Engineering samples are the beta versions of integrated circuits that are meant to be used for compatibility qualification or as demonstrators.[1] They are usually loaned to OEM manufacturers prior to the chips commercial release to allow product development or display. Usually, they are picked out of a very large batch and perform correctly. However, rarely they may have faults that were fixed in the production model.
Engineering samples are usually handed out under a non-disclosure agreement or an other type of confidentiality agreement.
Some engineering samples, such as Pentium 4 processors were rare and favoured for having unlocked multipliers. More recently, Core 2 engineering samples have become more common and popular. Asian sellers were selling the Core 2 processors at major profit. Some engineering samples have been put through strenuous tests.
Engineering sample processors are also offered on a technical loan to some full time employees at Intel, and are usually desktop extreme edition processors.