ES vs retail chips?

[El Greco]

I´m thinking if it is likely or unlikely, that the benchmarks we have seen so far from the Conroe ES samples are realistic or not for the retail samples we can soon buy?

From a marketing perspective, I would think it is a good publicity for Intel to cherry pick the best chips and send them to the reviewer before the launch to get the most attention.

The Conroes setups will be more expensive in the low budget sector than the AMD, so if the o/c capabilities are similar to the X2s or if you don´t intend to o/c, AMD is probably a better buy.

I´m going to get a low budget dual core workstation soon and I´m just looking for the best value and I´m willing to o/c, but I don´t have any experience with it.

 

[996GT2]

There are retail conroe behches on anandtech.

 

[dexvx]

ES chips are usually worse than production chips because they were fabbed earlier.

 

[Big Lar]

Originally posted by: dexvx
ES chips are usually worse than production chips because they were fabbed earlier.

This is very true^^ However, The ES chips that are sent out to Reviewers, are usually from the Center of the wafer, hence why they look so good in #'s.

I am not saying there is any deceit in this, and for the most part, they are not as good as later steppings, However, production runs Seem to not adhere to the exact output as the Reviewers chips that they get. Look at it as the Reviewers are getting the top of the cream, and the Public is getting the inbetween