Translation of the above: you don't need it unless you're sending 1.5v+ through your CPU and/or using sub-ambient cooling. Even (most) water coolers need not apply.
They'll offer it for free with their high-end CPU's. Why not throw it in for free on X series CPU's. While most anyone here would agree that a $599 3930K or $1000+ 3960X are not worth it, I could see it being a great value add to have this thrown in for free. Then it comes down to more of a $319 2600K vs $599 3930K, where you can get a free replacement if it dies. So you might end up even or ahead in the end if you like to push the heck out of your system.
But, why would they give this away for free (or implicit in the price)? They already provide a warranty that covers the vast majority of usage scenarios. I think all that what you suggest would encourage is for Intel to further increase prices on the high-end chips.
This is like selling any other insurance - It's very profitable for the seller because few folks will ever get their money's worth out of the deal. One CPU replacement for $20-$35 should fill Intel coffers nicely. This is a sucker play.
except that it's likely that the majority of people who would buy the insurance will be overclockers and a much higher percentage of them will be blowing up their CPUs
You can be sure this program is designed to be profitable. It will work like any insurance plan, total money collected from consumers is higher then total money paid back.
I've read the Ts&Cs and the FAQ on the Intel site, and frankly, I'm confused. It says it'll cover the processor 'if it fails' - so you're covered if you're dumb enough to pump the Vcore up to 1.7V and fry the CPU (as long as you wait a month before doing so). But most degradation from increased voltage and frequency is far more subtle - after a couple of years you'll start getting BSoDs under load and need to turn up the voltage or lower your OC.
I've been overclocking since the 300A and had a couple of CPUs slowly wear down, but they would still work fine at stock speeds - would they have been covered under this plan? I have a sneaky suspicion the answer is no, and that Intel would refuse to replace a CPU that could still manage stock but couldn't handle 4GHz any more. But I can't see any language that explicitly defines what 'fails' means in terms of this plan.
You expect everything handed to you free on a silver platter ? The only people who will buy this insurance are those who overclock and are much more likely to blow up their CPU up. You can buy the insurance or not. It's called free will.
I was at Fry's Electronics last year browsing through their motherboards and CPUs. I overheard a salesperson tell a buyer to just overclock it to the max it lets him and if it dies, just send in the CPU and get another one free-of-charge.
If you want Intel to keep this feature in future CPUs, don't abuse it. They're not stupid. If too many CPUs come back blown up because some idiot wanted to squeeze another 10% out of his PC, they'll just stop doing it. I suspect that Intel is putting this insurance option out there to re-coup some of the losses they incur by those who abuse overclocking, then expect a free replacement.
I've had a Micro Center employee tell me the same almost verbatim when I bought a board/CPU combo from them. Honestly I think its encouraged from the top down all the way up to Intel to get the sale on higher end components over cheaper ones (or AMD). Intel has had much better overclocking headroom than the competition for years now, why not leverage that advantage?
But Intel isn't dumb as you've said, and I'm sure they're keenly aware of what people are doing with their CPUs regardless, so they probably figure why not monetize it. Indeed, this is the 2nd time in recent history they've monetized their OC capabilities (1st time was introducing K parts and locked normal parts).
I think the limited trial edition of this is more to see if its worth it from a revenue/profit and bookkeeping aspect. All of this effort is going to take quite a bit of customer service and backend tracking. Its not like Intel has some robust frontend, end-user portal to make this all simple, like EVGA. If anything their frontend is terrible as we saw when end-user demands for support ramped up during the early X-25M SSD days.
"Its not like Intel has some robust frontend, end-user portal to make this all simple, like EVGA. If anything their frontend is terrible as we saw when end-user demands for support ramped up during the early X-25M SSD days."
But they DO have a really solid and robust returns portal for their resellers, or 'technology providers'. Intel are bigger than EVGA by several orders of magnitude, I'm sure they actually want people to be returning items through the channel, not direct to them. Their policies on returns and warranty is fairly clear cut and always says 'return to place of purchase'. Resellers are told the same, and generally have to accept a return.
The thing about this is, aside from telling Intel that the CPU has been overclocked, there's really no way for them to find out aside from extreme OC jobs where stuff is actually visibly burnt out/damaged from exposure to LN2. Your average joe's i5-2500k running at 4.3Ghz probably won't show visible damage, and it's just not worth it to Intel to break down that chip and examine it if he says it's broken. Hence why big (US) resellers just tell people to bring it back.
Why did you bother to quote the portion and not even read it? This program is being offered to the END-USER directly, that's the whole point. You don't need to go through the reseller, you go through Intel directly, which is why I referenced the fact they don't have a robust end-user portal to make all of this easy.
