AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise - Gizmodo Comments

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

josephsherry — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:00:58 EDT

I am one person who did not know about the Phenom X3 chip. Thats right I was away for awhile on my trip to the other side of the moon, LOL.
This article saved me some aggrivation though today Gateway offered a desktop with this chip on a Today's Special (Discounted price for one day only). After reading this article I cancelled this order. Because even if I am getting a 22" hidef Monitor and a TV tuner plus a whole gaggle of other things for only 999.00 what good is it if it only comes equiped with a defective budget chip.
So from this novice, kudos Gizmdo!!!!!!!!

josephsherry

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

Hello_Newman — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:00:25 EDT

Yeah I am with the "no duh!" crowd. Ever since the 386sx this has been done, and it's smart to sell them at a lower clock or CPU count than just melt them down in a scene from Terminator. I have a dual core E6850 3 GHZ Intel and it handles anything I can throw at it, the triples they are selling at a discount are probably sweet too. The only thing I wait for is building DVD video files, but that's a lot of work to throw at any system so it's ok.
When covering this, I wish they would at least mention it's been done for years, which it has, so the freakout brigade doesn't leap into action.

Hello_Newman

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

jamesuschrist — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:01:53 EDT

Jesus Harry Christ on a crutch, people! The writer even alludes: "heard about a few months ago", with a link to the original article, yet you still lament "OLD NEWS!"

If this place bores you to tears go read /. and participate in the orgy of tagging things with "!news"

I, for one, knew that there were going to be tri-core processors at some indeterminate point but not exactly when. They happen to come out today and Giz reports... so you get hot and bothered and waste thirty seven seconds writing a comment to inform everyone how much you knew two months ago.

Guess what! I'm particularly interested in these processors because 1.) They're going to be cheap, 2.) $/speed ratio is going to be fantastic, 3.) More cores = more future-proof; hardware getting faster with age due to a paradigm change in the way software is written isn't something you see often, and 4.) I purchase new client workstations for my company and AMD is always under consideration due to 1 & 2, and in this case 3.

jamesuschrist

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

D-Bo — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:45:15 EDT

Nothing like reading a bleeding edge blog to read something printed in a magazine months ago...

D-Bo

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

Charles — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:16:54 EDT

Also, the TLB bug has already been fixed. They aren't dumping "bug-plagued" quad cores, they are dumping quad cores with only three working cores.

Charles

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

wetboxersguy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:26:13 EDT

Intel's been doing this too...Why do you think there's a Core Solo? It's a Core Duo with one defective and disabled core...

Please stop FUD-mongering...you're starting to sound like an Intel hack.

wetboxersguy

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

Usama — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:23:41 EDT

Not such a big deal that these are quad-core chips with 1 core disabled maybe because that 1 core didn't meet or pass their quality standard. That's how Intel sold th ex000 chips too, except these dual core chips had 1/2 their cache disabled from the full 4MB to 2MB. I had an e4300 and it was one of the best processors I've ever owned.

As for the TLB bug, if you're buying it because its a bargain (and it is if you consider you can get 3 AMD cores as opposed to 2 Intel cores, and you use applications that utilize the 3 cores) then it is a good deal. The TLB bug, more often than not, shows up in some specific circumstances that aren't applicable to most consumers.

Usama

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

gamecrazychris — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:02:26 EDT

AMD has more of a problem then getting part-defective cpu's to sell, in many people's eyes the whole cpu was just a failure.

gamecrazychris

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

morcheeba — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:50:33 EDT

willyolio - shh!! that's a secret!! pretty soon people will find out that all RAM chip come with spare memory -- it's like they know some of the bits are going to be bad and need remapping! And the same with hard drives - you can even get at the spare sectors with special commands. Don't even talk about the 486SX!

morcheeba

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

willyolio — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:53:37 EDT

conspiracy alert! all chips that aren't the highest-end offering are defective! CPU and GPU companies just reduce the clockspeed, disable some cache, or increase voltage to get these defective, crippled chips to work!

for further reading, see:
Celeron
Cell Processor (PS3)
Nvidia 8800GT

etc.

willyolio

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

aaj111 — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:41:03 EDT

8 Core or no excitement.

aaj111

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

Monty — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:11:24 EDT

I think the real question is, if they sold a quad core and only three cores were working, would anyone but uber-geeks notice?

Monty

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

wesrubix — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:29:17 EDT

duh. How the hell do you think they make triple core CPUs?

All CPU manuf.s have been doing stuff like this for years. The whole reason the most expensive processors are expensive, is because they complete the toughest tests. Anything that fails some of them get tested for lower grades/ratings.

wesrubix

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

SomeoneUKno — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:25:45 EDT

@Dook_In_The_Urinal: Um, there is no imagining to it... They just never gave it a special name.

SomeoneUKno

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

Dook_In_The_Urinal — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:51:03 EDT

Imagine if Ford did this. "Well, only 3 of the breaks work on this Taurus, so we'll call it a Tri-Stop Limited Edition"

Dook_In_The_Urinal

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

nizzy1115 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:21:21 EDT

Thanks, but its like reporting that apples are red, but green taste better.

nizzy1115

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core Processors Are Crippled Quad Cores in Disguise

Charles — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:46:54 EDT

We all already knew this.

Charles