Sandy Bridge Bug 2X Costly as Pentium Math Bug

[Guest]

Intel's surprising note that it has discovered a "circuit design issue" in the 6-series chipset is reminiscent of the 1993 FDIV bug. Intel's quality control may not be as fail-safe as the company claims.

Sandy Bridge Bug 2X Costly as Pentium Math Bug : Read more

 

[bv90andy]

So much for their record profits. I know where those will be spent. Too bad. because this will finally be payed by the consumer.

 

[eddieroolz]

That's some serious dough there. My guess is that it will run into the billions towards the end.

 

[yao]

when can I buy my pc?
I was thinking about buying one, now this news come out.. no way I will buy in the near future.

 

[silverblue]

Sorry, but we're talking 1993 money as compared to 2011. It's way worse than 2X.

 

[geekapproved]

Definitely billions. And what about the OEM's and mobo makers, they going to have to absorb all the RMA and shipping costs for replacement parts and replacement labor. What about the Mom and Pop shops, they are seeing record sales right now because of SB release, now they can't sell any more till April and nobody but the super budget minded are really buy AMD right now, so, there goes those record sales.

 

[geekapproved]

Wow, you think after the P55 cpu socket issues they would have bumped up the QC a little. Guess not, they are too worried about aquiring Mcafee. lol

 

[zelog]

[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]Sorry, but we're talking 1993 money as compared to 2011. It's way worse than 2X.[/citation]
You mean "it's way better than 2X"

 

[silverblue]

Depends on your interpretation. How much is $475 million 18 years on?

 

[Onus]

The mainstream market, where the vast bulk of systems are sold, won't even notice. That market is still buying S775 systems, e.g. "Corporate Stable" models. This will inconvenience, piss off, and maybe alienate some enthusiasts, and maybe the top percent or two of the high-end pro market, but nothing more.

 

[accolite]

Looks like it's intel's turn to go the amd route.

 

[JamesSneed]

Take your time Intel. AMD don't fubar Bulldozer. This may be an interesting year.

 

[silverblue]

Probably true. Depends on how much of a fuss the trade computer mags kick up.

I got myself tied up with the "it's way worse than 2X" earlier; if I'm correct, $475 million would be worth about $700 million nowadays, so we're still some way short of it being twice the pain for Intel, even at $1 billion. It's still lower than the AMD and nVidia settlements and they won't have any real issues paying it.

 

[zkevwlu]

Assuming a prevailing annual interest rate of 3% (which is really really damn conservative), a 475 million dollar investment 18 years ago is worth 809 million dollars today. So no, there is no way in hell this debacle is going to cost twice as much as the FDIV bug.

 

[milktea]

Intel (or at least a few at Intel) did this on purpose to give AMD some breathing room. Things a more exciting with competition. 😛

 

[nforce4max]

I got a few pentium 1 cpus in my collection including a few engineering samples some of which are not even 100mhz lol

 

[wiyosaya]

Is this what happens when the bottom line / shareholders are the only thing that counts and products are rushed to market without adequate testing?

 

[voodoobunny]

"Reminiscent of the FDIV bug"? As in, denying that a problem existed for months until the recall was far more visible and the product's reputation was in tatters? I think not; Intel is shipping *far* more units now than they were in prehistoric times (sorry, I mean 1993) and they will probably actually get some positive press over this for being so quick to act.

 

[tpi2007]

This is worse than the FDIV problem of the original Pentium for a simple reason: Intel deliberately prevented another manufacturer from making chipsets for their CPU's.

If Nvidia was still around for example, people could still buy a Nvidia motherboard to go with the Intel Sandy Bridge CPU. As it is, Intel loses twice: people will hold off from buying not only the affected motherboards (which accounts to ALL of them right now), but it will also not sell the brand new CPU's.

I think it's Nvidia right now that must be laughing and not exactly AMD.

Intel wanted to be alone in the chipset business, now it has to take on all the inherent risks of that decision too. There was a very good reason IBM told Intel in the beginning that it would only order chips from them if there was a second CPU licensee - they wanted the supply risk at a minimum.


EDIT: Newegg just took offline not only all LGA 1155 based motherboards, but also all Sandy Bridge Core i5's and i7's.

 

[Guest]

It will come out of their Petty Cash account.

IB

 

[Kileak]

I'm glad you took the time to tell everyone reading the article that AMD has also made a mistake at some point in time because if not, obviously everyone would've thought that they're perfect...

Great way to detract attention from the culprit.

 

[davewolfgang]

"Reminiscent of the FDIV bug"? As in, denying that a problem existed for months until the recall was far more visible and the product's reputation was in tatters? I think not; Intel is shipping *far* more units now than they were in prehistoric times (sorry, I mean 1993) and they will probably actually get some positive press over this for being so quick to act.

I initially wondered when I first saw the news on the ticker - but after reading into it - they really jumped onto it and admitting something is wrong BEFORE 100's and 1,000's of end users start having problems and then it becomes "known" that they knew about it, actually puts them in a much better light.

 

[davewolfgang]

The mainstream market, where the vast bulk of systems are sold, won't even notice. That market is still buying S775 systems, e.g. "Corporate Stable" models. This will inconvenience, piss off, and maybe alienate some enthusiasts, and maybe the top percent or two of the high-end pro market, but nothing more.

Bingo!!

And remember - most of the OEM's have barely gotten any P67's out yet, so I don't think it will be as big as some people think. I really depends on how fast Intel can get the fixed and correct mobo chips to the manufacturers (mobo and OEM's) for them to start on their end.

This is affecting the build-it-yourself people more than anyone else.

 

[verbalizer]

whoa..

 

[jryan388]

Assuming a prevailing annual interest rate of 3% (which is really really damn conservative), a 475 million dollar investment 18 years ago is worth 809 million dollars today. So no, there is no way in hell this debacle is going to cost twice as much as the FDIV bug.

$475e^(18*.03) = $815 million...