Just as Intel’s latest and greatest chips, the so-called “Sandy Bridge” lineup (Intel names its chip architecture after geographic locations close to their development facilities) has only just starting finding its way into new machines, and today Intel has released an advisory that a problem with the chip’s SATA controller could degrade transfer speeds over time, affecting read / write speeds.
To be clear – it’s not actually a problem with the Sandy Bridge processor, the problem in fact stems from a support chip (codenamed Cougar Point) that is used as part of the Core architecture.
Although it’s embarrassing for Intel to uncover such an error, at least it was discovered relatively early into the chip’s lifecycle, meaning the damages (both practical and financial) should be mitigated somewhat. In their press release, Intel estimated the cost of the recall would be $300million – although they’re reducing that number substantially (from $700million) by writing off a chunk of the cost against last quarters profits – which sounds like cheating to us.
Customers who have purchased machines containing the wonky support chip (that’d be Sandy Bridge-based Core i5 or i7) are currently being notified, and Intel has ceased distribution of any affected silicon. A fix has already been found, so hopefully a quick turnaround can be expected.
While there will doubtless be many a red face in Intel’s development facility this evening, we have to applaud their pro-active approach to the problem – essentially stamping it out before it becomes a problem. We’re just thankful they didn’t “pull an Apple” and ignore the problem until they fix it, at which point it becomes a feature.
