Mon Dec 31, 2001 2:45 am
Because it won't look like all the others you see on akiba?
Seriously, though, it will be very hard to tell, on any CPU good enough to get to you. You'll just have to dig up pictures from different angles and compare. It should be *very* easy to see if it's been monkeyed with, imho, as the bridges are entirely different now. There's a pit dug between the contacts for a reason. The bridge itself is UNDER the package surface. All you see from the CPU top is a plastic package and a lot of little dots. Anybody that CUTS a brdige, it'll be obvious. There will be a slice in the plastic at the very minimum. Anyone CLOSING a bridge will almost certainly not match up to the core material.
Simpler and quicker is to eyeball the side of the core, and then to look at the letters on the core. Remarks tend to have very blurry letters, often uneven, as they are cut instead of laser etched. Remarkers have to replace the top of the cpu with a tiny bit of metal as well, making their job harder (CPUs with crap glued on the core don't overclock real well) and your job easier (most of these cap replacements are pretty easy to spot).
Now that I've handed out that little bit, I'd like to mention that I've heard *zero* reports of any remarked XPs. I haven't even heard of any XPs getting sold as MPs.
I wouldn't get too worried.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Forge on 2001-12-31 01:46 ]</font>
