AMD James Prior Sheds Light on Threadripper Dummy Dies

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/19/2017 08:53 AM | source: | 23 comment(s)

AMD's Senior Product Manager, James Prior talked a bit about the story that broke earlier on last week related to the fact that Threadripper is fitted with four AMD Zepplin dies. He mentions that the two extra dies have "no path to operation".

That also means you cannot activate 32-cores of course and that EPYC is a different processor (but sharing the same design). Prior outted his remarks on twitter:

Threadripper is not a Epyc processor. Different substrate, different dies. 2 dies work, other 2 have no path to operation. Basically rocks.

Prior also added that AMD decided to use the term "dummy" instead of "inactive" to describe Threadripper's additional dies as there is no way of utilizing/activating these additional CPU dies.

Yes, exactly why they're not described as inactive, but dummy. Doesn't matter if they were dead, or active, they're not going to work.

Earlier on overclocker der8auer tried to de-lid a Threadripper, but with the heatspreader soldered to the dies he broke that CPU (of course). In his video he took it a step further and check out the dummy dies. When he pealed them loose, the four dies revealed themselves, opposed to some sort of two die / two dummy configuration. James Prior however still has not mentioned as to why exactly they are using two extra dies? But likely, the ones used did not pass wafer inspections, e.g. they are non working dead and thus re-used

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NewTRUMP Order
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#5473439 Posted on: 09/19/2017 08:00 PM

So if the the dies are dead whytf is the damn cpu so freaking big then? They couldn't design a cpu with two working dies without making it just smaller than a cell phone? Or was this planned to waste as much space as possible on a new platform, to insinuate bigger cpu equals bigger output? Also going down this path of reasoning when ZEN 2 comes out will that cpu be even bigger than the TR to insinuate even more power? The explanation that it creates an even cooling area is blsheet. A smaller cpu would ensure even cooling. AMD is now using smoke and mirrors, what's next, pull a 32core 64 thread cpu out of a top hat? Don't get me wrong, I'm still buying Ryzen. But I don't like where AMD is going on pr.

fry178
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#5473441 Posted on: 09/19/2017 08:06 PM

So your saying you would pay more if the die was smaller??
Lol..

Lane
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#5473442 Posted on: 09/19/2017 08:16 PM

Yeah.. that is surely for this reason... seriously...

Reduce cost and simplify the integration.. same socket.. same heatspreader, same substrate size , same line of assembly for the package etc.. TR is derivated from Epyc, plateform share same socket type etc, this way no need to rework all ( and this is true too for motherboard partners )

schmidtbag
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#5473443 Posted on: 09/19/2017 08:25 PM

"Won't be able to activate" doesn't mean "TR4 socket can't run on all-4-die-activated chips".

In this case, yes it does mean that, because as stated in the article, the dies aren't wired up. They're non-functional and they never will be: end of discussion.

Does it really matter? If anything, the gargantuan die has been a marketing attraction to TR, and many reviewers are drawing a lot of attention to it (getting AMD's name out there) so it seems to be working in AMD's favor regardless of how unnecessary the size is. At least it helps with temperatures. Anyway, the CPU is so big because it's cheaper for AMD to recycle the same physical socket as Epyc. AM4 likely isn't capable of handling the extra cores, PCIe lanes, and memory bandwidth of TR. I don't think Epyc (or at least future iterations of Epyc) would work so well on a smaller socket. So, since it'd be too expensive to create another socket for a relatively niche market, AMD just recycled the TR4 socket. The end result wouldn't be any more or less convenient to the consumer. The socket would still have to be bigger than AM4, which means you're still going to need a new motherboard and new heatsink mounting brackets.

EspHack
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#5473532 Posted on: 09/20/2017 08:03 AM

maybe they did it to let intel feel good about their 18 core cpu, so now intel is hopefully set on 18 core max for x299 and whatever comes next in the next year while amd is free to unleash a 24-32c part, but I also wonder if they are not wired because they are meant to be dead or because the x399 chipset isnt wired for the extra dies at all

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