Just to clear something up, the markings on the back of the CPU refer to the packaging site - not the manufacturing site of the actual silicon chip itself. Intel has no fabs in either Malaysia or Costa Rica, they are packaging facilities. The silicon die/chips are manufactured elsewhere in the world and are shipped to either of these two packaging sites. In addition, Intel manufacturing has a goal of running a "virtual fab" - meaning that, among other things, products from one fab are statistically indistinguishable from those manufactured at another fab. So even if, for example using fake names, Malaysian packages used chips only from fab #1 and packages marked Costa Rica use chips from fab #2, there should be no difference statistically between these two.
I saw these discussions back in the Celeron days, and I commented back then, but this time around it seems a little different. I have started seeing some online retailers charging more for parts from a specific packaging site and this disturbs me. There is no difference between parts from these two packaging sites. Just as you can have 6 head/tails coin tosses come out heads, there may seem to be a correlation that heads is more likely than tails, but there isn't. In reality the odds are still approximately 50/50.
The silicon is what defines the speed of a CPU, not the package. And the silicon comes from multiple fabs scattered all over the place that are all supposed to be identical anyway.
If you are considering spending more, or buying from a shadier vendor, in order to get a specific package, I would urge you to reconsider. There is no difference and you are only wasting money, and or risking getting ripped off.
Patrick Mahoney
Microprocessor Design Engineer
Intel Corp.
but inorder for that you will most likely need a newer intel based mobo as sis chipsets aren't the best.
