If I were AMD downgrading the Phenom II...

[bupkus]

If I were AMD downgrading the Phenom II I would try to be smart about it.

But first, some ground work. Word is that the reason folks can unlock cores is the yields have improved causing shortages in the X2 and X3 arenas. To me that suggests that of these fewer failed processors there are probably many more with only 1 bad core and very few with 2.

So, of course the chips with 2 bad cores will definitely bin as an X2. Those with 1 bad core will either go into the X3 or X2 bins, and those all good cores will go only into the X3 bins to fill X3 shortages and X4 gluts.

I would never, unless absolutely necessary downgrade a good X4 into an X2 bin. I would prefer to sell those at a higher price as an X3 and why not reward those folks paying a little more with the full monty?

Now, I don't know why AMD would sell any good X4s as X2s except the yields being so good that every X3 are X4s and every failed CPU are binned as X2s. Perhaps, instead, AMD spiked their X2s like the Deadwood character-- "Soap with a $5 bill; one in every case."

What I'm driving at is this-- if I want to gamble but won't cry if I fail, I'd get an X2. If I absolutely need at least an X3 but would like to have an X4...

Why then X2s unlocking to X4s? Either soap or they have a minor failure that seldom makes its presence known.

Me? Since I would be happy with X2, X3 or X4 I might just roll the dice. Is there an X3 BE that defaults at 3.2GHz? Newegg doesn't have one.

 

[Maximilian]

Supply and demand bro.

 

[alyarb]

There is only one 45nm triple-core with an unlocked multiplier and that is the Phenom II X3 720. It runs at 2.80 GHz, and they don't make it anymore.

Right now there are three totally different CPUs that AMD makes for the consumer space:

The first is Regor, which is a 45nm dual core with no L3. All Athlon II X2 CPUs come from this die. All Semprons come from this die (with only one core and half the L2 active).

The second is Propus. Propus is not a cut-down Deneb. There is no L3 and there is only a single HT link, but there are 4 cores. All Athlon II X3 and X4 come from this die.

The third is Deneb. 6MB L3 and dual HT. All Phenom II X2, X3, X4 come from this die because Phenom II implies 6MB L3 cache.


yields are good from top to bottom and the chances of an unlock are overrated but acceptable. There are not enough bad denebs to satisfy demand for Phenom II X2. The 6MB L3 cache is by far the largest feature of the CPU, so if all that SRAM passes mustard @ full speed you have a very real chance at having 4 good cores. Since AMD doesn't sell cache-reduced Phenom II's anymore (they do, but they're EOL), so you can see how yields are improving and there's not much they can do other than artificially boost supply of X2 with X4. On the other hand, the C3 stepping is so new you can expect most of them are binned as X4's. People are reporting unlocked Phenom II 555's, but it's still a little early to say "most" of them will unlock.

Tri-core Propus CPUs are in much the same situation, and there are lots of "Rana" Athlons unlocking into X4's. There isn't an ocean of cache to validate, but the dice are much smaller than Deneb. If you assume AMD's manufacturing process incurs an equal number of anomalies per area, then for this average number of defects-per-wafer you should still get a greater number of decent propus dice per wafer compared to Deneb.

It also follows that Semprons should see high success rates unlocking into Athlon II X2 dual-cores because the only reasonable hypothesis is that you have smaller dice than any X4 with a steadily improving defect rate that is uniform among all GF 45nm SOI. The important factor for unlocking enthusiasts is this "steady" rate of improvement.

 

[OS]

i wrote about this in another thread but i don't think AMD is on either of the extremes of purposely locking 100% good cores nor are all locked cores necessarily outright faulty.

Many of the locked cores may be cores that are good, but do not run at full temp/voltage/timing spec relative to the other neighboring cores.
Remember ALL of the cores sold as a given CPU must meet the speed rating including some engineering tolerance.
The locked out cores maybe slightly out of spec but otherwise good and in a nominal system may work fine.

 

[veri745]

The first is Regor, which is a 45nm dual core with no L3. All Athlon II X2 CPUs come from this die. All Semprons come from this die (with only one core and half the L2 active).

The second is Propus. Propus is not a cut-down Deneb. There is no L3 and there is only a single HT link, but there are 4 cores. All Athlon II X3 and X4 come from this die.

I would challenge these two statements. I've heard of both Athlon II X2s and Athlon II X3s unlocking full 6MB caches, so it would seem that not "ALL" Athlon II CPUs come from the smaller dies.

*edit* source

 

[Ben90]

I would challenge these two statements. I've heard of both Athlon II X2s and Athlon II X3s unlocking full 6MB caches, so it would seem that not "ALL" Athlon II CPUs come from the smaller dies.


*edit* source

I believe at first AMD used two different cores for their Athlon IIs. I cannot comment if they still do that anymore (unlikely), but even Anand had something about it in his article.

 

[alyarb]

I would challenge these two statements. I've heard of both Athlon II X2s and Athlon II X3s unlocking full 6MB caches, so it would seem that not "ALL" Athlon II CPUs come from the smaller dies.

*edit* source

Your source says that in the early run of production some cache-reduced Denebs were binned as Athlon II. It isn't worth mentioning now because it's just not the case anymore. The only L3-unlocked Athlon IIs i've seen came out at the very beginning of their introduction. By all rights, this is not a Propus CPU, it is a Deneb binned as Athlon II.

There is physically no L3 cache to be found anywhere on Propus, which is what you would be buying today.

 

[nyker96]

btw, your title is too long, try to keep it shorter please.

