Phenom Exposed! Shipping with flaky 3rd cores. - Page 4

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Yep, and if you can't overclock a "black edition", then all that particular marketing term really means is an attempt to put AMD back in the black. This is worse than Intel's whole Netburst mishegoss, which Intel fans seem to think is just ancient history. What's shown with both situations is how far they go to sell parts that don't cut it and can't be sold on merit.

I'm an AMD fan, but not a fanboy. It's fine if they sell triple cores that have one bad core disabled. That's honesty and meeting a market that might exist, especially as Microsoft has expressed interest in optimizing for odd numbers of cores.

It's not fine if a design issue at 65nm, or a QA issue gets enabled bad cores out into the marketplace, especially if those bad cores aren't on Gateway's but are in "enthusiast" marketed parts. IMHO, this just sounds like a QA issue and I doubt that many black editions have this problem, but the fact that any do is really sad.

I want AMD to succeed, and not just to drive down prices on the Evil Netburst Empire's finally good processors. With a viable AMD, we have competition, innovation and reasonable prices that allow profits to be made by both companies. Without AMD, we have Intel, and I don't want to return to circa 1995 pricing.

Like I said, I'll get two B3 triple cores when they arrive. That's the only 65nm Phenom part I'll trust right now. What I really want are the 45nm parts, but they're some distance off. Still thinking of a Q6600 for my wife, as her graphics and modding would benefit, but both my PC and our kid's would do perfectly well for games with just AMD.

Now all I need is to get that Antec TPQ 850 or 1000 with a 6+2 so I can finally install that MSI factory overclocked 3870x2. ATI's success makes me think that they should have bought AMD instead of the other way around. AMD with ATI suits in charge might just be a viable company.

Any evidence to show for that one?

What, only tons?
There are a lot of ways for a newb to screw up. The most common one for multicores is expecting your old windows install to automaticly see the new core. Works going from dual to quad as well.
Not only will there always be people who screw up, but they will always lay blame where it just doesn't belong.

I would call a BS Flag on his entire post :>

Apache, is that the BSoD edition?

Not blue enough.

SOD that (that was so bad it was painful to say :|)

Exactly....so we are more likely to expose a problem like this than the mainstream users who dont even know what overclocking is.

I will help you take your foot out of your mouth if you like.

Almost a Mediocre Design

I never at any point said that *every* Phenom that shipt has this problem. What I have said, and what I am hoping to prove is... (1) That some, or many, Phenoms are shipping with the 3rd core (logical core 2) issue... and (2) This issue, and not the TLB errata, is the real issue as to why Phenoms at or above 2.4 ghz were scrapped.

As a Systems Administrator, I have put togther 6 Phenom rigs for work so far. In my professional experience, I have had to return 2 Phenom chips to our local parts supplier thus far due to them not running stable at stock speeds... both of which were 9600s (non-BE)

For work I have purchased a total of 3 9500s, and 3 9600s. For myself I got the one 9600BE. The BE is on RMA currently, and should have a new one by the end of the week. I will thoroughly test that one when it arrives.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to play with these systems before they got deployed, so for these systems I could play with...

The best luck I've had so far, overclocking or otherwise, has been with (suprisingly) the 9500s. One (a 9500) I shipped to another site right away so I never played with it, but has been running great at stock. Out of the other 2, so far I have taken one 9500 to 2.5ghz stable, and another to 2.62 ghz stable (only 2 hours worth of stability tests... I can't spend all day on these) while one *working* 9600 could not even reach 2.4, while the other 2 would BSoD under normal operation.

My counterpart at another site has a 9600BE which he cannot overclock at all, although it seems to run fine at stock speeds... currently.

So in terms of this "kool aid" reference, my professional experience has shown that buying a Phenom is -in fact- a bit of a gamble, and your mileage will most definately vary.

Shocking .. not to mention the great overclockability for Phenoms .. lol..

My 6420 overclocks 60% 2.133Ghz --3.3ishGhz without any volt changes..

GO INTEL!!!

No I agree , but true numbers are not out yet about flakey cores , etc..
But over the many reviews I have read on BE Phenoms overclocking / testsis/has not shown any major clock increases .. IE more than at least 30% above stock.