In the example I gave, EVGA, you register for an account, which you need to do anyways to receive the lifetime warranty. From there, you enter the product serial # and after that, anything you want to do with that product is tracked and managed through your account. Everything from Step-Up, RMA, game codes, advanced RMA, buying new parts, you name it.
The whole point of this program is to allow Intel to make even more money on what they already know people are doing with their CPUs and recoup some of the expense of replacing CPUs they were already replacing. If they didn't know, they wouldn't have bothered to charge the premium to begin with on their K and X products.
The program is being offered through resellers as well as directly from Intel and no doubt resellers will have to buy into the program in order to resell it. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the program's terms and conditions include having to return to your original place of purchase.
Its an end-user portal and warranty program, you only need to buy a retail cpu or through an approved reseller.
But that link is case and point, a multi-bazillion company like Intel, "leaders of tomorrow", using PAYPAL of all things to handle their end-user transactions.
Honestly, its probably some guy in marketings experiment to help fund their annual company picnic or holiday party. Maybe they'll have rocketship rides to the moon for the kids this year.
I think there is a fair chance that Intel is interested in looking at how their chips fail under stresses that they haven't thought to do in their labs. The key point is that they need to be able to tear the packages open. This means that they need to get owners to give them their burned out CPUs. This requires an exchange such as this. In a way, it can be seen as enthusiasts paying $20 to do Intel's stress testing for them.
It also doesn't really harm their bottom line. This is because it costs them pretty much the same amount to produce an i7 as an i3 and they really aren't out a whole lot and they aren't putting new processors out there that will bring down demand. Further, they get good will from the performance community, which is at least somewhat involved in writing the benchmarking articles and otherwise touting what the best processors are.
This leads me to believe that Intel doesn't plan for this program to be an ongoing endeavor. They will do it until they stop getting useful information and/or they see it as being too expensive to run.
I have extensive first hand experience with Intel and AMD RMAs. They replace completely fried chips, even the EE's, with no questions asked, regardless of what kind of voltage you are pumping into them. You think they can tell if a transistor blew because of a short or because you were pumping too much voltage into it? Come on, use your brains. They don't inspect them that carefully--it would require a police investigation I'm sure to figure out exactly what happened to the chip and at the rate they do RMAs checking them this way would cost more money than just giving the user a new one.
That aside, I have killed FX-55's multiple times, even the RMA'd ones, and got replacements without any issues or even as much as a question. I have also done this over 10 times with the P4 EE line with similar results--no one ever questions how it died.
This is simply an idiot tax. There's a lot of those in our society though, and there's a lot of people in our society who are glad to pay that tax unfortunately.
It's because of people like you that it took years for Intel to come around to even allowing overclocking. And it's because of people like you who have abusing the RMA system that Intel is now offering insurance.
After this insurance program is in place and you blow up a part, expect the first question you'll be asked by Intel before sending out a replacement is "do you have insurance ?"
From a demographics perspective, it is hard to characterize extreme over-clockers group as a bunch of Intel fan boys. This plan is worthless to anyone except extreme over-clockers. Congratulations to Intel for targeting a demographic segment where they are weak and in a way where they likely increase their profitability. While the plan is irrelevant to ordinary folk who should not waste their money, for extreme over-clockers and Intel it is a solid win:win.
this sort of bullshit makes me want to overclock my cpu to extreme voltages, watch it die and send it in for default warranty and watch them have to replace it anyway because they can't even tell. This is a really pathetic move from such a company.
This is idiot insurance. You can argue all you want about whether its good for Intel (money, good business plan for profits) but it's still a quite hilarious concept that as a consumer, I'll never ever get, out of principle alone.
You guys would be very Naive to think that Intel cannot tell when someone runs a part at over voltage or exceeded the specification in some other way.
I am sure that every CPU returned goes into failure analysis - both to improve the next generation, and to determine warranty support. If they give you another CPU because you blew yours overclocking it is purely out of the good will of the company.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
28 Comments
Back to Article
r3loaded - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
Translation of the above: you don't need it unless you're sending 1.5v+ through your CPU and/or using sub-ambient cooling. Even (most) water coolers need not apply.c4v3man - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
They'll offer it for free with their high-end CPU's. Why not throw it in for free on X series CPU's. While most anyone here would agree that a $599 3930K or $1000+ 3960X are not worth it, I could see it being a great value add to have this thrown in for free. Then it comes down to more of a $319 2600K vs $599 3930K, where you can get a free replacement if it dies. So you might end up even or ahead in the end if you like to push the heck out of your system.stadisticado - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
But, why would they give this away for free (or implicit in the price)? They already provide a warranty that covers the vast majority of usage scenarios. I think all that what you suggest would encourage is for Intel to further increase prices on the high-end chips.Beenthere - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
This is like selling any other insurance - It's very profitable for the seller because few folks will ever get their money's worth out of the deal. One CPU replacement for $20-$35 should fill Intel coffers nicely. This is a sucker play.Hector2 - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
except that it's likely that the majority of people who would buy the insurance will be overclockers and a much higher percentage of them will be blowing up their CPUsBeenthere - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
How many people blow up CPUs now with OC'ing? Remember you only get ONE free replacement.ClagMaster - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
I look at this replacement plan and simply shake my head at the stupidity.Intel should make the insane enthusiasts who deliberately destroy their CPUs replace their CPU's retail.
