Inside Intel: From Silicon to the World

Intel’s Validation Labs

One of the things Intel is known quite well for are their Validation Labs.  Many will argue that the price premium you pay when purchasing an Intel CPU over the competition is all of the time and effort that goes into validation; whether or not its worth it is up to the buyer to decide, but there is good reason that Intel’s corporate penetration has been so great historically.

There are two major parts of the validation labs, Intel’s SV and CV Labs which stand for System and Compatibility Validation respectively.  The SV labs focus on validating a CPU (or CPUs) for use with platforms.  So when Intel says that a CPU is validated for use in dual processor systems they mean that they have performed their extensive testing on the CPU in that configuration. 

The CV labs are more end-user oriented as they focus on application compatibility with Intel products.