Sanding Down AMD Ryzen Threadripper Dies Reveals Circuitry Inside Of The Two ‘Dummy Dies’

When an engineering sample of a Ryzen Threadripper chip revealed four die under the IHS a couple of months ago, some were surprised, and some weren’t. I admit that I was in the latter camp; I had suspected from the get-go that Threadripper was essentially an EPYC CPU with two die that didn’t work, either by false limitation in firmware, or through the use of legitimately dead die that act as a physical stabilizer.

AMD on multiple occasions said that these extra die were only there to act as a stabilizer for the CPU cooler. Due to the architectural design, using two die means that those die have to be placed a specific way, leaving a gap on one entire side of the CPU’s package. Using bunk die to fill those gaps means a physically more stable platform.

As someone with no engineering background, I accepted AMD’s answer on this. I figured that these die were in fact just pieces of metal that filled out their side of the package. der8auer didn’t want to accept that as easily as I did, and became a CPU murderer to get to the bottom of it. I am in awe of both his skill, and his insanity.

WIth a retail 1950X chip, der8auer got to work on delidding the chip, and then used ultra-fine grit to whittle down each of the chip’s four die little by little, making sure to keep track of where each die physically came out of the package (though ultimately, that didn’t matter).

At the end of the day, all four die shared the exact same circuitry. This doesn’t mean that AMD has been lying, because its words still apply even after this revelation. These die might have circuitry inside them, but they’re still bunk die, plain and simple. They could be rejects, or they could be working die that are artificially disabled (I feel the former is more likely).

Because of the four-die design, I thought that AMD could release a 32-core variant of Threadripper in the future, although I am not really sure if that’s actually going to happen. On one hand, the company shouldn’t do anything that will reduce the allure of its EPYC platform, but on the other, I never expected AMD to release a 16-core enthusiast chip, either. Threadripper’s announcement was mind-blowing to me. So would I really be surprised if AMD did in fact release a 32-core TR chip?

Consider this, too: AMD’s 1950X looks fantastic against Intel’s i9-7900K, offering 16 cores over 10, for the same price. Well, imagine a $2,000 32-core Threadripper going against an 18-core Intel i9-7980XE for the same price. Again, would I really be surprised if AMD really did release a 32-core desktop chip? At this point, not really. The company is full of surprises lately.