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
Do you think Intel would do it if they weren't confident?I doubt lots of people will want to deliberately destroy their CPUs. They only get one replacement, too.
Mr Perfect - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
You can be sure this program is designed to be profitable. It will work like any insurance plan, total money collected from consumers is higher then total money paid back.charleski - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
I've read the Ts&Cs and the FAQ on the Intel site, and frankly, I'm confused. It says it'll cover the processor 'if it fails' - so you're covered if you're dumb enough to pump the Vcore up to 1.7V and fry the CPU (as long as you wait a month before doing so). But most degradation from increased voltage and frequency is far more subtle - after a couple of years you'll start getting BSoDs under load and need to turn up the voltage or lower your OC.I've been overclocking since the 300A and had a couple of CPUs slowly wear down, but they would still work fine at stock speeds - would they have been covered under this plan? I have a sneaky suspicion the answer is no, and that Intel would refuse to replace a CPU that could still manage stock but couldn't handle 4GHz any more. But I can't see any language that explicitly defines what 'fails' means in terms of this plan.
Maybe Anandtech could get Intel to clarify?
formulav8 - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
Talk about being stinking money hungry.Hector2 - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
You expect everything handed to you free on a silver platter ? The only people who will buy this insurance are those who overclock and are much more likely to blow up their CPU up. You can buy the insurance or not. It's called free will.Hector2 - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
I was at Fry's Electronics last year browsing through their motherboards and CPUs. I overheard a salesperson tell a buyer to just overclock it to the max it lets him and if it dies, just send in the CPU and get another one free-of-charge.If you want Intel to keep this feature in future CPUs, don't abuse it. They're not stupid. If too many CPUs come back blown up because some idiot wanted to squeeze another 10% out of his PC, they'll just stop doing it. I suspect that Intel is putting this insurance option out there to re-coup some of the losses they incur by those who abuse overclocking, then expect a free replacement.
chizow - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
I've had a Micro Center employee tell me the same almost verbatim when I bought a board/CPU combo from them. Honestly I think its encouraged from the top down all the way up to Intel to get the sale on higher end components over cheaper ones (or AMD). Intel has had much better overclocking headroom than the competition for years now, why not leverage that advantage?But Intel isn't dumb as you've said, and I'm sure they're keenly aware of what people are doing with their CPUs regardless, so they probably figure why not monetize it. Indeed, this is the 2nd time in recent history they've monetized their OC capabilities (1st time was introducing K parts and locked normal parts).
I think the limited trial edition of this is more to see if its worth it from a revenue/profit and bookkeeping aspect. All of this effort is going to take quite a bit of customer service and backend tracking. Its not like Intel has some robust frontend, end-user portal to make this all simple, like EVGA. If anything their frontend is terrible as we saw when end-user demands for support ramped up during the early X-25M SSD days.
ZekkPacus - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
"Its not like Intel has some robust frontend, end-user portal to make this all simple, like EVGA. If anything their frontend is terrible as we saw when end-user demands for support ramped up during the early X-25M SSD days."But they DO have a really solid and robust returns portal for their resellers, or 'technology providers'. Intel are bigger than EVGA by several orders of magnitude, I'm sure they actually want people to be returning items through the channel, not direct to them. Their policies on returns and warranty is fairly clear cut and always says 'return to place of purchase'. Resellers are told the same, and generally have to accept a return.
The thing about this is, aside from telling Intel that the CPU has been overclocked, there's really no way for them to find out aside from extreme OC jobs where stuff is actually visibly burnt out/damaged from exposure to LN2. Your average joe's i5-2500k running at 4.3Ghz probably won't show visible damage, and it's just not worth it to Intel to break down that chip and examine it if he says it's broken. Hence why big (US) resellers just tell people to bring it back.
chizow - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
Why did you bother to quote the portion and not even read it? This program is being offered to the END-USER directly, that's the whole point. You don't need to go through the reseller, you go through Intel directly, which is why I referenced the fact they don't have a robust end-user portal to make all of this easy.In the example I gave, EVGA, you register for an account, which you need to do anyways to receive the lifetime warranty. From there, you enter the product serial # and after that, anything you want to do with that product is tracked and managed through your account. Everything from Step-Up, RMA, game codes, advanced RMA, buying new parts, you name it.
