Intel have been secretly building Sandy Bridge CPUs as high as June 2015 manufactured date...

[waltchan]

You couldn't believe that. Intel had been secretly building some special-request LGA1155 Sandy Bridge Pentium G850 CPUs as high as February 2016 for POS retail systems. I managed to pick up three Pentium G850 2.90 GHz with June 2015 manufactured date printed on top of die.

Borrowed from Haswell metal-die with identical paint-finish, inside is all Sandy Bridge, plus up to 80% lower price than 2015 Haswell refresh. These Pentium G850s L524 I ordered have newer manufactured dates than all the Pentium G3470s Haswell that I have (they're February 2015, L507).

L524 serial number means 24th week of 2015 year. Of course, most of the them have L2 (2012) mfg. date instead, despite faster.

That's all I found on eBay. No luck finding a 2015-built Sandy Bridge i3, i5, or i7 so far. Even Pentium G870s are older.

Edit: G470, G540, G850 still in production today for 2017 year.

June 2015:

March 2015:

Older Pentium G850 made on July 2012:

Older Pentium G620 made on August 2011:

Notice the paint color difference?

 

[Sheep221]

Ofc they were making them for the time being, 386 and 486 chips from 80s were made till mid 2007

Edit: they still do make them

 

[waltchan]

Seller says they came from HP RP5800 retail systems, with June 22, 2016 printed on manual book.

http://jp.ext.hp.com/lib/doc/catalog/pos/rp5800_quickspecs.pdf

Turn to page 5. So these four CPUs may still be in production today. That's crazy they still exist for 2017...

2017 Pentium G850, here I come. They already depreciate down to less than $15 each today.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's crazy they still exist for 2017...

Not really. Intel usually has some straggling production lines somewhere producing older chips. If there's a market for them, in specialty applications, then it's profitable to still run the line at that older fab, rather than let it sit idle.

 

[waltchan]

Not really. Intel usually has some straggling production lines somewhere producing older chips. If there's a market for them, in specialty applications, then it's profitable to still run the line at that older fab, rather than let it sit idle.

But very, very few are made left. Looks like only Pentium G850 exists. Just checked on eBay, I found zero 2015-built i3-2120 so far, so I assume Pentium G850 is the best-seller for POS systems.

If only the new LGA1155 boards still exist, I'll be extremely happy buying all the 2017 Pentium G850s for $15 each new.

 

[Valantar]

Aren't 5-year support cycles standard for business products? As in: "if your product fails within 5 years, we can replace it with an identical product"? Given that storage space costs money and gauging demand 3-5 years down the line is nigh impossible, it's probably cheaper to intermittently run low-volume production runs than make a huge stockpile, shut down the production line, and hope for the best.

 

[Sheep221]

But very, very few are made left. Looks like only Pentium G850 exists. Just checked on eBay, I found zero 2015-built i3-2120 so far, so I assume Pentium G850 is the best-seller for POS systems.

If only the new LGA1155 boards still exist, I'll be extremely happy buying all the 2017 Pentium G850s for $15 each new.

You can buy subsequent newer pentiums or celerons with boards available for price not much higher.

 

[waltchan]

You can buy subsequent newer pentiums or celerons with boards available for price not much higher.

I'll take a new $15 2017 Pentium G850 any day of the week than all the new Intel stuff. Seriously, I don't find too much of a performance gain with Haswell G3470 3.6 GHz that I have, and valued at $85 each. I can't believe we're now at Kaby Lake era and G850 still exists.

Anyways, that's all excellent news for me today, I can now stop buying these old 2011-2012 date processors.

 

[Valantar]

I'll take a new $15 2017 Pentium G850 any day of the week than all the new Intel stuff. Seriously, I don't find too much of a performance gain with Haswell G3470 3.6 GHz that I have, and valued at $85 each. I can't believe we're now at Kaby Lake era and G850 still exists.

Regardless, that's all excellent news for me, I can now stop buying these old 2011-2012 date processors.

If they're unused or pulled from a lightly-used system, what difference does it make?

And of course, performance differentials depend on workloads. A .7GHz clock bump and ~20% IPC increase might not be a night-and-day difference in light use, after all.

Also: check out Intel's Sandy Bridge product range on ARK. Note how most SKUs are EoL, but not the Pentium G470, G540 and G850, as well as the i3-2120, i5-2400, and the i7-2600. It doesn't take a giant leap to figure that these are still produced in limited quantities.

It's also interesting to note that among the mobile Sandy Bridge SKUs, the Pentium B950 is the only one marked as EoL. Odd.

 

[waltchan]

But not the Celeron G470, G540, and Pentium G850, as well as the i3-2120, i5-2400, and the i7-2600. It doesn't take a giant leap to figure that these are still produced in limited quantities.

How can I ever thank you. Just found a Celeron G540 2.5 GHz manufactured on September 2015, and I purchased it immediately for $12.95 shipped. Life's good... These processors are almost brand-new, remember, newer than your Haswell you're typing on, with depreciation already credited in with free bonus.

So, 2017 Celeron G540 and 2017 Pentium G850 for now, and maybe 2017 Celeron G470 at most.

L538 date code...

 

[Sheep221]

In case of CPUs, they are practically immortal and ageing does not affect reliability.
CPU dying from age-related causes is rare occurrence and even when it did happen it was only because CPU was heavily overclocked all the time, or was installed in overheating system plagued by cooling problems. And since you are after celerons and pentiums, both possibilities mentioned above are now impossibilities.
Difference between reliability of your 2015 G540 and 2017 G850 and those made in 2010 is zero.
What I wanted to say is, they are good CPUs but you are not getting anything better just because CPU is newer(younger) piece and there are no mobos for them around anymore other than few used ones which are overpriced or some stuff from aliexpress, ebay with questionable reliability and quality.

