What is Binning?

The word binning is used to categorize CPU’s, GPU’s and RAM’s according to their performance standards. Computer components are manufactured to achieve a certain level of performance once they are completed, however, sometimes the finished product might not be able to live up to the pre-set standards and so instead of discarding or recycling the whole finished product, they might disable some of its capabilities and sell it as a product for the lower levels.

For example, every processor that Intel manufactures has to live up to a preset criteria, if the processor fails to do so it is discarded and recycled. Discarding and recycling a computer component is both expensive and wasteful, so instead Intel would bin the aforementioned processor. Say the processor was an i7 and it failed to fulfill the criteria, so Intel would block some of its capabilities and market and sell it as an i5 thus saving money and resources, so chances are that the processor you are using might be a high end processor, whose certain capabilities might have been blocked off.

Alternatively, vendors might also disable some of the capabilities of high performance components and sell them as low performance in order to fulfill demand. The following example might help you to achieve a better understanding behind this idea. For example, a high end CPU isn’t very popular among the consumers at the moment and thus demand is low, while the demand for a lower end CPU might be higher and so the supplier would disable some of the capabilities of the high end CPU and sell it as a low end in order to fulfill demand. CPU’s, GPU’s and RAM’s are all the computer hardwares that can become victims to binning for one reason or the other.

However, some CPU’s that offer greater clocker speeds in comparison to other CPU’s of the model, in the case of Intel, are marketed as Intel’s K line processors, these processors have a ‘K’ at the end of their model number. These CPU’s are unlocked and so can be overclocked. The reason for this difference might be due to some complications during CPU manufacturing. So in short two CPU’s of the same model can and may deliver different performances. This phenomenon is, thus, known as a Silicon lottery.