Facepalm: Reviewers who accidentally break embargoes often find themselves in trouble, but what's worse is when a retailer sends out a product ahead of its official release date. It's a situation that Newegg finds itself in, having delivered some of Intel's Alder Lake CPUs to customers a week before their November 4 launch date. The solution? Ask those who received them not to share information related to the processors.

A Reddit thread (via VideoCardz) reveals that several customers of the popular e-commerce site who pre-ordered their Alder Lake chips had a pleasant surprise when they arrived earlier than the official launch date.

Intel will be far from happy to learn Newegg posted the processors ahead of time, which one assumes was just a mistake---something other companies have been guilty of in the past. As this breaks the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between the two firms, Newegg is contacting the customers in question to ask, or beg, them not to share any information about the CPUs. One person was told that this would "avoid any issues."

Getting my 12900K tomorrow, what can't I post? Just got a phone call from Newegg and the lady said I can't post anything until 11/4?

--- Hyphnx

Just got the same call, and mine just came in about an hour ago. The packaging on the 12900k looks awesome! The 12700k looks a bit mediocre.

--- NoveltyNetwork

Just got a voicemail from a lady as well. Told me not to post anything until 11/4 "to avoid any issues" 🤷‍♂️

--- discovet11

The problem Newegg has, of course, is that none of the people who received the chips early have signed NDAs, so they are free to do whatever they want without repercussions. Something the seller does have in its favor is that there are currently no Alder Lake motherboards out there---bar those in the hands of reviewers---so it's not as if any customers could post their own performance figures; assuming Newegg doesn't accidentally send out some AL mobos early as well. Moreover, the packaging/physical CPUs have already been revealed, so it's not like there's a whole lot of new information to share.

In other Alder Lake/Newegg news, the site has now sold out of DDR5 memory kits, which reach all the way up to $400.