 

[VirtualLarry]

These processors are almost brand-new, remember, newer than your Haswell you're typing on, with depreciation already credited in with free bonus.

Not sure why newer mfg date is better for CPUs, rather than newer design. HDDs? Sure, newer is better, although, if the stock is NIB and not used, then it doesn't matter all that much, even with HDDs, unless they are 10+ years old, and the bearing grease is drying out.

Likewise, it's possible that the TIM underneath a CPU heatspreader could theoretically dry out, and need to be de-lidded and replaced, but in practice, I don't think that I've ever had a CPU in operation that long.

 

[waltchan]

Not sure why newer mfg date is better for CPUs, rather than newer design.

It means they're still competitive and useful for 2017 already tested by Intel, and as long as they don't say end of life, they're not obsolete by me yet, regardless what people say here. Why should I be forced to go for expensive Kaby Lake for only small performance gain when the G540 (not G3900) does everything I need and is secretly the entry-level 2017 dual-core LGA processor by Intel. Who knows how much they cost now, maybe $20 new each by OEM order.

There must be some valid reasons why Intel selected G540 and G850 only, despite G555 and G870 were the faster ones. Maybe more stable for corporate environment.

 

[Sheep221]

Not sure why newer mfg date is better for CPUs, rather than newer design. HDDs? Sure, newer is better, although, if the stock is NIB and not used, then it doesn't matter all that much, even with HDDs, unless they are 10+ years old, and the bearing grease is drying out.

Likewise, it's possible that the TIM underneath a CPU heatspreader could theoretically dry out, and need to be de-lidded and replaced, but in practice, I don't think that I've ever had a CPU in operation that long.

In case of sandies, tim is irrelevant, they are soldered.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The 2500K is soldered - chances are still good that the Pentium line was using TIM. (This was the case in the Core2 era too - Core2Duo E6300 used solder, Pentium E2140 used TIM.)

 

[Sheep221]

The 2500K is soldered - chances are still good that the Pentium line was using TIM. (This was the case in the Core2 era too - Core2Duo E6300 used solder, Pentium E2140 used TIM.)

That was case on some clarkdales too where iGP was tim and cores were soldered. Altough I have no info of it being present in any sandies.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It means they're still competitive and useful for 2017 already tested by Intel,

Ummm... how does that work? It's still 6-year-old performance.

and as long as they don't say end of life, they're not obsolete by me yet, regardless what people say here. Why should I be forced to go for expensive Kaby Lake for only small performance gain when the G540 (not G3900) does everything I need and is secretly the entry-level 2017 dual-core LGA processor by Intel. Who knows how much they cost now, maybe $20 new each by OEM order.

I think you may be overthinking it. A lot.

But hey, call up Intel and see if you can order a run of 100k G850s. Let us know what they quote you.

There must be some valid reasons why Intel selected G540 and G850 only, despite G555 and G870 were the faster ones. Maybe more stable for corporate environment.

Yes. This means something.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I find it gratifying that something as powerful as Sandy Bridge is in some PoS systems. It seems like many of them use crap from 20 years ago. Gah.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Likewise, it's possible that the TIM underneath a CPU heatspreader could theoretically dry out, and need to be de-lidded and replaced, but in practice, I don't think that I've ever had a CPU in operation that long.

"Funnily" enough TIM drying out actually happened to me. With an older (5 years) Radeon 4850. Couldn't figure out why it kept overheating since everything seemed fine. Then popped the cooler off, and, quite literally found dust.

So it could happen on a CPU.

I find it gratifying that something as powerful as Sandy Bridge is in some PoS systems. It seems like many of them use crap from 20 years ago. Gah.

Isn't that the truth. I'll include anything Atom-based too.

 

[w3rd]

How can I ever thank you. Just found a Celeron G540 2.5 GHz manufactured on September 2015, and I purchased it immediately for $12.95 shipped. Life's good... These processors are almost brand-new, remember, newer than your Haswell you're typing on, with depreciation already credited in with free bonus.

So, 2017 Celeron G540 and 2017 Pentium G850 for now, and maybe 2017 Celeron G470 at most.

L538 date code...

Out of curiosity.. what are you doing with these old chips..? Collection of some sorts..?

 

[Headfoot]

I find it pretty difficult to be excited about newly made absolutely bottom of the barrel low end chips on a 6 year old architecture. I guess it's better than VIA chips?

 

[DrMrLordX]

I find it pretty difficult to be excited about newly made absolutely bottom of the barrel low end chips on a 6 year old architecture. I guess it's better than VIA chips?

That is pretty much the point. That and old Atoms.

Apollo Lake, on the other hand, might be a better fit.

 

[waltchan]

Out of curiosity.. what are you doing with these old chips..? Collection of some sorts..?

Affordable new PCs in homeless camp for upcoming recession. LOL....

 

[waltchan]

That is pretty much the point. That and old Atoms.

Apollo Lake, on the other hand, might be a better fit.

I fear to see the Celeron G540 and Pentium G850 will remain in "launched" status up to 2020 (when Windows 7 ends all support), and by then, they all depreciate down to less than $5 shipped each on eBay, including new ones made in 2019. By 2020, I'm figuring out how many generations behind from Sandy Bridge I'll be with 2019 G850, and I'll tell people my processor is only 1 year old.

 

[richierich1212]

Oh Walt, you're always talking about CPU depreciation. Why waste your time with these "new" old Sandys? Are you sitting on a stockpile of ECS LGA1155 H61 motherboards?