AMD K6 ES on eBay

[oyvindjo]

I just listed an AMD K6 ES for auction on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/389592923477

[popo]

I cannot believe I missed this one.....

[Marcin]

Went quite cheap as for eBay auction.

[vmr_]

Any suggestions/tips on how to run/test such a black top cpu? V core and max V I/o.

Assume fsb is 66mhz, so starting with smaller multiplier supported by motherboard will do. Asus p5a-b socket 7 'workhorse' should do.

[Neon]

I have a K6 ES with package number 25840. It is a mobile part with 2.1 V core, 3.5x 66 = 233 MHz.

In general V core for K6 family 570-58C (250 nm) is 2.2-2.4 V for desktop and 1.6-2.2 V for mobile.
The earlier family 561-562 (350 nm) parts need more, 2.9-3.3 V.
Good luck!

[cooperalp]

are we 100% positive that these are ES CPUs?
I thought someone powder coated bunch of K6 chips back in the day and sold them as ES K6, I remember reading about this somewhere on this forum.

[bccwchan]

[Neon]

Factors in favor of ES

package number 25840 seems to be only used for K6 ES. It is not used for production K6, or at least I have not seen any.
pencil writing on the back is consistent with similar writing on other known K6 ES
there are some K6 ES with black heatspreader

Factors against ES

no printing to indicate ES
it looks as if it would be easy to fake by anodizing or powder coating a heatspreader

[xsecret]

I dug through my email archive and found some additional information about the (fake) black-top K6s, for which I’m largely responsible.

In November 2004, I found a guy named Mark from Taipei on eBay TW. He had a friend from Southern Taiwan owning a LOT of genuine AMD ES from K6s to Duron. I spend NT$ 15K (around USD $500, which was a LOT of money back then) to buy 33 ES CPUs from him, Mark acted as an intermediary (common when dealing with China/TW). That was not all the AMD ES he had, but that was enough for me. He also had a lot of these fake Pentium with black tops.

After that deal, I asked him to keep watching for new ES and tell me. Later on, he showed the usual retail Pentium with "ES" on back but nothing more. In March 2005, he found a ceramic Rise ES, which I promptly bought for a lot of money (NT$2000). Then we started to discuss about "ES without ES marking" and I told him about black top K6. After a week or two, he said he can provide them. I was more than happy and offered NT$3000 for one. Long story short : his friend polished one of the ES he had (a 2.2V ES) and black anodized the top (that was NOT powder coating but anodization). He also tried to sell me a "gold-top" K6 using the same technique. I think that was more a naive proposal than a real scam attempt (I asked for something, he built it for me. Technically, that WAS a black top K6 ES...). I really can't remember if I declined immediately, or finally bought one for cheap, but I saw several of them sold on eBay TW shortly after. No more contact with him after April 2005.

[xiaoyanxu]

This is a black K6 that I once took over.
It comes from a retired senior AMD employee.
He entrusted me to help him make a CPU frame.

[xsecret]

This one looks powder coated right?