- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
- Messages
- 499 (0.10/day)
System Name | Multipurpose desktop |
---|---|
Processor | AMD Phenom II x6 1605T @ 3.75Ghz , NB @ 2.5 |
Motherboard | Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 (rev 1.0) |
Cooling | Prolimatech Megahalems Rev. C, 2x120mm CM Blademaster |
Memory | Corsair Vengeance LP (4x4GB) @1666Mhz 9-9-9-20-24 1T |
Video Card(s) | ASUS Strix R7-370 4GB OC |
Storage | 2x WD Caviar Black 500GB Sata III in RAID 0 |
Display(s) | Acer S211HL 21.5" 1920x1080 |
Case | Cooler Master Centurion 534+, 3x 120mm CM Sickle Flow |
Power Supply | Seasonic X650 Gold |
Software | Windows 7 x64 Home Premium SP1 |
Yeah, it's kinda weird, but you can disable one of the cores in a module on an FX processor. An 8 core FX processor with only four enabled cores (exactly one per module), not only works, but usually performs better in single threaded tasks than if all cores were enabled. This is because a non bulldozer-privy scheduler might put another thread (maybe some background thread, or what not) on the other core of the same module that has a core running the single-threaded task. Then, resources become shared, and slow things down. Such worse case scheduling doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's not all bad, as power consumption will be theoretically lower in such case. Just a little extra info for those who think a magical Windows 8 scheduler will make FX chips much faster - it'll help minimize the occurrence of the worse case listed above, and for the most part, that's it.
I know. But a '3 core' bulldozer architecture on an APU seems like something that would only be done with defective silicon, not something that would be rolled out at release, but later on, maybe, to salvage silicon and squeeze out a bit more profit. The point is that it's bad PR, highlighting poor silicon yields. AMD just got rid of its old marketing people.
Bad PR because artificially fusing one core in one module is going to piss off the people who will buy it thinking they can unlock, because it won't be a simple unlock if its bad silicon, that would be a loss of profit to AMD. APUs make money for AMD. It's not the same situation as the Phenom x2 and x3.
Fake.