On 12/30/2012 05:33 AM, Damaeus wrote:
In news:alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64, Jim Beard
posted on Fri, 28 Dec 2012 10:54:19 -0500 the following:

There is also the consideration that four and six core cpus often were
manufactured as eight-core, and cores that failed QA tests were
disabled. If some of the cores failed, it can suggest a problem with
the entire piece of silicon. That usually shows up as an infant
death, though, so at worst you might need to go through the
return-merchadise-authorization routine to get a replacement.

Great Scott!!!! Why do they DO these things to us???? "Let's just sell
this defective chip and hope we don't get it back."

I could just throw up and eat it.

No need to do that.

If you want a chip that passed all QA tests, pay full price for
the 8-core cpu.

If you decide saving money is important to you, you can buy a cpu
that has 4 or 6 cores that passed QA tests, and one or more that
did not. The ones that did not have been disabled, and do
nothing more than take up room on the chip.

There is a slightly higher risk of infant death for a cpu known
to have one or more defects (there could be another, that QA did
not catch), but there is a risk of infant death for all cpus.

Why scrap a cpu with less than 8 cores that passed but that
likely will provide good service for its entire design
service-life? Why not sell it at a discount, and let both
manufacturer and buyer benefit (the manufacturer gets something
though not full price, and the buyer gets a good chip that will
be replaced if it goes bad -- cheap).

Cheers!

jim b.

--
UNIX is not user unfriendly; it merely
expects users to be computer-friendly.