AMD three core processors
By cristi12
@cristi12 (378)
Romania
January 6, 2008 8:22am CST
I was amazed to find out AMD would start shipping this year three-core based CPU-s. That sounded very strange to me, mainly since most applications are developed for 1 core, dual core, and quad core cpus, in that order of importance. Nobody out there is making apps for 3 core CPU's. So what is AMD thinking? I was amazed to learn what they were actually doing! The quad-core manufacturing process isn't perfect. Far from it, there are a lot of rejects, and situations where three cores work but one is a dud. So what AMD did was to take the 3 core working cpu-s, disabling the dead one, and marketing them as "three core cpu's". Basically, people are buying rejects that didn't make it as quads!
2 people like this
4 responses
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
7 Jan 08
Cristi, this is perfectly normal in the computer industry. Everyone does it. If a video card has bad pipelines, they disable the bad ones and sell it as a cheaper model. That's why video cards come in varieties like 6800GT, 6800XT, or 6800LE. As I mentioned Intel does this too. It comes right down to money. There is not a massive markup on computers like there is with clothing and furniture. Clothing with a defect can be thrown in the trash without hurting the bottom line. Throwing out a quad core with 3 good cores is the same as throwing $200 in the trash. Instead, they minimize their losses by selling it at a discounted price with the bad core disabled. If you think people won't buy rejects, just look at all the computers with Intel Celeron processors. All Celerons are rejects and yet people still buy them because they are made by Intel.
By the way, apps aren't made for 2 cores, 4 cores, etc. They are made as single threaded applications or multithreaded applications. If it utilizes a dual core processor, it will utilized a triple core, quad core, or octo core processor. It would be very wasteful to design apps that could only function on a specific number of cores.
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@cristi12 (378)
• Romania
7 Jan 08
Wow, that explains some stuff that happened some time ago. :) I had a fx 5200, still have it somewhere, LOL. And I used to overclock it. It went on for months on end, no problem. A friend of mine had a 5500 or something similar, and when we tried to OC it only a couple of mhz, it fried. Probably it was a reject from a higher model, lol!
And thanks for the app. info! ;)
@cristi12 (378)
• Romania
7 Jan 08
Lol man! You sure are informed when it comes to PC hardware. :) I work in a IT store and you put me to shame. :P I didn't know you could do that with video cards, that's really cool actually, About video card brands, I sell a few, the cheapest being Palit. No complaints so far. :) But you never know...
@cristi12 (378)
• Romania
8 Jan 08
Hehe, 1-2%? Where I work prices are usually 20 to 30% higher compared to wholeseller's list for peripherals/acessories/consumables, 10-15% for parts/bigger things, stuff like that, and up to 5% for systems, laptops, etc.
Actually, my boss asked me why I don't get anything for my self for the store, me having 10-20% discounts, and all that. I told him to buzz off, I know places 30% cheaper than his, so his discounts don't warm me up much. :))
@gdisites (161)
• United States
6 Jan 08
AMD has been doing that since their inception. Maybe not with number of cores but with speed anyway.
They would make an x.5 cpu and if it wouldn't' pass or had errors, they would test it at x.0. If it passed at the lower speed, they would label it and give it a serial number. Off to the stores.
2 people like this
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
7 Jan 08
Intel does the same thing. That's exactly what the Core 2 Solo is. It's a Core 2 Duo with a bad core disabled.
The reason you won't see this with the Core 2 Quad is that it is not four distinct cores on one chip like the AMD Phenom. It's two dual core processors combined.
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@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
10 Jan 08
The 500GHz processors developed by IBM are not for computers, nor are they about the be launched. They were working on a processor for a cell phone when they hit the 500GHz mark. They got it that fast by keeping it frozen in liquid helium. Since even the most hardcore OCers don't have liquid helium rigs, I doubt such a thing will be possible in a computer for a very very long time.
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