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

[Valantar]

Instead of me chasing down for the fastest model in Celeron and Pentium lineup, as well as AMD processors, I think I'll rather shop by newest manufactured date instead regardless of speed and model, as this saves me more money without risking any old-age worries.

The issue with that logic, as has been pointed out numerous times in this thread, is that CPUs don't degrade over time. Hardly at all. CPU failures due to old age (outside of cases where they've been significantly overvolted) are pretty much unheard of. If you overclock, you might see maximum stable clocks gradually lower, sure. But run at stock? No. Not going to happen, even on the highest end SKUs. You'll be better off buying a faster chip, as it won't fail anyhow. If I were you, I'd worry more about the capacitors on the motherboards for these chips.

So, you can get that Pentium for $15, and I found some Dell mATX 1155 motherboards on Ebay for another $15. Those will hopefully not fail in a few years at least, but you have zero driver support, BIOS updates, and the like. Then there's the new G4560, which adds 0.7 GHz of clock speed and hyper-threading to the ~50% IPC difference between Kaby Lake and Sandy Bridge. In other words, that chip should easily be twice as fast. When it's not sold out, it's around $70, with the cheapest motherboards around $40. Sure, that's nearly 4x the price of your "new-old" setup, but it gets you a twice as fast chip, a new motherboard with modern drivers, BIOS options and updates, modern I/O, and so on. Oh, and warranties. And it's still dirt cheap. I'd go for that every day of the week, personally.

 

[waltchan]

Sure, that's nearly 4x the price of your "new-old" setup.

Thank you for your concern, and I know CPUs don't degrade much over time. You just said something that isn't much to my best interest. "The higher the price (4x), the less we buy." So I buy more of LGA1155s instead as brand-new as best as possible, depending on availability.

Buying old CPUs can easily be a bad habit as the prices continue to fall, and I get to stay more loyal to it longer, while seeing the new ones getting more expensive each year. Then I feel less likely to move and upgrade because I can't afford the new ones anymore, while all the old useful Sandy Bridge CPUs bottoming-out at $5 permanently when depreciation end, and then I buy some more again. Easy...

 

[Valantar]

I have to ask: How many PCs do you actually have/need/want, that you can't build them all with $110 CPU+mobo combos? And what do you use them all for?

 

[richierich1212]

CPUs last longer than motherboards. You're worrying so much about Date of manufacture when CPUs in your price range don't hold value. Usually only the higher end SKUs do.

 

[waltchan]

I have to ask: How many PCs do you actually have/need/want, that you can't build them all with $110 CPU+mobo combos? And what do you use them all for?

That's a tricky question to answer, I don't really know how many I need, actually. I have three cars, and each car has two PC towers in case I need to check in a hotel room. Currently they're all A4-3300 FM1 and some LGA1155. The cleaning maids often steal it when I'm not at the room, so I go back to my car and grab the backup. Had two stolen before. That's why I can only buy obsolete CPUs and 2GB RAM max, due to this scenario I'm doing.

 

[escrow4]

That's a tricky question to answer, I don't really know how many I need, actually. I have three cars, and each car has two PC towers in case I need to check in a hotel room. Currently they're all A4-3300 FM1 and some LGA1155. The cleaning maids often steal it when I'm not at the room, so I go back to my car and grab the backup. Had two stolen before. That's why I can only buy obsolete CPUs and 2GB RAM max, due to this scenario I'm doing.

 

[.vodka]

That's a tricky question to answer, I don't really know how many I need, actually. I have three cars, and each car has two PC towers in case I need to check in a hotel room. Currently they're all A4-3300 FM1 and some LGA1155. The cleaning maids often steal it when I'm not at the room, so I go back to my car and grab the backup. Had two stolen before. That's why I can only buy obsolete CPUs and 2GB RAM max, due to this scenario I'm doing.

Isn't a notebook a better fitting piece of hardware for hotel stays?

 

[LTC8K6]

Isn't a notebook a better fitting piece of hardware for hotel stays?

Are you kidding? With that sort of rampant thievery?

 

[mikeymikec]

Why not go full-on in the opposite direction and install a mainframe in your room. I'd like to see the maids nick that!

It might be best to ask the management what the maximum payload the floor in your room takes first though.

 

[NTMBK]

That's a tricky question to answer, I don't really know how many I need, actually. I have three cars, and each car has two PC towers in case I need to check in a hotel room. Currently they're all A4-3300 FM1 and some LGA1155. The cleaning maids often steal it when I'm not at the room, so I go back to my car and grab the backup. Had two stolen before. That's why I can only buy obsolete CPUs and 2GB RAM max, due to this scenario I'm doing.

wat

 

[Valantar]

Are you kidding? With that sort of rampant thievery?

You know, there are few places where you can't bring a laptop with you (as opposed to a desktop). As such, there's little to no reason to leave it in the hotel room at all

Oh, and if theft on the go is a problem, OP: get a laptop backpack with a built-in wire lock. Of course, getting a Kensington lock for your desktops might be a good idea too. Even cheaper than building successive trashputers! And at some point you might start feeling safe enough to actually get a computer worth using!

