AMD: Some Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 are again equipped with two CCDs

AMD has so far differentiated between chips with one CCD such as the Ryzen 5 5600X or the Ryzen 7 5800X and those with two CCDs such as the Ryzen 9 5900X or Ryzen 9 5950X in its Zen 3 processors. A CCD could offer a maximum of eight cores if it was error-free. Already in this generation, however, there were isolated reports that buyers of chips with six or eight cores had received a model with two CCDs that could not be sold as Ryzen 9 due to just missing the limits.

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The same is now repeated again with the current Zen 4 generation. In one of his videos, the overclocker and Youtuber Roman “der8auer” Hartung beheaded a Ryzen 5 7600X. In theory, this chip should only be equipped with a Raphael CCD, of which six cores are active. This makes it the smallest Zen 4 stage presented so far. Nevertheless, a second CCD was installed on the 8auers sample, but it doesn’t seem to have any function.

Underneath the thermal imager, only a CCD emits a heat signature, indicating it is working. This in turn raises the question of why two CCDs are installed on this Ryzen 5 7600X. There are several possible explanations for this. The first would be the idiosyncratic heat spreader of AM5 chips. The second CCD could be for structural support, but as models with one CCD have already been sighted, this is not possible.

The second, and more likely, assumption is that AMD has slightly misjudged demand and manufacturing quality. TSMC’s new manufacturing process could work better than expected and produce fewer scraps, while at the same time fewer than expected PC gamers are buying the larger Ryzen 9 models and thus demanding the smaller chips. As a result, you have to quickly relabel a processor intended as Ryzen 9 and deactivate the cores accordingly.

Source: der8auer