Der8auer takes die shots of Threadripper to prove that it contains four Ryzen dies

How far would you go to prove a point? Well, the overclocker and CPU delidding expert der8auer has decided to put AMD’s “Dummy Dies” claim to the test, to find out once and for all whether or not AMD is using failed/defective Ryzen dies or silicon spacers.  

This process took a lot of time, money and effort, requiring der8auer to acquire a full Ryzen Threadripper CPU from retail, which is not an insignificant investment. 

Below you can see his results, though we would advise that you watch his video in full to see how he managed to remove these CPU dies from AMD’s IHS and substrate. This poor CPU has been completely destroyed, though at least it has given everyone something to talk about. 

The eagle eyed amongst you will be able to see the locations of the CPU cores in these Ryzen dies, though I imagine that some of you will point out that two of these dies look different than the others. This is likely indicative of different levels of sanding during der8auer’s process, though it still showcases that none of this silicon is blank. 
  

(Image and Video from der8auer)

 

This raised many questions, like whether or not 24 and 32 core Threadripper CPUs would be manufactured in the future with four active CPU dies, though to say the least the release of such a processor would be problematic.

First of all, such a part would likely consume too much power to be usable on existing X399 motherboards, at least without substantially lower clock speed than other Threadripper series CPUs. 

Looking at AMD’s EPYC 7601, we see a TDP of 180W and base/boost clock speeds of 2.2/3.2GHz, clock speeds that are exceptionally low for a consumer product. A Threadripper series CPU with these clock speeds would seem crippled in terms of single-threaded performance, which is a huge deal for the consumer market. 

This is not to say that a 24-core or a 32-core Threadripper CPU is impossible, just that it presents AMD with some interesting challenges. Beyond that AMD’s Threadripper series of products is not exactly designed to be a high volume lineup, so demand for a larger Threadripper series CPU would be extremely limited. 

 

You can join the discussion on der8auer’s research into AMD’s Dummy dies claims for Threadripper on the OC3D Forums.