In what could be a blow to budget-conscious PC builders, reports are emerging that the quad-core CCX (CPU complex) units that make up Ryzen processors (and upcoming APUs that use them), are indivisible. This means that the “Summit Ridge” silicon can either be configured as full-fledged eight-core parts, or quad-core parts (one CCX) disabled. The likelihood of cost-effective 6-core parts seems slim.
AMD will continue to sell the Ryzen-branded “Summit Ridge” silicon in three grades – SR7 (top), SR5 (mid), and SR3 (entry-level), but the SR5 may not designate the previously rumored 6-core configuration. Instead, SR7 could indicate eight cores and SMT (multi-threading), which works out to 16 logical CPUs; SR5 could indicate eight cores minus SMT (eight cores, eight threads), and SR3 could designate quad-core with SMT (four cores, eight threads). SR7 and SR5 feature the full 16 MB of L3 cache, while SR3 features 8 MB. All three grades are “unlocked,” in that they feature unlocked base-clock multipliers, making overclocking easy.
Sources: PCGH, Zolkorn
