Apparently AMD is starting to sell 8 core R5 CPUs.......... in Korea

[Mr_Troll]

Quote

AMD Ryzen 5 1600/X CPUs With 8 Working Cores Spotted In The Wild

 

A number of users have reported purchasing Ryzen 5 1600X & 1600 CPUs that had 8 cores active right out of the box. The reports surfaced over the past couple of days on the Korean cooln.kr forums and special thanks go out to Bong for the tip!

 

 

Several recent Ryzen 5 1600X CPUs owners built new systems and upon booting to windows for the first time were shocked to discover that they had 8 cores and 16 threads. The CPUs had the same 3.6GHz base clock and 4.0GHz Turbo of the 1600X, but had 8 cores and 16 threads instead of 6 and 12 respectively. Making them effectively price-cut 1800X CPUs.Others reported the same with the cheaper Ryzen 5 1600 CPUs. All of the unlocked chips were manufactured on the 36th week of 2017 in Malaysia. You can decode your CPU’s batch code with this handy guide, made by redditor rigred , to find out if it was part of the same batch.

 

Quote

 

SKU: YD1700BBM88AE
BATCH: UA 1706PGT
SERIAL: 9R6xxxxxxxxxx

UA [2digits-YEAR][2digits-WEEK] [3letters-Assembly and Diffusion]

UA   1706       PGT
UA [YY][WW]  [1][2][3]

YY -> Year
WW -> Week

1 -> ATMP Location ([P]enang, Malaysia or [S]uzhou, China) 
2 -> Last letters of ATMP location.
3 -> Wafer Production ([S]aratoga or [T]exas) 

 

 

The users obviously couldn’t believe their luck, so they proceeded to benchmark the chips and they found that they performed exactly like 1800Xs.

 

 

 

 

Why exactly this is happening is unclear. Each CPU is tested right before it’s packaged to be shipped, so it’s implausible for the manufacturing facility not to have known that those 1600s and 1600Xs they were shipping weren’t 1800Xs. It’s possible that this was a decision made simply as the result of higher demand on Ryzen 5 1600X and 1600 CPUs leading AMD to use some of its less purchased 8-core dies as Ryzen 5 1600Xs and 1600s to meet the demand. One thing is for certain though, this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase silicon lottery.

 

Considering how good coffe lake is looking it isn't surprising at all

 

source: http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-5-1600x-cpus-8-working-cores-spotted-wild/

 

[WereCat]

I wonder if the yields are so big that AMD can't bother to wait for non-fully functioning 8-cores or cut every functioning 8-core to sell it as 6-core so they are just selling it as an 8-core in 6-core boxes... (not likely, probably just a packing error? )

 

EDIT:

hmmm, it cannot be packing error otherwise the CPU would not report in PC as R5 1600(X)

[Bouzoo]

I can bet few people over at AMD won't be happy about this.

Just yesterday installed a 1600 into a friends new build, it's only 6 core. It never happens to you. 

[m0k]

AMD be like "Surprise!! it's a new feature...enjoy!"

[Bananasplit_00]

hmmm makes me think of AM3 a bit, maybe you can flash some batches or all chips even to unlock more cores like you could with that. you can do it on Vega in a few cases so they havent moved on from their way of disableing cores yet it seems, but thats RTG and not the CPU divission so they could differ

[porina]

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'd speculate AMD might be pushing more cores downwards to combat Coffee Lake, but due to some manufacturing slip-up they're getting out early.

 

The question then becomes, if 1600 series gets 8 cores, what are they going to do with R7? 

[Trik'Stari]

Meanwhile: Intel is overcharging for things AMD is giving away free, and refusing to support their own ecosystem because moar money.

[Flavio hc 16]

13 minutes ago, porina said:

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'd speculate AMD might be pushing more cores downwards to combat Coffee Lake, but due to some manufacturing slip-up they're getting out early.

 

The question then becomes, if 1600 series gets 8 cores, what are they going to do with R7? 

we have more and more ints that the 7nm zen 2/+, whatever they want to call it, will have a 6 core per ccx package, so we will see ryzen 7 with 12 cores ( and imho r5 will be 8/16 and r3 4/8), threadripper with 24 cores and Epic with 48 cores 

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, porina said:

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'd speculate AMD might be pushing more cores downwards to combat Coffee Lake, but due to some manufacturing slip-up they're getting out early.

 

The question then becomes, if 1600 series gets 8 cores, what are they going to do with R7? 

Even moar cores!! No seriously though. IF they moved the R5 16xx series to 8C then I'd either expect the R5 to be non SMT 8 cores and the R7 SMT 8 cores OR R7 be 10 C 20T SMT.

 

 

[WereCat]

Just now, huilun02 said:

Takes silicon lottery to a whole new level. 

Next news.

Koreans that bought R7 are getting 6-cores!

[Sauron]

Probably a mixup, the crate was marked as R5 when it actually contained R7s.

