Engineering samples are the beta versions of integrated circuits that are meant to be used for compatibility qualification or as demonstrators.^[1] They are usually loaned to OEM manufacturers prior to the chip's commercial release to allow product development or display. Engineering samples are usually handed out under a non-disclosure agreement or another type of confidentiality agreement.

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Some engineering samples, such as Pentium 4 processors were rare and favoured^{[citation needed]} for having unlocked base-clock multipliers. More recently^[when?], Core 2 engineering samples have become more common and popular.^{[citation needed]} Asian sellers were selling the Core 2 processors at major profit.^{[citation needed]} Some engineering samples have been put through strenuous tests.^{[citation needed]}

Engineering sample processors are also offered on a technical loan to some full-time employees at Intel, and are usually desktop extreme edition processors.^{[citation needed]}