Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, morphine
Glorious wrote:Am I missing some context here?
Glorious wrote:Am I missing some context here?
derFunkenstein wrote:Yeah I dunno. I'm a little surprised that they're effectively wasting two dies.
derFunkenstein wrote:I started to type a lot about how it's a low-volume part and maybe engineering costs outweighed die costs, but there's just way too much that I don't know. Like, I just don't know. Seems like a lot of wasted dies, but only if they're totally fine otherwise. Dunno. So I didn't.
Like yesterday, when I deleted my joke. I'm trying to be more discerning in what I write, but I'm often catching myself after I've already written it. Would be nice if the filter between my brain and fingers functioned.
astrotech66 wrote:According to a story I saw today on PCWorld, the two inactive dies aren't real cores. A quote from the article:
"So did AMD really waste two perfectly good "Zeppelin" dies? Nope.Those other two "chips" are nothing more than spacers to help maintain the structural integrity of the gigantic heat spreader, PCWorld has learned from a source who declined to be identified."
Glorious wrote:Oddly, I got that part.
I was baffled by the Waco disappointment angle.
Mr Bill wrote:Maybe 4 dies are required because of the interposer connections and they don't want to redesign the interposer and the connection logic.
Edit: And that just begs the question are the dies designed in such a way that one could etch and enable just the portions needed to support the infinity fabric?
Waco wrote:Mr Bill wrote:Maybe 4 dies are required because of the interposer connections and they don't want to redesign the interposer and the connection logic.
Edit: And that just begs the question are the dies designed in such a way that one could etch and enable just the portions needed to support the infinity fabric?
...or if half of the socket itself is just dead.
just brew it! wrote:Missed that, DOH.So you guys are completely discounting the PC World article astrotech66 mentioned?
Die-shaped spacers to maintain mechanical integrity of the package is the simplest (and most plausible) explanation.
The "partially defective Epyc" explanation is less plausible, because they'd only be able to "harvest" the ones that happen to have the good dies in two specific locations, to avoid having to use different package pinouts for each possible combination of good dies.
But wait, magically? Magic might work for Harry Potter, but a mere fantasy of magic, I guess not.
Mr Bill wrote:I suppose one other thing we can conclude from the distance between the packages is that AMD is not that worried about the longer traces affecting the efficacy of the infinity fabric. Also, it may be easier to effectively cool the epYc package with the heat sources "spread" out from eachother. On the other hand, Intel is seemingly not too worried about the smaller form factor of the I9 chip footprint for heat and may gain a few nanoseconds for closeness.
deruberhanyok wrote:Do you know, the worst part of it all, at the end there - I was going to say there were five dies. But more than that, I actually believed it.
maxxcool wrote: