If you’re building systems, I would assume you’re the kind of person that knows how they work.
The system tells you what CPU it has on boot.
The BIOS tells you what CPU you have.
MemTest86 would have told you what CPU you had when you tested it after assembling your system.
Windows tells you what you have in Settings > About and Task Manager.
Apps like CPU-Z have been downloaded a billion times and tell you what CPU you have.
Geekbench would have told you what CPU you have and how it performs.
The article mentions someone paying a bunch for a specific CPU back in April, but then never bothered actually checking it until recently… What the CPU had written on it is meaningless. I couldn’t even tell you what my current CPU looked like before I installed it. It could have said Pentium 2 or 486SX or Core i-13. What mattered was that it physically fit, the system booted, and my software said “yup, this is what you paid for.”
The issue is if it never occurred to you that you might have been scammed you might not ever think to look.
I built my first computer last year, with all NiB internals, my main concerns when assembling it was does it work. If it underperformed (due to a bootleg part) I might not have been able to appreciate due to a lack of reference point.
This kind of practice is perfect for targeting the person using PC part picker to build a computer without an indepth knowledge or a relative buying it as a gift for someone else.
Considering how expensive individual components can be, it’s always a good idea to ensure you got the exact model you paid for while there’s still a chance to return it or report fraud to your credit card company. Even with NiB items mistakes can be made and the wrong item could be shipped out.
Yeah, I think this is the real danger. “I don’t know why this i9 isn’t performing like expected” is a problem where the cause may be much harder to trace if people can reliably change what the processor reports itself as. And even then, the question only even gets asked by those who actually benchmark it.
Throw in the buyer never mentions if the product came from amazon or a third party as written in the article. Amazon should be verifying the quality of the 3rd party sellers, it is shit not to, but come on. To not know? It says Sold By: in the main section if the sale. If it says sold by Elite 100 and not amazon… it is sold by Elite 100.
If you’re building systems, I would assume you’re the kind of person that knows how they work.
The system tells you what CPU it has on boot.
The BIOS tells you what CPU you have.
MemTest86 would have told you what CPU you had when you tested it after assembling your system.
Windows tells you what you have in Settings > About and Task Manager.
Apps like CPU-Z have been downloaded a billion times and tell you what CPU you have.
Geekbench would have told you what CPU you have and how it performs.
The article mentions someone paying a bunch for a specific CPU back in April, but then never bothered actually checking it until recently… What the CPU had written on it is meaningless. I couldn’t even tell you what my current CPU looked like before I installed it. It could have said Pentium 2 or 486SX or Core i-13. What mattered was that it physically fit, the system booted, and my software said “yup, this is what you paid for.”
The issue is if it never occurred to you that you might have been scammed you might not ever think to look.
I built my first computer last year, with all NiB internals, my main concerns when assembling it was does it work. If it underperformed (due to a bootleg part) I might not have been able to appreciate due to a lack of reference point.
This kind of practice is perfect for targeting the person using PC part picker to build a computer without an indepth knowledge or a relative buying it as a gift for someone else.
Considering how expensive individual components can be, it’s always a good idea to ensure you got the exact model you paid for while there’s still a chance to return it or report fraud to your credit card company. Even with NiB items mistakes can be made and the wrong item could be shipped out.
“Trust, but verify”
Would it not be possible to fake most of those by spoofing the model the CPU reports, like what happens with GPUs?
With GPUs you can do things like dump its BIOS, alter the identification string, and then re-flash the card.
I’ve modified a lot of GPU BIOSes to tweak GPU and memory clock timings or enable Mac support.
CPUs aren’t that easy to modify. I am not aware of any consumer tools that can simply re-write CPU’s internal code.
Regardless, the first time you run a benchmark and it shows that your CPU is really X and not Y, you will know something is wrong.
Yeah, I think this is the real danger. “I don’t know why this i9 isn’t performing like expected” is a problem where the cause may be much harder to trace if people can reliably change what the processor reports itself as. And even then, the question only even gets asked by those who actually benchmark it.
And on windows just open task manager…
But it seems the person buying doesn’t really understand all that, or doesn’t seem to have the use of it?
Throw in the buyer never mentions if the product came from amazon or a third party as written in the article. Amazon should be verifying the quality of the 3rd party sellers, it is shit not to, but come on. To not know? It says Sold By: in the main section if the sale. If it says sold by Elite 100 and not amazon… it is sold by Elite 100.
Example: https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i9-13900K-Desktop-Processor-P-cores/dp/B0BCF54SR1/ref=mp_s_a_1_16?crid=3H73JQQ7TJBCD&keywords=cpu&qid=1693852349&sprefix=cpu%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-16
They may not have bought everything at the same time and were unable to check until their build was complete.