 

[Fayd]

If I were AMD downgrading the Phenom II I would try to be smart about it.

But first, some ground work. Word is that the reason folks can unlock cores is the yields have improved causing shortages in the X2 and X3 arenas. To me that suggests that of these fewer failed processors there are probably many more with only 1 bad core and very few with 2.

So, of course the chips with 2 bad cores will definitely bin as an X2. Those with 1 bad core will either go into the X3 or X2 bins, and those all good cores will go only into the X3 bins to fill X3 shortages and X4 gluts.

I would never, unless absolutely necessary downgrade a good X4 into an X2 bin. I would prefer to sell those at a higher price as an X3 and why not reward those folks paying a little more with the full monty?

Now, I don't know why AMD would sell any good X4s as X2s except the yields being so good that every X3 are X4s and every failed CPU are binned as X2s. Perhaps, instead, AMD spiked their X2s like the Deadwood character-- "Soap with a $5 bill; one in every case."

What I'm driving at is this-- if I want to gamble but won't cry if I fail, I'd get an X2. If I absolutely need at least an X3 but would like to have an X4...

Why then X2s unlocking to X4s? Either soap or they have a minor failure that seldom makes its presence known.

Me? Since I would be happy with X2, X3 or X4 I might just roll the dice. Is there an X3 BE that defaults at 3.2GHz? Newegg doesn't have one.

most of the X2's and X3's dont really have failed cores.

it's a matter of bracketing the market. all the chips cost the same to make, but different segments of the demand curve are willing to pay different prices. splitting the market in this way allows AMD to sell more chips above their marginal cost.

 

[veri745]

Your source says that in the early run of production some cache-reduced Denebs were binned as Athlon II. It isn't worth mentioning now because it's just not the case anymore. The only L3-unlocked Athlon IIs i've seen came out at the very beginning of their introduction. By all rights, this is not a Propus CPU, it is a Deneb binned as Athlon II.

There is physically no L3 cache to be found anywhere on Propus, which is what you would be buying today.

Well, I know you can still find Athlon Denebs. I don't know how you can be so sure that none of the Athlon II's being sold now (maybe through OEMs) aren't.

 

[bupkus]

most of the X2's and X3's dont really have failed cores.

Curiously, Newegg only carries 3 Phenom II X3 processors and 2 of them are OEM. In addition, none are BEs and none clock above 2.8GHz. Has AMD pinched off its Phenom II X3 offerings?

I'm guessing, as I suggested before, that AMD has so few bad cores that AMD doesn't need both niches to dump their baddies. I couldn't help but wonder if under the present yields AMD wasn't in fact losing money on their X3s since they could sell all their Phenom II X4s matched with their own IGPs as an appealing package against Intel's C2Qs.

I wrote a third paragraph here but my 2nd core went nuts with a bad plugin (I use a gadget for CPU usage) and I had to kill it and I'm just too lazy to rewrite what essentially was BS speculation anyway. This is my first winter in MN (I'm from AZ) and I don't think it's ever going to end. Coffee!

 

[formulav8]

There are still peoples this day buying AthlonII x4 and unlocking the L3 cache. So no, not all Athlon II x4's are running the actual propus die. Newegg, which gets new stock quite often have ones posting that they were able to get the L3 cache unlocked.


Jason

 

[alyarb]

jesus you're right. i see a review dated TODAY some guy got a Deneb Athlon II X4 unlocked, and there is another review from last sunday an X3 Athlon unlocked to a Deneb. looks like you're really in for a lotto now.

 

[bupkus]

There are still peoples this day buying AthlonII x4 and unlocking the L3 cache. So no, not all Athlon II x4's are running the actual propus die. Newegg, which gets new stock quite often have ones posting that they were able to get the L3 cache unlocked.

But is it true that Gigabyte and others are releasing BIOS which don't support ACC?

 

[soccerballtux]

But is it true that Gigabyte and others are releasing BIOS which don't support ACC?

Gigabyte said (last I heard) that they would keep rolling in the ACC code to new BIOS revisions-- even though AMD doesn't want them too.

Makes business sense. I've got an unlocked AM3 720BE. When I move to an AM3 motherboard when Bulldozer comes out, but don't want to buy a new processor just yet, then I'll pick up a Gigabyte board cause I know it'll still unlock my chip.

I get such a hard-on for computer hardware.

 

[bupkus]

Thanks, sb, I was concerned with a dead-end.

 

[alyarb]

i'm pretty sure Biostar is the only brand that gave us ACC and then took it away.

stick with asrock, gigabyte and ASUS for ACC.

 

[soccerballtux]

jesus you're right. i see a review dated TODAY some guy got a Deneb Athlon II X4 unlocked, and there is another review from last sunday an X3 Athlon unlocked to a Deneb. looks like you're really in for a lotto now.

If they can mine the cores for what they want, there's no point in throwing away good Lithography mask. Etching new ones is expensive business.

 

[alyarb]

they've already fronted the cost for Propus. i'm surprised to still see loose denebs running around for $70. i just ordered that same X3 with the gigabyte 785G, i'll let you know what I get (so far only 6 out of 38 newegg reviews say they have L3).

 

[soccerballtux]

they've already fronted the cost for Propus. i'm surprised to still see loose denebs running around for $70. i just ordered that same X3 with the gigabyte 785G, i'll let you know what I get (so far only 6 out of 38 newegg reviews say they have L3).

No, there are multiple litho masks. They don't need to buy 100 of them if they can get by with 50 and continue using the C2 chips for lower speed binned chips for the other 50 machines. Or however many there are.