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AMD Tri-Core Drama
Posted on Sep 18, 07 11:39 AM PDT
Ever since AMD has announced its tri-core, most of the drama has been around the fact that it is most likely a defective quad-core, with one disabled unit. It is obvious that it would save AMD money to resell chips that would otherwise go to the trash bin and this might be a hint that AMD's yields (the percentage of functional chips manufactured) aren't that good compared to Intel, but quite frankly, selling partially functional parts it’s not new: Intel did this successfully with the 486 SX (a 486 CPU with the math co-processor disabled). Memory makers also build redundancy in their chips. The end goal is to improve the yields.
Now, should anyone expect AMD to come forward and beg for mercy for selling chips with a disabled core? I don’t think so. Branding it as "The AMD Three-Core Processor. It’s a Quad-Core, only broken" processor would be plain stupid from AMD’s part – nobody wants to buy something with “broken" in it. If they did that, they might as well shoot themselves in the head.
The word “broken” here is confusing at best – the processor is fully functional, simply slower. What matters is the value that consumers get per dollar spent and if a Tri-Core creates a new market segment that is decently priced, it's not bad. There’s no need for additional drama.
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Legacy Comments
By KorkiBuchek , 12/04/08 9:26 AM (CommentID #627288)
I am looking at a Gateway GT5670 for $499 w/
AMD Phenom Triple-Core 8400
• 320GB hard drive
• 3GB of DDR2 memory and
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE vid card.
Not Great system but good buy at $499 ????
Thanks, Korki Buchek
By Jake , 01/11/07 6:55 PM (CommentID #350927)
All this talk about AMS's tricore is wasted effort because I am going to buy a Penryn Quad Core in mid 2008...when is the AMD tricore suppose to come out...2009? too late...my money will have gone to Intel by then.
By MKK , 27/09/07 8:18 AM (CommentID #314378)
Well, as far as I hear, tri-core clock speed will actually be faster than a quad core because of higher cache per core ratio.
By Hubert , 21/09/07 2:53 PM (CommentID #308580)
Slippy, that's a good example. The extra capacity is also some kind of built-in redundancy that leaves room for a few surface defects that are guaranteed to happen, isn't it?
I'm fine with this, as long as I got the GB that I paid for.
By Slippy Lane , 21/09/07 1:09 PM (CommentID #308488)
I hate to say it, but you buy something "broken" every time you buy a hard drive that isn't max capacity for the package. If you've got a package that can deliver 80Gig for example, the 40Gig version is the same package but with a defective disk filling the spare space. This has been the way for as long as IBM have made hard drives. I know, I used to build them!
By Hubert , 18/09/07 6:09 PM (CommentID #305703)
Great, so I take it that you used to work at Intel back then. Correct?
By EPhud , 18/09/07 5:29 PM (CommentID #305670)
You "know" this? How do you know this? Were you there? I was.
Pure urban legend.
By Hubert , 18/09/07 3:12 PM (CommentID #305568)
I'm not sure that I agree with that, but I'm interested to know more, of course.
It was a while ado, but I remember that the 486SX was a way to sell 486 CPUs that failed the floating point unit (FPU) test. It is possible that a later design did not feature the FPU at all to save on the die size.
By EPhud , 18/09/07 12:54 PM (CommentID #305507)
This claim that Intel sold defective 486DXs as 486SXs is simply not true. It never happened, other than very early samples to get board developers started. It's just one of the urban legends.
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