The whole point of this program is to allow Intel to make even more money on what they already know people are doing with their CPUs and recoup some of the expense of replacing CPUs they were already replacing. If they didn't know, they wouldn't have bothered to charge the premium to begin with on their K and X products.
ZekkPacus - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
The program is being offered through resellers as well as directly from Intel and no doubt resellers will have to buy into the program in order to resell it. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the program's terms and conditions include having to return to your original place of purchase.chizow - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
I guess you didn't bother to click the embedded link in Anand's post:http://click.intel.com/tuningplan/
Its an end-user portal and warranty program, you only need to buy a retail cpu or through an approved reseller.
But that link is case and point, a multi-bazillion company like Intel, "leaders of tomorrow", using PAYPAL of all things to handle their end-user transactions.
Honestly, its probably some guy in marketings experiment to help fund their annual company picnic or holiday party. Maybe they'll have rocketship rides to the moon for the kids this year.
fidgewinkle - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
I think there is a fair chance that Intel is interested in looking at how their chips fail under stresses that they haven't thought to do in their labs. The key point is that they need to be able to tear the packages open. This means that they need to get owners to give them their burned out CPUs. This requires an exchange such as this. In a way, it can be seen as enthusiasts paying $20 to do Intel's stress testing for them.It also doesn't really harm their bottom line. This is because it costs them pretty much the same amount to produce an i7 as an i3 and they really aren't out a whole lot and they aren't putting new processors out there that will bring down demand. Further, they get good will from the performance community, which is at least somewhat involved in writing the benchmarking articles and otherwise touting what the best processors are.
This leads me to believe that Intel doesn't plan for this program to be an ongoing endeavor. They will do it until they stop getting useful information and/or they see it as being too expensive to run.
Hector2 - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
Funny. No, Intel doesn't need burnt out parts from customers for their stress testing. They do that already in their labs under controlled conditions.martyrant - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
I have extensive first hand experience with Intel and AMD RMAs. They replace completely fried chips, even the EE's, with no questions asked, regardless of what kind of voltage you are pumping into them. You think they can tell if a transistor blew because of a short or because you were pumping too much voltage into it? Come on, use your brains. They don't inspect them that carefully--it would require a police investigation I'm sure to figure out exactly what happened to the chip and at the rate they do RMAs checking them this way would cost more money than just giving the user a new one.That aside, I have killed FX-55's multiple times, even the RMA'd ones, and got replacements without any issues or even as much as a question. I have also done this over 10 times with the P4 EE line with similar results--no one ever questions how it died.
This is simply an idiot tax. There's a lot of those in our society though, and there's a lot of people in our society who are glad to pay that tax unfortunately.
Hector2 - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
It's because of people like you that it took years for Intel to come around to even allowing overclocking. And it's because of people like you who have abusing the RMA system that Intel is now offering insurance.After this insurance program is in place and you blow up a part, expect the first question you'll be asked by Intel before sending out a replacement is "do you have insurance ?"
dealcorn - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
From a demographics perspective, it is hard to characterize extreme over-clockers group as a bunch of Intel fan boys. This plan is worthless to anyone except extreme over-clockers. Congratulations to Intel for targeting a demographic segment where they are weak and in a way where they likely increase their profitability. While the plan is irrelevant to ordinary folk who should not waste their money, for extreme over-clockers and Intel it is a solid win:win.james.jwb - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
this sort of bullshit makes me want to overclock my cpu to extreme voltages, watch it die and send it in for default warranty and watch them have to replace it anyway because they can't even tell. This is a really pathetic move from such a company.This is idiot insurance. You can argue all you want about whether its good for Intel (money, good business plan for profits) but it's still a quite hilarious concept that as a consumer, I'll never ever get, out of principle alone.
Hector2 - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
Intel offering an insurance plan makes you upset ? Wow. Therapy ?Unithrow - Saturday, January 21, 2012 - link
You guys would be very Naive to think that Intel cannot tell when someone runs a part at over voltage or exceeded the specification in some other way.I am sure that every CPU returned goes into failure analysis - both to improve the next generation, and to determine warranty support. If they give you another CPU because you blew yours overclocking it is purely out of the good will of the company.
JoelEkstein - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
A <a href="http://protect-o.com/">warranty</a> would always be a good protection in any purchase.JoelEkstein - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
A warranty would always be a good protection in any purchase. http://protect-o.com/