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AMD clarifies why Threadripper uses 4 silicon dies

Only two of these dies contain working transistors

Published: 31st July 2017 | Source: AMD | Author: Mark Campbell

  
The question that many have been asking is what the purpose of the other two dies are, with the answer simply being structural. These extra dies prevent imbalance and allow for simple cooler mounting without any chance of damaging the CPU. These two extra dies are not active or even contain working transistors, they are blank and as such are not "wasted Ryzen CPU dies".

To make a long story short, the two extra dies in Threadripper are merely structural inserts, with the active dies being placed in a diagonal configuration in all Threadripper CPUs to give them all the same thermal profiles. Threadripper CPUs are not "failed EPYC" CPUs and they certainly are not made in a wasteful way by AMD.

Many will ask why AMD did not create a new socket for Threadripper instead of a modified SP3 EPYC socket, but that would require a whole new set of coolers in addition to the coolers that are required for SP3/EPYC and a new socket design which AMD may have been unwilling to create.

You can join the discussion on AMD's Threadripper CPU design on the OC3D Forums. 

Most Recent Comments

31-07-2017, 10:24:28

AlienALX

They're for when Intel get lairy so they can willy shame them with 32 cores Quote

31-07-2017, 10:26:21

TheF34RChannel

Yeah... Blank... Bs. Serves no purpose. Doesn't matter though.Quote

31-07-2017, 10:29:27

AlienALX

Intel's 18 core *will* be faster than the 16 core TR. No ifs, no buts. It's got a generation leap over TR (BE to SKYLAKE E) and will, with the right cooling and board, easily surpass the 4ghz barrier.

AMD are going to have to have a response to that, and I truly believe it is going to be more cores.Quote

31-07-2017, 10:48:18

tgrech

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlienALX Intel's 18 core *will* be faster than the 16 core TR. No ifs, no buts. It's got a generation leap over TR (BE to SKYLAKE E) and will, with the right cooling and board, easily surpass the 4ghz barrier. AMD are going to have to have a response to that, and I truly believe it is going to be more cores.

I wouldn't bet on that- the monolithic design Intel uses along with the flawed package design that's been trapping significant heat below the IHS means that AMD have a 30% base clock speed advantage and will likely be able to maintain their boost clocks with considerably more active cores. Intel might have higher 1-4 core boost clocks but that means little for most people buying a part like this. Basically the Intel 18 core will have higher single threaded performance, but as soon as you try to use all those threads the performance will plummet with the clock speeds, killing multicore performance to a degree that the increased IPC and 2 extra cores is unlikely to make up for.

Worth noting that moving to 4 dies/32 cores for AMD much of this advantage disappears, with the ability to maintain these high clock rates vanishing as you hit a TDP of around 180W, which is why I see 32 core Threadripper very unlikely- In many metrics in will likely be slower than the 16 core variant and consumer workloads that can make use of that many cores are scarce. Plus it'd likely be memory bandwidth constrained in many of those workloads without a new chipset to bring 8-channel support.Quote

31-07-2017, 10:52:21

AlienALX

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-r...cp-3a7-am.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-r...cp-3a8-am.html

It's happening ! *runs around in circles waving his arms in the air !"

Then the bubble burst..

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pc-co...9-threadripper

Dang, that's some expensive mobos right there.

£520 for the Zenith ! *faints*Quote

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