Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
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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 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..
..they found that they performed exactly like 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..
Its a lottery. So, if one does not already own a Ryzen 5, this is not a suggestion to buy one in hopes of getting an 1800X.
Still, its interesting, to me. AMD did this with the very first Reference RX480 4GB GPUs -- they did not have enough -- so they put 8GB GPUs in the boxes and called them 4GB.