The word for CPU manufacturers making multiple SKUs is “binning”. Every processor wafer made could attempts at an 8 core beast, but if 1 isn’t working, they disable another and sell it as a 6 core. If the chip isn’t stable enough for hyperthreading, that feature is disabled. Unstable at high frequencies? The turbo clock is lowered.
Are the manufacturers benevolent in this? Not always. Sometimes an 8 core chip will be locked to 4 just to make more lower end SKU pieces available for purchase. Or Intel disabling overclocking so you have to buy a “K” processor that costs more.
But when people say things like:
> When you buy physical things, you should be paying the total cost for the hardware to be manufactured, distributed, and finally recycled or disposed of.
They’re ignoring the fact that soft limits actually can make manufacture cheaper. The reason Intel/AMD/etc don’t have a separate silicon template for every SKU is it’s too wasteful (money wise). Each run has a setup cost, and if that can be lowered by reusing the same wafer template, they do that. It’s cheaper to have less manufacturing SKUs and just disable features later.
In addition, when soft limits are used on chips, it actually prevents waste. Imagine if the yield on an 8 core wafer was 70%. That means only 70% of the produced chips works at spec. The other 30% would be tossed if binning didn’t happen. By binning, that 30% can be sold (with reduced feature sets).
They do make software limitations to make it fit inside their product line. If only one out of eight cores is dead it’ll likely get sold as a 6 core chip not a seven core. If the clock stability limit is slightly too low it will get binned 10% lower for no technical reason.
If they didn’t do this everyone would be returning the 6 core versions of a chip until they get lucky and get the 7 core. People already do this a little with overclocking capable chips.
Maybe you’d argue they should sell a 7 core chip as well for a slightly higher price but that also means having more product lines and increased manufacturing costs as a result.
Are the manufacturers benevolent in this? Not always. Sometimes an 8 core chip will be locked to 4 just to make more lower end SKU pieces available for purchase. Or Intel disabling overclocking so you have to buy a “K” processor that costs more.
But when people say things like:
> When you buy physical things, you should be paying the total cost for the hardware to be manufactured, distributed, and finally recycled or disposed of.
They’re ignoring the fact that soft limits actually can make manufacture cheaper. The reason Intel/AMD/etc don’t have a separate silicon template for every SKU is it’s too wasteful (money wise). Each run has a setup cost, and if that can be lowered by reusing the same wafer template, they do that. It’s cheaper to have less manufacturing SKUs and just disable features later.
In addition, when soft limits are used on chips, it actually prevents waste. Imagine if the yield on an 8 core wafer was 70%. That means only 70% of the produced chips works at spec. The other 30% would be tossed if binning didn’t happen. By binning, that 30% can be sold (with reduced feature sets).