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first tri-cores in the wild

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I wonder if there will be any way to try and unlock the 4th core.
Click to expand...

Why ? It was disabled becuase its defective.
Click to expand...

Just like the extra pipes in a Radeon 9500 or a GeForce 6800nu were defective maybe. There were also Athlon XP's that you could enable the disabled L2 cache on, etc.
 
Very good point. If the fourth core is disabled for marketing reasons and not because of yield problems this could be a great product for the extreme budget experimenter. While still maintaining the price point for a real quad.

I'd be up for getting one of these for around $130 if I had a nearly certain chance of getting a ~2.5 ghz quad out of it. That way I could do my own K10 to core quad comparisons. For $200, the desire just isn't there.
 
I don't think you'll be able to re-enable the fourth core, just as you can't enable extra features on today's low end video cards - they'll probably be laser cut, just like they do now with extra shaders.
 
Originally posted by: v8envy
Since these bad boys still have the TLB erratum, 'try cores' is also somewhat appropriate.
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Still has the bug? Dam, why is AMD even bother?
 
I am reading good reports about these Phenoms clock for clock with Intel's Quad cores, but not believing them. The Intel's offer much more value in terms of overhead room. It's funny watching AMD's stock since hearing about rumored collaboration with Big Blue. I just hope it all stays interesting...
 
does the TLB bug really matter in everyday use? Doesn't it only come up during virtualization? They really blew it out of spec.
 
Originally posted by: Markfw900
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I wonder if there will be any way to try and unlock the 4th core.
Click to expand...

Why ? It was disabled becuase its defective.
Click to expand...


That is an interesting question.....What is with the 4th core? Is is defective? Can it just not run at rated speed as the others? or is it just fine but removed to fulfill a market demand for a cheaper cpu. At least with multiple cores you have the ability to salvage a chip even if you have a core with issues.....

I would suspect the process from the beginning is the same on all of them. Unless someone has die pics showing ONLY 3 CORES....Therefore it should cost them no more to make the 3 cores as it does the 4 cores...Ofcourse we all know it cost them no more to make the slowest speed cpu of that process or the fastest. In my mind that must be determined by market factors or defective issues for making a 3 cores over a 4 core. One could say defective by using the argument they could just lower the speed of the four cores to fill a specific target market price if that is was what they intended.

Probably a combo of both factors.
 
Originally posted by: error8
Originally posted by: v8envy
Since these bad boys still have the TLB erratum, 'try cores' is also somewhat appropriate.
Click to expand...

Still has the bug? Dam, why is AMD even bother?
Click to expand...

Who cares? Unless your running Vmware 24/7 the bug won't affect you.
 
Originally posted by: Duvie
Originally posted by: Markfw900
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I wonder if there will be any way to try and unlock the 4th core.
Click to expand...

Why ? It was disabled becuase its defective.
Click to expand...


That is an interesting question.....What is with the 4th core? Is is defective? Can it just not run at rated speed as the others? or is it just fine but removed to fulfill a market demand for a cheaper cpu. At least with multiple cores you have the ability to salvage a chip even if you have a core with issues.....

I would suspect the process from the beginning is the same on all of them. Unless someone has die pics showing ONLY 3 CORES....Therefore it should cost them no more to make the 3 cores as it does the 4 cores...Ofcourse we all know it cost them no more to make the slowest speed cpu of that process or the fastest. In my mind that must be determined by market factors or defective issues for making a 3 cores over a 4 core. One could say defective by using the argument they could just lower the speed of the four cores to fill a specific target market price if that is was what they intended.

Probably a combo of both factors.
Click to expand...

Everything I have would indicate they are simply quads with one core defective, they are definitely not their own design, the only question here is if any have all 4 cores working and are marketed as 3 cores for marketing reasons verse yield reasons, but that makes little sense to me, might as well just sell them as low end quads instead. As for "unlocking" the extra core there is no way that will happen, even if it isn't defective I am sure they are smart enough to put fuse it off so that nobody can "unlock" extra features, the days of getting disabled parts of a chip back are over, companies are smart enough to permanently disable them these days instead of just disabling them in BIOS.
 
Originally posted by: Duvie
Originally posted by: Markfw900
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I wonder if there will be any way to try and unlock the 4th core.
Click to expand...

Why ? It was disabled becuase its defective.
Click to expand...


That is an interesting question.....What is with the 4th core? Is is defective? Can it just not run at rated speed as the others? or is it just fine but removed to fulfill a market demand for a cheaper cpu. At least with multiple cores you have the ability to salvage a chip even if you have a core with issues.....

I would suspect the process from the beginning is the same on all of them. Unless someone has die pics showing ONLY 3 CORES....Therefore it should cost them no more to make the 3 cores as it does the 4 cores...Ofcourse we all know it cost them no more to make the slowest speed cpu of that process or the fastest. In my mind that must be determined by market factors or defective issues for making a 3 cores over a 4 core. One could say defective by using the argument they could just lower the speed of the four cores to fill a specific target market price if that is was what they intended.

Probably a combo of both factors.
Click to expand...

The layout of the cores isn't really friendly for making a 3-core version. They're in the 4 quadrants of a square, so if you made a 3-core version, you'd have a core-sized blob of whitespace. Nehalem's arrangement, on the other hand, might lend itself to a tri-core since you could remove a core from one of the ends (assuming that doesn't cause you trouble with I/O pads). That said, even with Nehalem's arrangement I doubt it's economical.
 
As AMD is 'so far behind' Intel, I havent read up on any tech savvy articles concerning them. Awhile back I read that there would be dual, tri, and quad cores. It didnt occur to me that the tri core would be a quad w/ 1 core disabled... I suppose disableing a core/cache is sorta like making the hdd controller only give access to (lets say) 320GB of 500GB actual usable platter space. Give the market what it demands. R&D is whats expensive, production is relativly cheap (do you think it costs $100 to make a 500GB hdd in materials and manufacturing costs alone? Which is why intel not releasing 45nm chips (specifically the quadcore version) due to "waiting for AMD to make a move" is such BS. They need to get paid for their R&D! Tri-core just never sat right w/ me though... computing has always been about even numbers... basically.
 
Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
does the TLB bug really matter in everyday use? Doesn't it only come up during virtualization? They really blew it out of spec.
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with virtualization. Virtualization is just ONE situation where it happens VERY often, instead of very rarely..

For a normal user it will happen rarely.
But one unneeded blue screen a year is still too much, not when there are better, cheaper, faster, more power efficient, higher overclockable, cooler running alternatives. (did I miss anything in which intel was superior right now?)
 
I used Intel only for years until the Ahtlon came out. At that point, I hated the P4, so I used AMD only for years. Now I'm back to Intel.... Go figure 🙂
 
The more options, the merrier, IMHO. An extra core won't hurt in a dual core situation. 😀
 
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