To: srvhap who wrote (8312 ) 5/12/1998 9:04:00 PM From: Samuel R Orr Read Replies (2) | Respond to
It's fun to read these articles with just a bit of understanding. These aren't counterfeit Intel Pentium II microprocessors at all: they're simply older, slower parts without internal error correction circuitry that have been repackaged to a slight degree and sold as higher frequency units. The gray market is the place excess inventory gets dumped. What may not be understood is that a 233MHz Pentium(or any integrated circuit) has to have some additional margin so it will operate that fast at higher temperatures and lower voltages. At nominal temperature and voltage, it might operate at 300MHz. That kind of thing used to be done with DRAM and probably still is: 60 ns devices are run at 50 ns. All the PC assembler does is to crank up the clock speed, and he has a 300 MHz computer that sells for $1600 with a 233 MHz Pentium II that cost him two hundred bucks rather than five hundred. The crook pockets the extra profit. In lots of ways, it sounds to me just like insider trading and parking stocks. Boesky and Milken did that for really BIG money.
