Whenever an architecture is going to debut as such in the market, previously both AMD and Intel have certain processors that are in charge of being tested by the so-called Betatester and in many cases by the most TOP overclockers of the moment. These processors are named as ES or engineering samples and in many cases are CPUs bineados to test various factors of them, but why are they not for sale?
There is a lot of controversy with this fact and although ordinary users don’t even know what an ES CPU is, those who intend to experiment with them know and value them a lot. The problem is that they are limited units handpicked by Intel and AMD, where marketing plays a lot in this type of case.
ES CPUs are usually the best of the best in voltages and frequencies
The first thing to understand is that CPUs go through several stages before they hit stores. Normally, three consecutive scenarios are developed where in many cases highly layered samples are provided and in complete systems, with included monitoring and various limitations that force the user to use them in a certain way.
The company may ask such beta testers to develop certain guidelines in order to recapitulate performance data that would be stored on the HDD or SSD that is part of the ALL IN ONE platform.
These phases do not include ES CPUs as such, since what they offer are Beta CPUs and as we say, several samples can arrive in a few months, each focused on performing different tasks or with different benefits. Although sometimes these CPUs are treated as ES, they really don’t meet the parameters designated for them to be.
What are these parameters? Firstly, for a CPU to be considered ES it must have the same characteristics as an ordinary CPU for sale for obvious reasons. Second, it must be supplied independently and unitarily, although this is sometimes broken because overclockers need many ESs to discern voltage, temperature and frequency parameters.
Finally, it must have important parts of the silk-screen printing of each brand, since that attributes the official sample validity to both Intel and AMD.
Why are Intel and AMD engineering samples not selling?
Very easy, it would be a complex and large-scale process for both companies. Selecting the best chips is very costly in both time and resources and requires many steps to be taken prior to wafer error detection that neither brand is willing to take on.
From the engraving of the different matrices, to the selection of the wafer and its purity, to its implementation on the PCB. This can be done on a small scale and before the production machinery is at full capacity. In fact, this process is done manually to check aspects such as the integrity of the connections between layers, the energy leaks in the transistors and more, but that is in a small number of chips that ensure correct operation and within the specifications of each one of them.
That is why there are websites like Silicon Lottery that are dedicated to manual binning and that logically charge a good money for it, although in this case they are CPUs focused on overclocking, but they could bine for efficiency or for the largest possible underclocking or undervolt if necessary. . Needless to say, in this particular case they are not engineering samples, but CPUs to buy in batches of 100, 500 or 1000 units as a rule, so they are processors that we could buy all.
