CPU/Mobo Only 20 Days old and already 34 bugs found in Intel's Core Duo

dipdude

Skilled
Source : Geek.com

"My God, they're full of flaws"

Today is January 23, 2006, making it less than 20 days since the Core Duo was officially released, and T-minus ?? days until Core Solo is officially released. Yet, if we turn to Intel's Errata documentation for the Core Duo and Core Solo lines, we already find 34 known problems. That averages out to an error-and-a-half found every day since the chips were released.

The errata are shown below, with some of the more obnoxious ones highlighed (click the image for a readable version, though you may want to save it instead of allowing your browser to resize it automatically, thus making it hard to read again):



As you can see, only one errata item is even planned to be fixed. It's worth noting that leaving known errors in processors is nothing new, as many of Pentium 4's 65 known errata (download the PDF) have no plans for correction either.

Still, the Core Duo and Core Solo processors are just out of the gates, and this high number of immediate errata should leave one a little chilled, I'd say. Releasing a brand new processor with 34 known errors seems almost criminal to me, especially with some of the more obnoxious ones highlighted above.

If you're thinking about buying a Core Duo-based machine, you might want to stop by Intel's documentation department and pick up the latest errata updates, which are promised to be released on the following dates: February 15, March 15, April 19, May 17, June 14, July 19, August 16, September 13, October 18, November 15, December 13.

Visit Intel's Core Duo homepage, check out the Core Duo 65 nm specification page, and don't forget to checkout the updated errata page.

To pre-extinguish some of the flames I can smell already, I'm working on a similar list of errata for AMD64. Restraint, ChipGeeks!
 
they do plan to fix 1 bug something related to fan halting while processor is still working..
also these bugs dont seem to be anything new as the pentium 4 has 65 errors and the amd 64 series had 113 bugs (latest core revision has only 13)
so it basically seems a headache for software developers and will not affect end users.
 
Ouch... that smarts Core Duo users real bad I guess.

I have no plans of buying a new laptop for another year at least... maybe I'll buy a uber laptop in 2007 to play UT2007. :)
 
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