Sounds like they want to cut some costs by selling quad cores with one defective core.

Agreed - sounds to me like they're not entirely sure of their manufacturing ability to be honest.

Will they extend this to 2 defective cores and release it as a dual core CPU? Or 1?? Haven't seen Intel suggesting this approach, but then I suppose it's an extension of the original clock speeds. Intel only ever fab'ed Pentiums, and then tested them to see how far they would clock, which determined the final spec of each one. In fact it meant you could take the risk of buying a slower one and hoping it was just marked as such due to demand, you could then overclock.

High demand for these could see hacks coming out that tries enabling the 4th core...

It's the same principle that Intel use when rating their chips - e.g. ones that can't hit 3GHz are marked as 2.6GHz, and ones where one half of the L2 cache fail tests are sold with 2Mb cache.

Of course, you could be lucky and get a 3GHz part that has been marked as 2.6GHz because the yield of 3Ghz chips is greater than the demand...

AMD quadcores with 1 defective core to be sold as tri-cores? So instead of trashing the ones with defective core, AMD would rather sell them.

Anyways there is no such thing as hard bread for me. I would still go AMD for budget solutions, and Intel for real performance.

Cheers to all. 8)

I hope you never run a business, you may find that you're not very good at it. Intel only stick together 2 dual core processors, which have a higher yield rate than they'd get if they made quad core processors. Nobody gets 100% yield rate. AMD are just being sensible, and I certainly wouldn't consider 3-core processors trash, I'd be quite happy to buy one if the price was significantly lower than the quads.

I hope you understand the term "defect". Defects are supposed to be thrown. This case they are recycled.... errrr.. rebranded to tri-core.

But of course I would also get one if the price is right... again for budget concerns.

Cheers! 8)

PS: check the AMD website for their comparative comparison of dual-cores:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_13041%5E13042,00.html

ever wonder... where are these intel specs 45nm, S-SSE3, and some intel lower TDP's missing, etc? why didn't AMD post the updated specs of intel when AMD post theirs down to 45W TDPs?

who's using 3DNow! ? , it's year 2008.... not 1998.

all AMD's marketing hype. 8)