Pssst, wanna ¿3.6-GHz Pentium 4' chip for $78?

A Chinese firm is openly remarking and selling Celeron processors as P4 chips

November 18, 2005 (IDG News Service)

Shenzhen Chuanghui Electronics Co. isn't shy about offering remarked Intel Corp. processors for sale: The company is openly selling them through a major Chinese Web site and brags that its remarked Pentium 4 chips look just like the real thing.
Remarking involves relabeling a processor to look like a chip offering better performance and greater value. The problem of remarked processors isn't a new one for the chip industry, but it has become less prevalent in recent years -- particularly in more developed markets where efforts to crack down on the sale of remarked chips have been successful.
That's little comfort for Intel, which has been plagued recently by the appearance of remarked Pentium M processors in China. The chips, which were distributed as engineering samples to computer makers, were never meant to be sold to end users, according to the company.
But the problem in China is not confined to remarked samples of the Pentium M. In Chuanghui's case, the company has set up virtual storefronts on at least two online marketplaces to sell remarked Celeron processors to overseas buyers. The Chuanghui storefronts describe the remarked chips as Celeron processors that have been altered to pass as 3.6-GHz Pentium 4 processors and assure prospective customers that they look just like the real thing.
Intel is not amused. "That kind of behavior is not something that we tolerate or endorse," said Barbara Grimes, a spokeswoman for the chip maker in Hong Kong.
The remarked processors Chuanghui sells are actually 1.7-GHz Celeron chips and are currently available for $78 each, including a motherboard, in quantities of 100 or more, said James Zhan, a company representative named online as a contact for potential buyers. By comparison, Intel sells the real thing for $401 in 1,000-unit quantities without a motherboard, according to the company's most recent price list.
Passing off a Celeron as a Pentium 4 is not difficult to do, as the two chips use the same basic design, according to a semiconductor executive in Taiwan familiar with the technical details of the two. The main difference between them is that most of the on-chip memory cache has been disabled in the Celerons, the executive said.
Chuanghui handles the remarking of the Celeron chips itself, Zhan said. In addition, the company provides buyers with software that masks the identify of the remarked Celerons from a computer's BIOS and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system, fooling the software into believing the chip is actually a 3.6-GHz Pentium 4 processor, he said.
Chuanghui began offering remarked chips one year ago and now sells around 1,000 of them every month, primarily to buyers in Asia and Africa, Zhan said. Based in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, Chuanghui was established in 1997 and manufactures a range of electronics products, including computer motherboards that are sold under the KingJet brand. The company employs a staff of 500, according to its Web site, which claims the company is an Intel partner.
Zhan defended Chuanghui's sale of remarked chips, saying the company makes no attempt to hide what was done to the chips or to pass them off as more valuable processors. "I tell them the truth," he said.
But Zhan acknowledged that Chuanghui has no control over how its customers represent the remarked chips when they resell them.