

Hey, not bad at all! AMD is doing something charitable for once...not that Intel ever has

 

[teh_sutton]

So how do I get one of these?

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

I've never heard of a chip making knowingly sending out defective CPUs with a promise to replace them later.

Any of the AMD people that are trying to say the errata isn't a big issue need to read this; because that obviously isn't the case.

Q4 numbers are going to be ugly.


Interesting find Baron, thanks for posting.

 

[BaronMatrix]

TC, What does defective mean in your mind? And why would anyone TAKE a DEFECTIVE chip?

 

[someguy7]

Now thats funny. Mrsbytch calling somebody a fanboy. Baron, BECAUSE THEY ARE GETTING THEM FOR FREE. If AMD wanted to ship me free cpus ill take them in a heartbeat. Retail/ES samples/Bugged ill take them. I dont know how this would work. AMD sends you a chip kinda like netflix or something? Here is your cpu its free but when the retail ones are out you can buy that one. If the samples are working why would anybody by the retail.

 

[bfellow]

Any of the AMD people that are trying to say the errata isn't a big issue need to read this; because that obviously isn't the case.

Need to read what? Ive read 99.9% of users will never experience a problem with the phenom. Problems are only in virtulization. I wouldnt call that defective. You get an A for effort though fanboy.

Good job for NOT reading. They're giving away Opteron engineering samples. I do see some heavy-load server applications and virtualization being used in a lot of companies today!

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

TC, What does defective mean in your mind? And why would anyone TAKE a DEFECTIVE chip?

You're right. If the chips were defective they'd have to make some kind of work around or fix that would probably have some kind of trade off. It the chips were defective they'd probably be offering free upgrades to non-defective chips.

Oh wait... They are doing that stuff.

Baron, AMD admits they have problems with the chips, it's ok for you to admit it too.

 

[sailer]

I can see one bit of good reasoning in this give away, especially since these are Opteron chips. If a company gets one free, it has to buy a new motherboard to use it to its full potential. Once that it has made that investment, it will be more likely to buy a B3 stepping chip when those become available. Thus AMD gets customers and ends up winning. And since these are engineering samples of a defective chip which would be thrown away anyway, it really isn't costing AMD anything more than the shipping charge to give them away. As I look at it in this light, it becomes a very good idea to give away these chips.

Where do I sign up for a free chip?

 

[teh_sutton]

Yeah how do we get these chips? me wants free opteron!

 

[gpippas]

Its a shame I don't live in the US. As soon as the B3 stepping came out I would be down at AMD like at shot routing round the bins for the hundreds ES chips thrown out.

Actually I might be in luck they should have some over at Dresden. I could go for a road trip to pick up some Phenoms and stop by the Nurbergring. Then I can manufactor a case out of ES Phenoms. LOL.

 

[randomizer]

DELL and HP are the customers.

 

[sailer]

DELL and HP are the customers.

Ah, so that's a hint not to buy a Phenom powered computer from Dell or HP, is it not?

 

[randomizer]

It is. But seriously, don't you think the OEMs will chew these up even if they were giving them to end user customers? There isn't enough of them (the CPUs that is).

 

[sailer]

Most likely. I doubt if there were all that many to start with. I'd expect most samples were either destroyed during the testing process or are still being held for further testing. Got to find out how to fix the errata bug some way, after all.

 

[Shadow703793]

So how do I get one?

 

[randomizer]

Buy DELL. Not a DELL, the company.

 

[sailer]

So how do I get one?

Somehow convince AMD that you're from Dell or Hp and that you need one for testing on a motherboard that's being considered for use. Make sure you don't leave a return address from Intel either.