Did Intel really just send me a brand new i7 920?

L

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[H]ard|Gawd
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Its a warranty replacement.

Last Jan. I purchased an i7 920 from MC. I finally got around to assembling my rig in April. My mobo was a Rampage II Gene. The 920 I had failed both Prime and LinX pack at stock speeds right out of the gate. Picked up a 930 from MC and tried it out in the same rig. It had no issues passing anything at stock speed, and it'll flirt with 4GHz stable.

I tried the 920 out in an EVGA x58 Micro, and had the same result. Fails torture tests at stock.

So I finally get around to phoning Intel, and set up a warranty replacement. I just assumed I'd get a refurb or something. However, what showed up at my door a few days after I sent away the bad 920 came in a sealed retail box w/o anything to indicate it was used or refurbished in any way.

Today I asked Intel about it, and they told me it was indeed a brand new i7 920. :)


I guess I'm surprised they would send out a brand spanking new CPU, but then again I've never dealt with Intel's warranty over the years.(never had a problem) Has anyone here had a warranty return on a retail Intel CPU before? Is sending out brand new CPU's on warranty issues par for the course in dealing with them?
 
In terms of the physical processor its cheaper to send a new one than to bother with testing an RMA Im sure...
 
CPUs from both Intel and AMD are very rarely defective. It's probably more cost-effective just to send you a brand new CPU than to bother refurbishing the very, very few that are defective (probably a few percent at the most).
 
You can't "refurb" a CPU... if it's dead or defective then it's dead or defective period, and yes you'll always get a brand new replacement or whatever happens to be the closest thing if the specific processor that died on you is no longer available.
 
Did you ask to see your invoice in your name?

I bought a used i7 but I do have the seller invoice.

Has anyone done this type of warranty replacement?
 
You can't "refurb" a CPU. All that can really be done is to find the speed at which it is stable and sell it for that. There isn't anything lower then a 920, so it will probably just be junked.
 
They never asked me for an invoice, receipt, or anything like that. I told them about my problem, and they asked if I still had the retail HSF etc. I had kept all the packing and they just told me to box it all up and send it in, and issued me a case # on the spot.

It was very simple.
 
chong67 said:
What is HSF? They didnt even ask on what day you bought it?
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Abbreviation for heat sink and fan.

They are usually sold together, but not always as some of the high end heat sinks and sold without the fan, which you have to purchase separately.
 
chong67 said:
What is HSF? They didnt even ask on what day you bought it?
Click to expand...
HSF = heat sink/fan.

I told the guy "January." That was good enough for him. I did have to read him a couple numbers off the processor, but that was about it.
 
Intel sends brand new chips, sealed in boxes. We build machines at our store and occasionally have to send chips back. Always NIB processors.

I like it.
 
amdgamer said:
Abbreviation for heat sink and fan.

They are usually sold together, but not always as some of the high end heat sinks and sold without the fan, which you have to purchase separately.
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Retail is always sold with a heatsink that's how they know you have a warranty through them, if it is oem intel doesn't do the warranty process it is the company that sold you the chip. It is the same with amd, you must ship the heatsink with it to get warranty service.
 
Yah, retail Intel always include the fan. I just dont like that push pin thing.

Funny they dont even ask for the date you bought it.
 
which is the only reason you can sell a stock HSF for good money.
 
RMA'd BFG 6800GT: Got a new one.

RMA'd an AMD 3500+ : Got a not new 3700+. Not really an upgrade since the nm process was one step bigger, but ebayers didn't care too much.

RMA'd Corsair TX850 PSU: Got a new one.

Odd thing in my case is it was the cpu where I had to wait until they got a stock of "refurbished" ones. Probably not huge but a decent percent of RMAs may be nub ID10T errors. Even in AMDs hey day they were fair to me.

Guess I'm lucky. I was kind of pissed when I got a BFG GTX280 and I had to register within 30 days, and it took longer than that window to confirm. Do I have a warranty or not? Maybe the writing was on the wall that long ago.
 
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Since no i7 processor is over 3 years old if it is a retail Intel chip it is under warranty. No need to ask for purchase date.
 
Pretty sure there is a date code associated with a CPU. They probably give you 3 years plus 60 days or something from that date code unless you can produce a receipt that says otherwise.
 
sweet. first time i hear a rma with intel. good to know how they conduct business.
 
CPU's can be sold as 'Refurb' if they were sold to a company, and the company went belly up, or failed to pay for them and sent them back instead of payment. Intel cannot sell them as brand new, and instead of dumping them, would sell them at a reduced rate as 'refurb'.
 
how exactly does intel refurbish a processor? it either works or it does not. and since intel cannot repair them, they send you are replacement from their stock which is by default all new un-used CPUs even if they did by them back from a company......most times if a company goes belly up, all un used invintory is sold off.......
 
I don't think anyone is going to "sake apart and fix" a CPU, so refurbished is not likely.
costs them almost nothing to send you a new one anyways.
 
DeFex said:
I don't think anyone is going to "sake apart and fix" a CPU, so refurbished is not likely.
costs them almost nothing to send you a new one anyways.
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’m‚³‚ñ;1036058948 said:
CPU's can be sold as 'Refurb' if they were sold to a company, and the company went belly up, or failed to pay for them and sent them back instead of payment. Intel cannot sell them as brand new, and instead of dumping them, would sell them at a reduced rate as 'refurb'.
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???

I RMAed a monitor. I got one from the manufacturer that had never been opened, but it was a 'refurb'. A company purchased 500 or 1,000 or a million of the same monitor, and they didn't need some of them, so after 2 years of sitting unused in the original boxes, they were sent back. The manufacturer cannot sell them as brand new, so they are used to replace defective products.

Refurbished doesn't mean it's 'taken apart and fixed', or 'refreshed'. It just means that the item cannot be sold as brand new, and that it is known to be perfectly serviceable.
 
DeFex said:
I don't think anyone is going to "sake apart and fix" a CPU, so refurbished is not likely.
costs them almost nothing to send you a new one anyways.
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Are CPU's really that cheap to manufacture? Is most of the cost in R&D?
 
I helped my friend rma an e6550 that he had for two years and they sent him a brand new one as well. I guess they keep plenty of stock for all of their processors. :D
 
450 said:
Are CPU's really that cheap to manufacture? Is most of the cost in R&D?
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R&D and FAB building are certainly high costs. A 4 billion dollar fabrication plant must be factored into the cost of each chip.. But still wafers are expensive and the manufacturing of a chip does cost money. The manufacturing cost depends a lot on how many chips the wafer yields. A total guess from someone that is not in the industry would be $30 to $150 US per core. On top of manufacturing there is speed binning and testing which both have costs.

Pricing a chip is somewhat independent of cost however. One reason is of a giving stepping or even wafer the highest end chip and the lowest end chip cost the exact same to manufacture. Its just the highest end chip does not and can not yield any where near what can be sold as the lowest end chip. So for the same silicon, same process, same materials, same factory, same R&D, Intel can sell a chip for $1000 or $289.
 
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