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- Aug 20, 2006
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Some folks who've bought Ryzen 5 1600 or 1600X processors have found that their chips have two more cores than expected, which can only be described as a massive win on the CPU lottery: these CPUs should have six cores and 12 threads, but reports on a Korean forum say some users have found they have eight cores (and 16 threads) out of the box.
Why exactly this is happening is unclear. Each CPU is tested right before it’s packaged to be shipped, so it’s implausible for the manufacturing facility not to have known that those 1600s and 1600Xs they were shipping weren’t 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. One thing is for certain though, this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase silicon lottery.
Why exactly this is happening is unclear. Each CPU is tested right before it’s packaged to be shipped, so it’s implausible for the manufacturing facility not to have known that those 1600s and 1600Xs they were shipping weren’t 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. One thing is for certain though, this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase silicon lottery.