rec.autos.simulators

Let me say up front that I work for Intel, and that this is not an official
Intel statement, only my opinions.  That out of the way, I help design
microprocessors, so maybe I can shed a little light on this subject.

Yes, with the currently available crop of chips, you can usually get away with
moderate overclocking.  What you are trading off is reliability and chip life.
There are certain semiconductor failure modes that are speed sensitive.  We
design chips with these in mind for a certain (rather long) lifetime.
Overclocking reduces this, but many people don't care as they will have traded
in their machines long ago.  We care, because we honor the warranty on that
chip, no matter who has it now, so overclocked chips cost us extra money in
support.

Also, faster chips can be sold for higher prices, right?  When we test
manufacturing batches, we sort them by maximum reliable speed.  If a 333 MHz
chip was capable of running reliably at 350 or 400, don't you think we would be
selling it at that speed, with it's correspondingly higher price?  Whatever you
may think of Intel, we aren't stupid. The speed-sensitive error causing that
lower speed rating may or may not be significant to your application, but how
do you know?  We don't label the chip with the type of error, only the maximum
reliable speed.

Anyway, the newer chips coming out soon have more effective speed control
methods built into them, so overclocking will soon become a dead subject. Why
do we go to such great lengths to prevent hobbyists from experimenting with
their personal property?   Ah, if that were all it was...

There are people who make their living by grinding off the speed labels on our
chips, and reselling them at higher prices.  The unsuspecting buyer of a system
with one of these chips doesn't know this, they were only interested in maximum
speed at minimum price.  Then when problems pop up, who has to pay for
replacing that chip?  Not the overclocker, they are offshore somewhere; and not
the screwdriver shop that assembled the system with grey-market components,
they too are long gone.  Who is still around to catch the blame?  Intel. That's
why we care.  It comes out of my paycheck in the form of a slightly smaller
year-end bonus, so I care, personally.

- Karl

Well, if that don't sound like a nail in a coffin, I don't know what to tell
you......bummer eh?
I wish Intel could come up with a way to simply tell if the CPU was ever OC'ed,
that would take care of the warranty issue.  Makes you wonder if their
official, "We don't care what you do with the CPU in the privacy of your own
home", is for real or not...........

Thanks to Emilio Lam for the heads-up!

  Gamers buy the Intel Celeron 300a because of it price, and overclockability.
How much would sales drop on that particular cpu if it were not for that
feature? I know that none of the people that I personally know would have
bought one, most would have gone with AMD instead, because its reaching a point
where with this throw away computer age we're entering. Price is everything,
and a certain amoumnt of quality can be sacrificed because next year you'll
need new anyhow.

  Dont stand on your soap box, and whine about overclocking, and how it cuts
into your "year end bonus" most consumers dont even get a year end bonus. Your
employers at Intel have brought these problems on themselves, if you want to
complain, complain to them. Overclocking is not whats costing you money, its
mass marketing, and overpriced equipmen.t. there is near equivalent out there
for much less.........and they made use of a present design instead of FORCING
consumers to buy a completely new system, they left open options for upgrade.

Off my soapbox now
T

1) The market demand for that rating of chip may not be particularly
high as yet, and the marketing dept want to keep the price
artificially high since competitors are as yet unable to deliver a
competing product. That maximises profits. Flooding the market with
higher level chips brings prices down. That's less the case recently
with conditions of the semiconductor market, but nonetheless another
issue affecting the binning of chips.

2) Intel's guarantee and the guarantee required by a user are very
different. At the time of testing Intel are not aware of the final
application for the chip - it could be in a server where a crash once
per year will be a disaster, or it could be a games machine where
whacking the speed up and getting a crash once or twice a day isn't a
worry.

Cheers!
John

If Intel's real concern was the people fraudulently remarking the chips they
would simply mark them in a more permanent manner. Like stamping instead of
printing the speed rating. Yes, it would be more difficult, but hey, they're
Intel they could do it.

 Nothing personal here, so don't be offended, but:

 And why not? Your company has certainly gouged the consumer for
the original price enough.

