Threadripper Does Not Contain Dummy Dies

Two months ago, legendary overclocker der8auer ripped open AMD’s Threadripper CPU to discover the chip contained four dies. It’s a curious discovery, since Threadripper only uses two of the four chips. AMD insists the other two dies are redundant. As a result, many outlets speculated the spare pair are dummies. However, der8auer’s follow-up investigation revealed that, in fact, all four dies are real 8-core chips.

Dummy Dies

In a video posted today, der8auer revealed the truth about Threadripper’s redundant dies. He delidded a fresh 1950X CPU and stripped away the substrate. Beneath, he found the four dies, all of which feature integrated circuits and transistors:

He also posted the following photos:

That the two redundant dies are not dummies doesn’t affect Threadripper, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The Dummy Story

Where did the dummy story come from? Well, according to Guru3D, it came from AMD itself:

“When we asked AMD about this at a recent summit they claimed that Threadripper has two working dies and two dummies to get you to the 16-cores. The two dummies would be in place for better structural support.“

Many other outlets reported the same story.

So, why would AMD call them dummies? Firstly, AMD could be using faulty dies to take up that space. Secondly, AMD could be lying to protect themselves from any potential customer backlash. Imagine the fume from some: “You included four dies and only let me use two of them? Fraud!” Finally, whoever from AMD made the comments may have misspoken. After der8auer’s reveal, AMD might have more to say on the matter.