1 hour ago, porina said:

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'd speculate AMD might be pushing more cores downwards to combat Coffee Lake, but due to some manufacturing slip-up they're getting out early.

 

The question then becomes, if 1600 series gets 8 cores, what are they going to do with R7? 

 

19 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Even moar cores!! No seriously though. IF they moved the R5 16xx series to 8C then I'd either expect the R5 to be non SMT 8 cores and the R7 SMT 8 cores OR R7 be 10 C 20T SMT.

I think they'll wait for at least the zen die shrink for that, but given how the CCX architecture works I would expect the ryzen 7 line to go up to 12 cores if they do increase its core count.

[Taf the Ghost]

2 hours ago, WereCat said:

I wonder if the yields are so big that AMD can't bother to wait for non-fully functioning 8-cores or cut every functioning 8-core to sell it as 6-core so they are just selling it as an 8-core in 6-core boxes... (not likely, probably just a packing error? )

 

EDIT:

hmmm, it cannot be packing error otherwise the CPU would not report in PC as R5 1600(X)

My guess is that some process on a batch of R5s didn't disable the extra 2 cores. Most of the 6c will have 8 working cores.  Most efficient dies are binned for Epyc. Highest performing for Threadripper. After that, with their really high yields and the fact the R5 1600/X seem to be a good 40% or more of the Ryzen sales, it's pretty safe to assume that most R5s are core disabled at the factory. (The dies are supposed to have around a 85% 8c yield rate.)

15 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Even moar cores!! No seriously though. IF they moved the R5 16xx series to 8C then I'd either expect the R5 to be non SMT 8 cores and the R7 SMT 8 cores OR R7 be 10 C 20T SMT.

 

 

We have one chunk of information, a marking for "Starship" as the Zen2 roadmap marker for the Epyc follow up, that points to either 6c CCX or a die having 3 CCX. I'm in the 3 CCX per die camp, just given the way Epyc & Threadripper work and the fact that the CCX attaches to the L3 Cache & all controllers from the outside. (The CCX is functionally separate from the rest of the design, so they can go to 3, 4 or 6 CCX with only spacing issues.) 

 

I expect Zen2 R5s to be up to 9c, if that holds.

[sof006]

Guessing AMD forgot to disable the cores or just branded them incorrectly during manufacturing?

[porina]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Even moar cores!! No seriously though. IF they moved the R5 16xx series to 8C then I'd either expect the R5 to be non SMT 8 cores and the R7 SMT 8 cores OR R7 be 10 C 20T SMT.

The OP screenshots show 16t though, not 8c8t. For now, we only get one die of up to 8 cores per mainstream CPU so going above 8 cores isn't possible without a more radical change.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

Must be some magical crates if it can also cause the microcode to report itself as an R5

it's the same logic, they do that sort of thing automatically, if a crate says R5 the microcode will say R5.

[Okjoek]

Hell you look like a nice guy, take two more cores on the house!

[PlayStation 2]

It's the Phenom/Athlon situation all over again... ?

[ZackBarletto]

3 hours ago, WereCat said:

Next news.

Koreans that bought R7 are getting 6-cores!

Oh Crap that would suck!!! ahahah

[handymanshandle]

5 hours ago, porina said:

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'd speculate AMD might be pushing more cores downwards to combat Coffee Lake, but due to some manufacturing slip-up they're getting out early.

 

The question then becomes, if 1600 series gets 8 cores, what are they going to do with R7? 

maybe its a cutdown 10 core

[handymanshandle]

3 hours ago, sof006 said:

Guessing AMD forgot to disable the cores or just branded them incorrectly during manufacturing?

That'd be my guess of what happened.

[Space Reptile]

as much as id like this to be true , i like to remind you how easy it is to fake 

[Misanthrope]

3 hours ago, WereCat said:

Next news.

Koreans that bought R7 are getting 6-cores!

Nah I have a better hot take: Koreans buy 8700k that only has 4 core 8 threads!

[handymanshandle]

4 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Even moar cores!! No seriously though. IF they moved the R5 16xx series to 8C then I'd either expect the R5 to be non SMT 8 cores and the R7 SMT 8 cores OR R7 be 10 C 20T SMT.

 

 

I could see the 12nm R7s having 10c/20t or 12c/24t

[chilicheeseburger]

I'm not knowledgeable when it comes to CPU production but from a business standpoint this seems more like a manufacturing error to me.

Why would AMD 'give away free cores' without announcing it first to boost sales? Also it would make more sense to rename the 6-cores slightly to avoid confusion.

[MeDownYou]

8 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

hmmm makes me think of AM3 a bit, maybe you can flash some batches or all chips even to unlock more cores like you could with that. you can do it on Vega in a few cases so they havent moved on from their way of disableing cores yet it seems, but thats RTG and not the CPU divission so they could differ

Maybe it's like the semprons would be awesome to get some extra cores even if they don't clock as high