Originally posted by: stevejst
Hey, would you buy a chip that has been turned into 256 L2 cache because the other 256 was defective? I mean the 512 L2 Barton is already <$100 and you don't need new motherboard for it. What kind of grass are these AMD guys smoking if that is what they plan to do?
Hi there, you must be new to the AMD/Intel game. Intel has been selling CPUs with half-defective caches for years--they're called Celerons. The reason they do it? So they don't have to throw away those otherwise-functioning CPUs. There's no reason to tie up fabs making duplicate processors. If a half-cache FX performs the same as a Tbred, it'd be better to have one fab cranking out both Bartons and FXs than to have two fabs, one for Bartons, one for Tbreds.
Edit: This is assuming the FX is indeed a half-cache Barton.