Why are there so many ES chips?

[wepwawet]

How many chips of a lot are marked ES?

When I see the ES auctions (and sometimes veeery low prices), chip pictures here and discussion posts my guess is that it must be really a high percentage. Maybe less than 10 but ...

[xsecret]

For Xeon, it's 10%.

On other Intel chips, each stepping need 500 ES. each new model between 1000 and 5000. There is tons of PPro133, Xeon ES and AMD K8 ES. But some rare prototypes that wasn't built for validation only exist in 10/15 samples.

[wepwawet]

That's quite a lot!

and older chips?
4040 to 80286?

Identifier for non-Intels?

[sammyc]

Just dreaming about a 4040 ES now..

I'd be able to retire if I had one of them LOL