HellasVagabond
New Member
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2007
- Messages
- 3,376 (0.54/day)
- Location
- Athens , GREECE
System Name | SECONDARY RIG / PRIMARY RIG / THIRD RIG |
---|---|
Processor | i920@3.6GHz / i920@4GHz / AMD Phenom II 955 |
Motherboard | Gigabyte EX58-UD4P / Gigabyte EX58-UD7 / ASRock 890GX3 |
Cooling | CoolIT Domino ALC / Thermalright Silver Arrow / Thermalright VenomousX |
Memory | 12GB DDR3 @ 1800MHZ / 6GB DDR3 @ 2250MHZ / 4GB DDR3 @ 1600MHZ |
Video Card(s) | XFX ATI RADEON 5970 / GAINWARD NVIDIA GTX 580 / 2xGEFORCE GTX295 |
Storage | 1550GB / 6TB SAS - SSD / 160GB SSD |
Display(s) | NEC 26WUXi2 / NEC 3090WQXi / SONY 55A2000 (1080P 55inch) |
Case | COOLER MASTER HAF 932 / COOLER MASTER ATCS 840 / ANTEC DARKFLEET DF85 |
Audio Device(s) | Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music / SoundBlaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro / Realtek Onboard |
Power Supply | CWT 1200W / Enermax Revolution 85+ 1250W / Ikonik Vulcan 1200W |
Software | Windows 7 x64 / Windows 7 x64 / Windows 7 x64 |
THERE HAVE BEEN back channel stories floating around for weeks about tri-core AMD CPUs, but nothing solid. The rumours have been picking up more steam, and now they are finally solid: AMD is doing a three-core chip.
The first thing that comes to mind is bad yields, but I am told this is not the case for the three-core product lines. There may be some salvage done on bad quads, but that is not the overriding reason to do this.
The main reason is marketing, it seems AMD is learning from ATI. Most non-top SKU GPUs are simply top SKU die with features turned off, and if you look at the success of people unlocking that, you will see that it is far more than salvage.
AMD is probably doing this for two reasons; the lesser being salvage, the more important one being that Intel can't do it. Intel would have a far harder time making a tri-core part until Nehalem next September - it is easy to fuse off a core, far harder to MCM disparate cores.
This will allow AMD to come out with a lot of mid-range SKUs, having a complete 1-4 core range servicing every market. It also allows for complete market differentiation with a year or so's window into a place where Intel is not.
On the technical side, this is pretty trivial to do: three to core four is just a fuse to blow. What it gets you is a whole lot of choices. Remember the smooth run of SKUs, that was the beginning. If your clocks are thermally constrained, having three instead of four cores gives you a bin or two of speed. Given how few games use a second core fully, this might be a real win.
As far as money goes, assuming there is no salvage, three cores could still be a profit win, but it could be a loss. The selling price of a three core is greater than the price of a dual, and if that difference is greater than the manufacturing cost difference between a dual and a quad, AMD wins. If it is not, or people who would buy a quad buy a tri, then they lose.
Overall, it ends up with greater flexibility for AMD. How the firm uses it will determine whether or not this is a win, loss or draw. In any case, look for it on the consumer side, not the server first, and possibly moving over if it works out.
Article
The first thing that comes to mind is bad yields, but I am told this is not the case for the three-core product lines. There may be some salvage done on bad quads, but that is not the overriding reason to do this.
The main reason is marketing, it seems AMD is learning from ATI. Most non-top SKU GPUs are simply top SKU die with features turned off, and if you look at the success of people unlocking that, you will see that it is far more than salvage.
AMD is probably doing this for two reasons; the lesser being salvage, the more important one being that Intel can't do it. Intel would have a far harder time making a tri-core part until Nehalem next September - it is easy to fuse off a core, far harder to MCM disparate cores.
This will allow AMD to come out with a lot of mid-range SKUs, having a complete 1-4 core range servicing every market. It also allows for complete market differentiation with a year or so's window into a place where Intel is not.
On the technical side, this is pretty trivial to do: three to core four is just a fuse to blow. What it gets you is a whole lot of choices. Remember the smooth run of SKUs, that was the beginning. If your clocks are thermally constrained, having three instead of four cores gives you a bin or two of speed. Given how few games use a second core fully, this might be a real win.
As far as money goes, assuming there is no salvage, three cores could still be a profit win, but it could be a loss. The selling price of a three core is greater than the price of a dual, and if that difference is greater than the manufacturing cost difference between a dual and a quad, AMD wins. If it is not, or people who would buy a quad buy a tri, then they lose.
Overall, it ends up with greater flexibility for AMD. How the firm uses it will determine whether or not this is a win, loss or draw. In any case, look for it on the consumer side, not the server first, and possibly moving over if it works out.
Article