Hmmmm, since most of us here own an Intel Core 2 series processor, how many of us actually had to RA the processor because of a faulty core?..... no one? precisely. Luck of the draw to get a phenom to reach 3ghz? every desktop intel processor for more then 3 years has been able to break the 3ghz, if you cant get the lowest intel quad to hit 3ghz your doing something wrong, its so simple.

AMD has changed, they arnt like the old days where your socket7 or socket A motherboard will live for another day with a cheap cpu upgrade to breath more life into your system, they fudd'd us around with socket 940, 754, 939, and 940 and now we most likely need new boards for the Phenom - good one AMD.

On the bright side, im kinda glad ATI was able to make some video cards that actually compete - couple of my mates bought 3850's so thats a good sign, one day AMD/ATI will take the crown again....

By all means tell us how"damn fast" you are refering to,regarding your Phenom?Also,if your hitting 3Ghz with yours(and stable)post us some screen shots of it with CPUZ.Intel is only delaying their SUPERIOR product because AMD and their line of welfare based cpu's cant compete with Intel's almost 2 year old technology.

They had to so it would support DDR2. Remember on die memory controller? Intell has theirs on the mother board. Again what were they supposed to do? I think the mistake they made was that they stopped producing processors for 939 too quickly and then suddenly there were no mother boards and that is what made a lot of people angry. But a lot of people have 939 systems they are using (me included) and they still perform well and are very reliable systems.

I have a system that I keep out in the garage and only use once a month for LAN parties. It is subject to extreme changes in temperatures and it works flawlessly every time.

Yea some the guys at the LAN bring their best system with their core2, high end video card and 24 inch LCD screen and I am there with my single core 3800+ X800GTO and a 17 inch LCD. But I still pwn most of them. It aint always about the equipment but the person who is operating it.

I would say that I am at an advantage in regards to computer games. I grew up at a time when your guy/character on the screen was a dang dot! So any thing that looks better than a dot is good enough for me. I like nice graphics and am impressed with some of the games of today but looks aint everything.

Thanks for sharing. I personally would send the thing back or at least notify AMD with your problem and tell them of your disappointment with their product. Then send the thing back.

Personally, I have seen the clock interrupt BSoD happening more in Vista x64 than I have in x86. For example, the last 9500 I OC'd successfully to 2.62, runs rock solid in Vista x86, and has even passed a 5 hour 100% load burn-in test. However, in Vista x64, it will... at random times, give the clock interrupt BSoD.

And you are correct about CnQ, you do need to disable it before trying to OC.

for ppl who were talking about batch numbers and such this is my phenoms

HD9500WCJ4BGD
C44ZB AA 0743EPNW
1924068K70052

i didn't knoww how to paste a picture in

No, I haven't seen those reports. I see you are mentioning this in every 2nd post, can you please provide a source/link to where you read tri-cores will be clocked faster than quads? The roadmaps that I've seen indicate that 2.5GHz will be the top clocked tri-core.

Unfortunately, my second 9600BE has turned out to be almost as much of a bust as the first.

At stock speeds, it would not even install Vista x64
The biggest OC I could achieve in Vista x86 was 2.50 ghz (raising the multi to 12.5, or raising the Ref. Clock to 218. It seemed to pass the stability tests at 2.50, but started reacting very badly to 2.50 this evening. I attempted to raise the Vcore up to 1.45 (as high as I'm willing to take a 65nm chip) and still no go. I ended up backing it off to 2.4, and it seems to be okay for the moment, although still wont even install Vista x64.

I ended up getting so frustrated that I put the 9500 I was testing back in and it is running happily at 2.62 ghz with no problems whatsoever. I am returning the P.O.S. BE for a refund. I think its kinda sad that the bottom of the line phenoms have better OCing headroom than the ones supposedly marketed towards enthusiasts.

The tri-cores are based on B2 revisions, so 3.0Ghz is really unlikely, and not to mention they are failed binned quads. I'm also looking somewhere between 2.2Ghz ~ 2.5Ghz.

AMD 45nm will be out 4thQ 08 or 1stQ 09.Intel 32nm wont

I concider myself a rashional AMD-fanbeau,so take it from me and send it back.I doubt you will find any good help here for your trouble

ragemonkey,

I did indeed get the "clock interrupt" BSD. I'll most likely RMA it since while $229's a good price for a quad core, it's not so much for a tri-core.

dude... thats bad...

lmao, but thats baaaaad

And ignore all the illegal activity Intel has been engaged in ? ? ?