• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Engineering Samples

Methanoid

Methanoid

Methanoid

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,027
Location
Pentonville Prison
I was looking at buying an ES chip (yes I know they are not supposed to be sold but people still do!)

The seller said

"This item is Engineering Sample, whose specs is different from the non-ES ones." - really? I had no idea!!

"Engineering samples are the beta versions of integrated circuits that are meant to be used for compatibility qualification or as demonstrators. They are usually loaned to OEM manufacturers prior to the chips commercial release to allow product development or display. Usually, they are picked out of a very large batch and perform correctly. However, rarely they may have faults that were fixed in the production model."

Not heard of faulty ES chips but sounds to me awfully like someone with dodgy components to sell. I was asking if the chip supported VT-d!!

"So, we don't guarantee if it can be overclocked by changing the multiplier clock ratio." I asked. This IS OCUK after all. I hear most ES Xeons do not overclock now :(

Anyone shed any light? :D
 
Every single last Xeon since 1366 is locked. Intel made a mistake with 1366 and have not repeated that mistake. It's compounded by the fact they have put a price tag on overclocking (K series CPUs) and absolutely everything else they make is multi locked, FSB locked and even strap locked.

I have an X79 ES and it's locked to high heaven. I've only ever heard one person ever mention he was getting a multi unlocked X79 ES but when pressed for proof he went quiet.
 
That depends. In Windows? you're probably better off with the 5820k. However in Unix and Mac OSX I was able to double the benchmark results of a 4670k @ 4.2ghz with my 8c 16t Ivy.

The issue is that very very few apps and programs in Windows really support more than four cores, and especially not HT. It wasn't until Windows 8 that Microsoft even added proper support for more than four cores (this is why you have to disable HT/use core parking hacks in Win 7).

The problem with Windows is that nobody really bothers to support any more than is necessary. Games for example rarely come with proper inbuilt SLI support or support for more than four cores. Where as with stuff like 'nix and Apple core support is what makes them stand out, what with Apple being heavily orientated for music/video production.

And then of course it all comes down to price dude. Many of the ES I have seen for sale are in China and you'll likely get slapped with duties etc. So by the time you are done they don't work out very cheap.

I got lucky with mine. I got it on the auction site for £100, because the guy who sold it to me already bought it from China and was having difficulty selling it (probably because it was an ES and clocked quite low).

I also managed to find a board for £53 so yeah, bit of a no brainer really.
 
One thing to consider is the fact that given this person is breaking the rule of not being able to sell despite the fact he probably even signed something to say he wouldn't makes him quite a **** and a untrustworthy **** at that :) so anything he does say about its magical powers I would take with a ladle of salt :).

Sorry for rant i dislike dishonest people ^^
 
harry5522 said:
One thing to consider is the fact that given this person is breaking the rule of not being able to sell despite the fact he probably even signed something to say he wouldn't makes him quite a **** and a untrustworthy **** at that :) so anything he does say about its magical powers I would take with a ladle of salt :).

Sorry for rant i dislike dishonest people ^^
Click to expand...

Most of them are usually in HK or China. I just did some looking at they can be had pretty cheap right now. One instance was a 10 core 20t Xeon for £150 (plus import duties). I think that one may have been X79 2011 though..

It's very rare that you find them in the UK already.
 
Yes, I did note that with interest

@ALXAndy, my plan is running Linux as base, with VMs for Windows, Mac etc. But I doubt I will be needing Win/Mac/Linux ALL to have shedloads of CPU power at same time. So With a 6+6 core I could allow each 2+2 cores to each (3 monitors). Each VM will have its own KB & Mouse and graphics card passed through. So should get close to native performance on all machines.
 
Methanoid said:
Yes, I did note that with interest

@ALXandy, my plan is running Linux as base, with VMs for Windows, Mac etc. But I doubt I will be needing Win/Mac/Linux ALL to have shedloads of CPU power at same time. So With a 6+6 core I could allow each 2+2 cores to each (3 monitors). Each VM will have its own KB & Mouse and graphics card passed through. So should get close to native performance on all machines.
Click to expand...

Stick to trust mate. Talk of VMs and OSX etc are not allowed on OCUK.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have though.
 
Methanoid said:
So prob get a better result with a 6 core 5820K OC at 4ghz (maybe more?) than a 10 core at 2.4ghz?
Click to expand...

Remember the Xeon chip will turbo up to a higher clock speed than rated. Usually with v3 ES xeons it's by 0.3ghz when all cores are in use. So your 10 core 2.4ghz ES chip would probably run at 2.7ghz at 100%.
 
hanluc said:
Remember the Xeon chip will turbo up to a higher clock speed than rated. Usually with v3 ES xeons it's by 0.3ghz when all cores are in use. So your 10 core 2.4ghz ES chip would probably run at 2.7ghz at 100%.
Click to expand...

Whenever Xeons are sold they are sold on their highest single core turbo clock.

Otherwise they sound pathetic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom