Intel hit with chipset design flaw in Sandy Bridge rollout
 

" If you just purchased a system powered by Intel's Core i5 or i7 chipset, get ready for a return or repair. Intel has a chipset issue that affects the launch of Sandy Bridge."

"Specifically, Intel found a design problem in a support chip, the Intel 6 Series, which is code-named Cougar Point. In a nutshell, chipsets with Serial-ATA ports could degrade over time and hurt the performance of hard drives and DVD drives.

This potentially faulty chipset was used in Intel?s latest Core processors, or Sandy Bridge."

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/intel-...-rollout/44257

I can't tell if this means all Sandy Bridge, or just certain ones. I have a machine I built with a SB intel, and its currently rendering animation frames. I'll be damned if I'm sending it back.

For some reasons I always preferred AMD :)

Because they're always slower than Intel, and a step behind them, and generally get their ass kicked by Intel on a regular basis?

same specs for half the price = WIN :thumbsup

That's not even remotely true. For one, thing, they're not half the price. You can't compare specs in clock speed.

AMD benchmarks are always slower than Intel on the same generation CPUs, clock for clock. Slower = more time.

Time = Money.

AMD are way behind atm except for at the very bottom of the market.

Damn, this is pretty big. Doubt anyone will know about it though and a year or so from now their computers will just die and they'll be online or to friends complaining "[THIS BRAND] of computer sucks, I bought this thing last year and it's already fried"

I exaggerated half price a bit, but for mid-level CPUs AMDs have always been significantly cheaper than Intel... not everyone encodes videos or does 3d graphics for a living, so they don't exactly need the newest i7 for $1299.... when $199 AMD processor will work just well..

first of all it's not 1299, it's 999, and you can't compare that monster to any amd, you should be comparing $299 i7 950 to those amd's....

I agree. If you're just doing day to day basic stuff, it doesn't matter that much....but for someone like me trying to squeeze every extra second of rendering time I can, I have to go with the faster benchmarked CPU's -- and that's Intel.