Intel selling engineering samples

That is likely to put the cat among the pigeons if true, because of the mission critical nature of machines using the chipset.

An and user on 2CPU.COM claimed last week that he collected a Supermicro P4DP6 earlier in the week, but a shortage of Xeons meant he couldn't fire it up.

But when he looked at the motherboard, he discovered that the ICH3 chip was marked "secret". Later, he discovered the E7500 chip was marked ES, for engineering sample.

When he queried the beta nature of his machine, he was told by Supermicro that "All of the 7500 products have this chipset and are samples."

Further, the firm said, the chipset is not yet formally released and so all the chipsets are market in a similar way.

Supermicro claims to be Intel's "closest motherboard partner", so it should know.

The thread starts here. µ