Newegg accidentally ships Alder Lake CPUs to some customers early, asks them to keep quiet

midian182

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Facepalm: Reviewers who accidentally break embargoes often find themselves in trouble, but what’s worse is when a retailer sends out a product ahead of its official release date. It’s a situation that Newegg finds itself in, having delivered some of Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs to customers a week before their November 4 launch date. The solution? Ask those who received them not to share information related to the processors.

A Reddit thread (via VideoCardz) reveals that several customers of the popular e-commerce site who pre-ordered their Alder Lake chips had a pleasant surprise when they arrived earlier than the official launch date.

Intel will be far from happy to learn Newegg posted the processors ahead of time, which one assumes was just a mistake—something other companies have been guilty of in the past. As this breaks the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between the two firms, Newegg is contacting the customers in question to ask, or beg, them not to share any information about the CPUs. One person was told that this would “avoid any issues.”

Getting my 12900K tomorrow, what can’t I post? Just got a phone call from Newegg and the lady said I can’t post anything until 11/4?

— Hyphnx

Just got the same call, and mine just came in about an hour ago. The packaging on the 12900k looks awesome! The 12700k looks a bit mediocre.

— NoveltyNetwork

Just got a voicemail from a lady as well. Told me not to post anything until 11/4 “to avoid any issues” 🤷‍♂️

— discovet11

The problem Newegg has, of course, is that none of the people who received the chips early have signed NDAs, so they are free to do whatever they want without repercussions. Something the seller does have in its favor is that there are currently no Alder Lake motherboards out there—bar those in the hands of reviewers—so it’s not as if any customers could post their own performance figures; assuming Newegg doesn’t accidentally send out some AL mobos early as well. Moreover, the packaging/physical CPUs have already been revealed, so it’s not like there’s a whole lot of new information to share.

In other Alder Lake/Newegg news, the site has now sold out of DDR5 memory kits, which reach all the way up to $400.

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So technically could reviewers buy these copies from customer's and then release actual data before the stupid same day NDA lift? - Suppose it depends on the wording of it.
 
So technically could reviewers buy these copies from customer's and then release actual data before the stupid same day NDA lift? - Suppose it depends on the wording of it.

They could. Not that intel wouldn't blacklist them anyway but hey, if they're good reviewers and big enough to get samples from big companies like intel they should be blacklisted already anyway or have been at one point.

Something intel probably couldn't argue with would be for the potential reviewers not to purchase them but to kindly ask these customers to run a few benchmarks and present those numbers as "uncontrolled, actual world results" then contrast them to the super hand picked and best-case-scenario numbers intel publishes.

Seems weird but to me that actually means that independent reviews almost for sure would land squarely in the middle: intel naturally optimizes and flatout cheats far too much but actual consumers in the real world often have at least a couple issues so they're usually 5-10% behind independent reviewers. Besides I would like reviewers to offer both "no variables, controlled environment" reviews and more "actual, real world numbers" because we know 90% of users out there won't ever get to be on the benchmark results charts but while this might not be issues it's important to remember that just like independent reviewers would never match intel results, home users just running a benchmark on an older install, without optimized hardware like the fastest ram or tightly controlled room temperatures, will also never match independent reviewer numbers either.
 
Something intel probably couldn't argue with would be for the potential reviewers not to purchase them but to kindly ask these customers to run a few benchmarks and present those numbers as "uncontrolled, actual world results" then contrast them to the super hand picked and best-case-scenario numbers intel publishes.

Seems weird but to me that actually means that independent reviews almost for sure would land squarely in the middle: intel naturally optimizes and flatout cheats far too much but actual consumers in the real world often have at least a couple issues so they're usually 5-10% behind independent reviewers. Besides I would like reviewers to offer both "no variables, controlled environment" reviews and more "actual, real world numbers" because we know 90% of users out there won't ever get to be on the benchmark results charts but while this might not be issues it's important to remember that just like independent reviewers would never match intel results, home users just running a benchmark on an older install, without optimized hardware like the fastest ram or tightly controlled room temperatures, will also never match independent reviewer numbers either.

This would be pretty cool for them to allow if boards had already shipped as well.
 
Since these customers are not on any embargos, if I was one of them, I'd open a new YouTube channel and release some benchmarks! lol Nothing that Intel or NewEgg can legally do.. shoot, I might even call NewEgg back and tell them that I have benchmark videos ready to go live and would be interested in knowing how much these videos are worth to them? haha
 
Since these customers are not on any embargos, if I was one of them, I'd open a new YouTube channel and release some benchmarks! lol Nothing that Intel or NewEgg can legally do.. shoot, I might even call NewEgg back and tell them that I have benchmark videos ready to go live and would be interested in knowing how much these videos are worth to them? haha
That's assuming you also had a suitable motherboard to run it on, which it sounds like those didn't ship. Without that, you have an unboxing video, but maybe that would be worth at least a graphics card to newegg.
 
That's assuming you also had a suitable motherboard to run it on, which it sounds like those didn't ship. Without that, you have an unboxing video, but maybe that would be worth at least a graphics card to newegg.
Well, all that's in a CPU box is a CPU. (and tentatively a crap cooler). How long could someone possibly milk a box opening of that? More importantly, who would be dumb enough to sit through it? :confused:

I'll admittedly sit through a "box opening" of a guitar, but the damned thing better be tuned up and plugged in, before the halfway point.
 
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You know this is done on purpose don't you? FREE advertising. ;)
I don't know about that I had similar thing happen to me with launch of 10900k last year and instead of letting us have then early (about a week) they literally had fed ex / ups reroute all the packages to their warehouse in California (I'm east coast) so not only did it delay me getting my money back they had no provision in place to replace our orders.

It was a huge s*it show on Intel reddit page eventually we made enough fuss they set us all up with individual phone calls and links to replace our orders with next day shipping but I think the backlash there is likely why they just let these continue in on through to customers instead of what they did to us.

Not like most of them will even have the ability to run the chips so they likley figured it was the lesser of to PR issues.
 
Well, all that's in a CPU box is a CPU. (and tentatively a crap cooler). How long could someone possibly milk a box opening of that? More importantly, who would be dumb enough to sit through it? :confused:

I'll admittedly sit through a "box opening" of a guitar, but the damned thing better be tuned up and plugged in, before the halfway point.
You'd be shocked how many morons would not only watch the damned thing but watch it multiple times.
 
You'd be shocked how many morons would not only watch the damned thing but watch it multiple times.
It's probably obsessive compulsive disorder. We all have some of it in our makeup, it's just not at a stage where a professional would presume to diagnose it as such.

It can likely be traced to anxiety as well. TV reruns work the same way. They're a way of "looking into the future", and knowing what's going to happen before it does. Now if only the jokes were as funny the 2nd or 3rd time around. That said, the average one hour process drama is fairly complex. Re-watching them can be excused/justified, as looking for nuance. There's just no sane explanation for multiple passes on an unboxing video.

"OH look, they gave me a case sticker", (I get so exited when I get something I can throw away immediately, and not have to save for a possible return).
 
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