 In most cases. The way I understand it, you couldn't keep up
with demand for Pentium II 300's (the under $1000 computer craze)
and so started making them on some of the lines used for the
450's. In this case, you are re-branding a 450 as a 300 (the
SL2YK and SL2W8 300's, specifically), and selling it cheaper.
Now, don't try to tell me that it somehow costs over $300 *more*
per CPU to "test" this CPU at 100Mhz FSB than at a 66Mhz FSB. (It
seems, according to my very reliable sources in the business,
that 100% of the SL2YK and SL2W8 300Mhz CPUs run fine at 450 Mhz
with only a normal CPU cooler, and that with additional cooling,
504 Mhz is easily accomplished. Sounds a lot like a 450Mhz CPU if
you ask me. Convince me otherwise.

 And so Intel decided to enter this lucrative market by giving us
Celerons without any cache. After all, 266 Mhz is still 266Mhz,
and it's cheaper, right?  :)

When those flopped, Intel had to do something to avoid losing
market share, and thus the 300A was born.

But what you're inferring is this is a large problem, and it's
not. I've been in the computer business for 19 years, and in the
retail end of it for 10 now. I've seen the predatory pricing
Intel has practiced while it had it's monopoly...that "wonderful"
10% per quarter price cut that was supposed to make the consumer
feel good, with the only real price cutting happening when Intel
introduced a newer, faster, "carrot" to dangle in front of those
who could afford to pay for maximum power at any cost.

 I remember when the 486DX-2 66 came out at over $1000 each in
10,000 quantity, and the DX-33 was still $450 at wholesale, and
at that time the president of AMD stating that the cost to build
of a 486DX 33 CPU, including amortizing R&D and production costs
for the "market life" projected sales of the chip was a mere
$14.00 each. And Intel and the distributors adding a bit over
3200% markup by the time it got to the retailers isn't gouging?
Bet your bonuses were nice back then.

 I don't see it...you cut prices a bare minimum because you can,
then cut big to try to keep any competition from arising with a
profitable competing product. This year has seen the biggest
price decreases in a long time, merely because Intel has lost so
much market share to AMD and Cyrix/IBM in the "cheap computer"
market, and sales of those 450 Mhz behemoths to business hasn't
been what was projected. You're not exactly going to win the
sympathy vote, my friend. Take what year end bonus you get and be
thankful for it, because the rest of us paid for it, and when we
see we can get a bit of an advantage over being gouged again,
we'll take that too...all the way to the bank.

 Regards,

Doc Wynne
Technical Support & Network Services
Support Engineering/dickson.net
http://www.dickson.net
--
Never a late apex, never a dull moment.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

"Gunner"
ICQ 24045680

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<snip>

I knew the Celeron 300a was too good to last - getting the fastest pc chip
out
there for $80?  Well, it was really fun while it lasted.  In another year
this chip
will be 'slow' and Intel will have introduced more $1000 chips to set the
standard.

By the way, my last two chips were and AMD and a Cyrix.  Granted, they
weren't
quite as good, but they were the best bang for the buck at the time.  Were
it
not for the 300a, I wonder what I'd be using now?

rob.

David G Fisher

Perhaps a solution os for intel to sell No warranty chips expressively for
overclockers ;)

Z.

Intel, like any other business, exist not to make processors for
people but to make money. They are not a charity. If they "ripped
people off" by charging high prices that is their decision and their
right, in fact they owe it to their shareholders who have invested
their money and their trust in Intel to be succesful.

Their practices are not always morally right or totally defensible but
the two things that are clear are that it is Intel's right to market
their products as they see fit and the consumer's right to buy or not.
How well Intel predict the latter is what will determine their
strategy, and ironically enough during "the bad old days" they seem to
have been bang on and it's only recently that they've lost their way a
bit. X86 market share down to 76% these days, not good.

Cheers!
John

Can anyone explain to me why a manufacturer does not have the right to
ask any price they want for a product, provided they have not
conspired with other manufacturers to fix prices?

               bob

With AMD and Cyrix on the field, Intel maintains a fair price.
But _only_ in response to that, and with a heavy dollop of
litigative resistance, IMHO.

Almost a cornered market in some situations, to finally <g>
answer your question.

Rgds,
Mark R.