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One thing I've really hated about Intel in recent times has been that you can't really tell what you're getting based on the model number. I got bitten by this

One thing I've really hated about Intel in recent times has been that you can't really tell what you're getting based on the model number. I got bitten by this when I built up a system and picked a Core 2 Quad Q8200, only to discover after powering it on that it did NOT have virtualization support. The problem is only worse now; is that i7-xxxx dual-core or quad-core? Should I get i5-yyyy instead?

lallysingh 11y ago
You have to look them up on ark: http://ark.intel.com/products/36547/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q8200-4M-Cache-2_33-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB http://ark.intel.com/products/36547/Intel-Core2-Quad-Process...
- speeder 11y ago
  Warning: ARK is not much safe either, I saw on reddit some days ago some guy complaining that he bought a I3 after checking it on ARK, and after the purchase, Intel disabled the feature on all i3 and changed ARK too, silently. (It was related to some feature Intel also tried to implement in the 2 previous generations but seemly is buggy) EDIT: I hit the post limit... Yes, I do think it was TSX
  - lallysingh 11y ago
    Was it TSX?
    - qb45 11y ago
      Intel Transactional Synchronization Extension. When it works, you get support for database-like transactions on RAM (only small transactions, it isn't black magic). When it fails, you get all kinds of random crashes at random times. Introduced in Haswell, turned out to be buggy and Intel famously disabled it with ucode update. Since then, they quietly disabled it also for several Broadwells and Skylakes which didn't fare much better than Haswell. edit: it seems I misread parent's post as "what is TSX"
      - aangjie 11y ago
        Me too did.. but I was about to google TSX before the last two posts. So thanks for the explanation.
  - duskwuff 11y ago
    Intel disabled TSX on all Haswell and some early Broadwell parts (not just i3 processors!) because it was irreparably broken: http://techreport.com/news/26911/errata-prompts-intel-to-disable-tsx-in-haswell-early-broadwell-cpus http://techreport.com/news/26911/errata-prompts-intel-to-dis... Really can't blame them for that one. Disabling a feature that causes frequent CPU lockups when used is a good thing.
    - qb45 11y ago
      Not limited to Haswell and early Broadwell, some Skylake CPUs lost TSX as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/44k218/intel_disables_tsx_transactional_memory_again_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/44k218/intel_disa... Also some Skylake i5s and i7s had TSX issues, but I don't know whether Intel managed to fix them or is going to disable TSX. So far ARK lists them as supported.
      - lallysingh 11y ago
        Yeah I'm not holding my breath waiting for TSX to be stable enough to worth investigating.
    - lultimouomo 11y ago
      I wouldn't expect anything different, but saying that disabling a feature that was advertised and paid for it's a good thing is plain weird. A good thing would be a recall or reimbursement.

lallysingh 11y ago

You have to look them up on ark: http://ark.intel.com/products/36547/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q8200-4M-Cache-2_33-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB http://ark.intel.com/products/36547/Intel-Core2-Quad-Process...

speeder 11y ago
Warning: ARK is not much safe either, I saw on reddit some days ago some guy complaining that he bought a I3 after checking it on ARK, and after the purchase, Intel disabled the feature on all i3 and changed ARK too, silently. (It was related to some feature Intel also tried to implement in the 2 previous generations but seemly is buggy) EDIT: I hit the post limit... Yes, I do think it was TSX
- lallysingh 11y ago
  Was it TSX?
  - qb45 11y ago
    Intel Transactional Synchronization Extension. When it works, you get support for database-like transactions on RAM (only small transactions, it isn't black magic). When it fails, you get all kinds of random crashes at random times. Introduced in Haswell, turned out to be buggy and Intel famously disabled it with ucode update. Since then, they quietly disabled it also for several Broadwells and Skylakes which didn't fare much better than Haswell. edit: it seems I misread parent's post as "what is TSX"
    - aangjie 11y ago
      Me too did.. but I was about to google TSX before the last two posts. So thanks for the explanation.
- duskwuff 11y ago
  Intel disabled TSX on all Haswell and some early Broadwell parts (not just i3 processors!) because it was irreparably broken: http://techreport.com/news/26911/errata-prompts-intel-to-disable-tsx-in-haswell-early-broadwell-cpus http://techreport.com/news/26911/errata-prompts-intel-to-dis... Really can't blame them for that one. Disabling a feature that causes frequent CPU lockups when used is a good thing.
  - qb45 11y ago
    Not limited to Haswell and early Broadwell, some Skylake CPUs lost TSX as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/44k218/intel_disables_tsx_transactional_memory_again_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/44k218/intel_disa... Also some Skylake i5s and i7s had TSX issues, but I don't know whether Intel managed to fix them or is going to disable TSX. So far ARK lists them as supported.
    - lallysingh 11y ago
      Yeah I'm not holding my breath waiting for TSX to be stable enough to worth investigating.
  - lultimouomo 11y ago
    I wouldn't expect anything different, but saying that disabling a feature that was advertised and paid for it's a good thing is plain weird. A good thing would be a recall or reimbursement.