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Fake processors

slipd

slipd

slipd

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2004
Posts
4,800
Location
Hampshire, England.
Hey guys,

Is it possible to effectively 'fake' a cpu? A mate's just emailed (off of his new cpu...) complaining that the sealed/boxed retail cpu he's just got off of eBay is fake! It's a top end intel and he told me it was about £150 less than what it should have been. He's described the packaging as 'not feeling right' and he said it didn't have that new smell to it :)

I told him it was fairly unlikely but I thought I'd double check, I know pretty much everything is fakable these days...
 
Cuchulain said:
Except they aren't real CPU's, they were squares of lead. The chances of getting hold of a fake processor that's actually useable is incredibly rare, chances are the OP's friend just got a repackaged OEM CPU.
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That's what I was thinking; yeah, faking a chip physically probably wouldn't be too difficult, but actually getting one that worked? Nah!

Thanks guys.
 
I suppose it would be possible to change the wording on the heat sink to show a low end chip is actually a high end one (e.g. show an i3 as an i7). Is there any way to fool CPUz into reporting the wrong item too, or would you have to rely on benchmarks to notice the difference?
 
Could it have been an ES (Engineering Sample) that was re packaged and sold as retail? If it's suspect contact Intel with photos, serial numbers etc and see what they say.
 
There is no way to fake out CPU-z, which uses the microcode which is programmed into the wafer during production. If the board boots into BIOS with the CPU the full details of the CPU will display in the BIOS screen.

All retail Intel CPU's come sealed. If the box was not sealed then it was not new. Make sure your friend reads the description of the sale carefully. BNIB means unopened. New other would mean what ever the seller wanted it to mean. Buyer beware, if something sounds too good to be true it often is.
 
1Day said:
There is no way to fake out CPU-z, which uses the microcode which is programmed into the wafer during production. If the board boots into BIOS with the CPU the full details of the CPU will display in the BIOS screen.
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I've had Cpu-z report a T5800 as a T7250 and a T6600 as a T6670, so i don't think it reads directly from the chip. I knew which chip was in there as i put them there myself in the laptops and a later cpu-z version got them right.

OP, is the cpu reporting the correct speed/cache etc? as said it could be a packaged OEM or ES cpu.. however as for faking it by changing a lower spec cpu to the one he bought, no chance..
 
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Actually creating say, a Core i5 processor which holds up as a convincing fake is just impossible for practical reasons. The technology required to make a convincing fake CPU is just too high and any company that can manage that will be better off simply entering the processor industry rather than trying to fake Intel or AMD CPUs.

But ppl could always take chips, relabel them, or come up with completely retarded hoaxes like the Newegg fake i7 incident.
 
kinda suggests that you are always better buying hardware from reputable sellers/retailers there are only a hand full of places i buy my hardware from simply for returns and support reasons and OCUK happens to be one of them :D
 
mmj_uk said:
They can fake the physical appearance but in terms of a working forgery no chance.
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i agree, it would be pretty expensive to make the chip look real, have the laser engraving, the pins at the bottom, the colour box art, the heatsink, etc - it isnt really worth the effort if it i means to be sold cheap to gullable punters :p
 
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