Preface:
In today’s market, new processors still keep pouring in, Intel’s processors with Presler, Ceder Mill cores have been released one after another, and AMD white dragon series processors have been used by many common users too. There are doubtlessly more choices for consumers, but “dishonest traders” in computer market are ready to take advantage of it. In a computer, the price of processor is rather transparent, “dishonest traders” have to make windfall profits by selling fake products in case they desire to make more profits from it. This is why fake CPUs can not be eradicated.
一、Explore the Source of Fake Processors and CPU Vendors Are to Blame |
There are a good variety of fake CPUs in today’s market. Besides our familiar white board and remark, AMD even has so-called engineering prototype, and they make it impossible for common consumers to defend effectively. The source of fake products is mostly due to CPU vendors.
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| White Board Processor |
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| 白板Barton2500 |
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For so-called white board processor, the deepest impression of consumers may trace back to Barton 2500+ era. The so-called white board processor is actually a semi-finished product or inferior quality product churned out from AMD’s assembly line. Processors usually have to undergo package, test and other processing steps, but white board processors undergo only the package. Unlawful businessmen get these products from OEM or other channels, have golden bridge cutting, frequency locking, trademark print and other processing steps done in some Southeast Asian plants. Because the test is missing, there is no assurance of quality. White board processor is nothing but a semi-finished product of AMD, the quality fully depends on the luck, and the chance to get a white board CPU with good quality and strong frequency improvement capability is as low as winning a lottery.
The peak time of white board processors has been in the Barton 2500 era, because AMD ceased producing Barton2500, and the performance of Barton 2500 was really great, henceforward the price of Barton 2500 went up significantly, followed by a large amount of white board Barton in the market.
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| Remark |
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| 被Remark过的处理器 |
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To make product classification easier, chipmakers make the coupler frequency and external frequency of most CPUs can be adjusted freely. They select the best ones from a batch of CPUs as higher class and inferior ones as lower class. All these are completed in plants and are legal frequency orientation method. But after factory shipment, resellers increase the frequencies of low class CPUs, paste new labels, and sell them as high class CPUs. This act is called as remark. Remark once was far from us, however by the end of last year, Intel was reported a scandal of “allegedly making fake mobile CPU, and some engineers confirm them as unofficial remodeling”. Instantly, the protagonist of remark changed to the chipmakers from “dishonest traders”. This accident eventually ended up that Intel denied making fake CPUs officially, but did not decide to accept the test of a third party. It seems that there is distinction of official and non-official for remark.
Besides, when the remark conduct in the previous years ceased, unlawful businessmen changed the remark object from CPU to package box. Currently, there are basically following types of Intel CPUs in the market, bulk, 1 year warranty, 3 years warranty, whose prices are higher by turn. Not a small number of resellers package bulk CPUs in illegally obtained package boxes and sell them as real box packaged products. These circumstances are primarily found in Intel processor. |
| 二、Reverse Benchmarking of a Real Example, How to Identify Real and Fake CPU |
Having learned the types of fake smuggled products, we will learn how to differentiate real and fake CPU. However, new fake making methods of unlawful businessmen keep coming, and beat common consumers in term of psychological warfare all the time. To buy a real product, you’d better buy them from specified resellers.
First Technique of Penetrating Eye: Identify Real or Fake by Inspecting Package
Selling fake product by taking advantage of the package is a commonly used method for dishonest traders, primarily found in Intel’s CPU. The differences of Intel box packaged processor and bulk processor lie in 3 years warranty and a price gap of dozens of RMB or over 100 RMB. Of course, there are many fake AMD box packaged processors in today’s market, primarily Sempron 2500+ and E6 3000+. Because the manufacturing process and production level of unlawful businessmen are limited, although fake package has become a small scale industry, it still can not reach the criterion of real package box in the printing and production of package box. Therefore, we can identify real or fake from the printing and other features of the package box.
Let’s take AMD’s package box as an example, unopened package box is pasted with a label. If there is no such label, then it is definitely fake. This label is also the cutting point to judge the package box to be real or fake. From this picture we can see that the label of real product is engraved with a cross-shaped cutting trace with machine and will be damaged when it is torn open. Fake package box also has this label and this cross-shaped cutting trace, but please note that the cross-shaped cutting traces of real product are not connected in the middle, and the length and depth of the cutting traces are very even, while the labels of fake products are usually cut by fake producers with blade. In case you find that the cross-shaped cutting traces vary in length and are connected in the middle, then you can be sure it is fake.
For Intel, the paper box of real box packaged Intel CPU has bright color, clear and refined characters, the trace of paper box sealing glue shows continuous dotted form. There are 12 glue points in all, which is very hard, and the color is pure white when the paper box is torn open. While the paper box of post-packaged processor has poor printing quality, and the color is gray when the box is torn open. The sealing part is smeared with small amount of glue and can be identified pretty easily. The plastic film of real product has the character of Intel Corporation, which is clear and has a cubic sense. The plastic film is very touch and can not be torn open unless with much force. The plastic film of fake box packaged Intel CPU either has no character of Intel Corporation or a character of Intel Corporation which is very light and has no cubic sense. In this case you are almost sure it is fake. The plastic package in the box has 4 hot sealing points, and each sealing point has 2 small round points, which can not be restored when torn open. If these 4 hot sealing points show a trace of once being pasted with glue again, it is definitely a fake packaged processor.
Second Technique of Penetrating Eye: Identify Real or Fake by Inspecting Number
This method works equally to Intel and AMD processors, each real box packaged processor has an unique number, which is marked in both the bar code of the package box and the surface of the processor. This number is much like the IMEI code of a mobile phone. If you have bought a processor and found that these two numbers are different, then you are sure this processor is fake.
In addition, because this method is very simple to verify, some dishonest traders offer something bogus by pasting new number in package box. Real or fake number has to be verified from the printing. The serial number bar code of formal product uses lattice sprayed code, whose characters are clear, and you can clearly see that the number is composed of a number of “dots”. While fake bar code uses common printing, whose characters blur and show a sense of connection, In addition the fonts used are different. If you find the printing of this bar code is bad, the characters blur, you’d better not buy it. |
