AMD quad core Phenoms & Opterons have serious flaw

[Durzel]

Errata are not uncommon with new processors, but a problem with the TLB logic in AMD's quad-core Opteron and Phenom processors appears to be quite serious. The erratum is so severe that AMD has issued a 'stop ship' order on all quad-core Opterons. AMD has also blamed this bug for the delay of the 2.4GHz Phenom, despite the fact that the erratum is unrelated to clock speed. A BIOS-based workaround for the issue has been made available to motherboard makers, but it apparently carries a 10-20% performance penalty. What's more disturbing is that AMD knew of the erratum and the potential performance hit associated with fixing it before it launched the Phenom processor. Hardware provided to the press for reviews did not include the fix, conveniently overstating Phenom performance

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13721

Ouch. Doesn't look good for AMD, and I feel sorry for anyone who bought one of these chps who now has to use a motherboard BIOS patch and drop 10-20% performance.

 

[Azza]

This subject matter has already been posted.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17811646

 

[mmj_uk]

I wonder if current Phenom owners can RMA their CPU? it's kind of strange that they only delayed the 2.4GHz part but not the slower two models despite all models being affected.

 

[gareth170]

but that performance drop is only on motherboards that isn't am2+?