 

[NTMBK]

Have you considered staying in less scummy motels?

 

[Valantar]

Have you considered staying in less scummy motels?

If his approach to motel room prices is akin to his approach to CPU prices, I'd say no, he hasn't considered that.

 

[NTMBK]

If his approach to motel room prices is akin to his approach to CPU prices, I'd say no, he hasn't considered that.

But they kept secretly building fleabag ****hole motels all the way up to April 2017!

 

[LTC8K6]

You know, there are few places where you can't bring a laptop with you (as opposed to a desktop). As such, there's little to no reason to leave it in the hotel room at all

Oh, and if theft on the go is a problem, OP: get a laptop backpack with a built-in wire lock. Of course, getting a Kensington lock for your desktops might be a good idea too. Even cheaper than building successive trashputers! And at some point you might start feeling safe enough to actually get a computer worth using!

Presumably the thieves can't see, or don't want, the desktops he leaves in his car in the parking lot.

 

[jihe]

Twilight zone stuff this thread.

 

[hojnikb]

Hmm, is it possible that dies were made before that and were just packaged at a latter date ?

 

[Valantar]

Hmm, is it possible that dies were made before that and were just packaged at a latter date ?

Possible, but doubtful. Storing either finished wafers or cut dice is far more risky and complicated than storing finished chips. In all likelyhood, they occasionally fire up a production run of those chips on existing production lines to make sure they have a supply of spares for OEM equipment that might need them.

 

[ultimatebob]

This makes sense to me. If I'm a POS manufacturer like PAR, NCR, or Micros, I don't want to have the redesign my POS system every 18 months to keep up with Intel's latest part numbers. POS systems don't need a lot of horsepower, but they do need to be stable and easily replaceable with an identical model when they break.

Remember, restaurants buy these systems expecting them to last 10 years or more. You would be amazed now many POS systems are out in the field that are still running obsolete crap like Windows XP with a Sybase 9 database backend.

 

[LTC8K6]

Are we to believe that Intel is still making all of these SB processors that are not marked EOL?

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/29900/Sandy-Bridge

 

[Valantar]

Are we to believe that Intel is still making all of these SB processors that are not marked EOL?

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/29900/Sandy-Bridge

That list struck me as odd as well - a handful of desktop chips and a whole host of mobile chips "still in production". Though it kind of makes sense when you think about it: business laptops have 5+ year support cycles, and require a far greater variety of CPUs (due to the far greater variety of form factors) compared to desktop systems. Still, it seems like a lot. I would think that they aren't actually manufactured unless there are actual orders for them, but that the SKUs are not marked as EoL due to long-term support deals with various OEMs that might need a new batch within that time.

 

[LTC8K6]

I would think it is more likely stockpiles of chips, and not continued production. The i7-2600 is not marked EOL.

Can they afford to devote resources to keep producing all those SB and IB chips?

Wouldn't there be newer IB chips that could replace SB chips? Seems like you'd just need the IB chips to keep old stuff going?

Lots of IB chips not marked EOL, too.

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/29902/Ivy-Bridge

 

[Valantar]

I would think it is more likely stockpiles of chips, and not continued production. The i7-2600 is not marked EOL.

Can they afford to devote resources to keep producing all those SB and IB chips?

Wouldn't there be newer IB chips that could replace SB chips? Seems like you'd just need the IB chips to keep old stuff going?

Lots of IB chips not marked EOL, too.

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/29902/Ivy-Bridge

There will be LTS (long term support) SKUs in every generation. And even if IB and SB are 100% compatible in theory, there's no guarantee you can swap in an IB CPU in an SB-based OEM machine and everything will be fine. As such, SB is still produced for those cases. And yes, they can afford that: at least some 32nm (and 22nm) production lines are still in use - and have all kinks worked out by now - making chipsets, network controllers, and all kinds of other less important components. So swapping in the patterns for SB 4-core (and 2-core for mobile) once in a while and making a handful of wafers to fulfill these orders isn't much of a cost at all, and you don't need many wafers of a small die to fill up stocks of a LTS part, after all.

 

[waltchan]

Okay, decide to loosen up and order one new Gigabyte H81M-H LGA1150 board going for $29.99 AR on Newegg. Since the board's mfg. date is most likely made in mid-2016 or newer, the newest LGA1150 processor mfg. date I can find is a Celeron G1840T 2.50 GHz. It even has VN instead of Vietnam on top of die. Date code is X624, or June 2016, or 24th week of 2016.

Will it be too slow for me? Or should I wait for Celeron G1840 2.8 GHz? Unfortunately, I can't take a Celeron G1850 since they all have much older mfg. dates in 2014 instead. Newest mfg. date allows me to save money while cherry-picking better and slower CPU models.

Regardless of what Haswell model I choose and price up to Pentium G3470 max, my #1 goal is the find the "VN" on top of die as best as possible (not the one that says Vietnam, they're made prior to January 2016).

 

[waltchan]

Sold on April 4th. My new, dream Haswell. Looks like I'm in waiting-list with board only for now.