General Discussions

[shokabeln]

Hello! I wanted to ask this for a while now but since I usually don't use Reddit, it's taken longer than I'd like.

I've been looking to upgrade my PC for a while now, mainly my case/GPU since temperatures have been less desirable. I assume that people are also aware of AMD's ability to deliver GPUs with higher performance for a lower price when compared to NVIDIA ones. But my friend has told me that the reason AMD is so cheap is because of recycled chips, which in turn could lead to complications for the products as time goes on.

I wanted to hear from all if this was true. I've searched the internet for a claim like this but nothing shows up. What's your take on this?

[johnnyenglish]

Well thats new, recycled chips. What does this even mean? They grab those polaris and rdna1 chips, put them in a grinder and use the material for a brand new rdna3?

I've heard lots of stuff around, like:

"They use bad silicon, rejects from Intel."

"They use bad chips on purpose just to sell"

"The drivers are always bad"

And the most common, "They are just bad because I said so"

I've been using AMD (CPU/GPU) personally for a long time with no problems, and these last several months not a single crash.

I wish my Dell laptop with an Intel would do the same.

[FunkZ]

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@shokabeln wrote:

But my friend has told me that the reason AMD is so cheap is because of recycled chips?

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Technically I suppose you could recycle silicon, as in melt it down and reform it, but it's basically just sand so it's not like it's in short supply or difficult to dig up. So no, AMD doesn't do that.

If they meant that AMD takes used chips out of old cards and solders them onto new cards and fakes a new name then no that's scammers that do that.

Maybe they meant that AMD sometimes takes an existing technology, slaps a new model number on it and labels it a new chip, then yes. It's called rebranding. For example, the R9 380 was just a rebranded R9 285. Same chip, new name. But nVidia and Intel are also guilty of doing this. For example the nVidia GT 430 to GT 630 to GT 730 GF108 cards. Or more recently, Intel's 14th gen Meteor Lake processors. Same design as the 13th gen, slightly higher clock speeds.

So just do your research before buying any card to make sure you're getting the latest tech and best performance for the price.

[johnnyenglish]

No, unfortunately recycling semiconductors is an incredibly hard, expensive and complex thing to do. Its far more cheap to do it brand new. 

You cannot melt a GPU and make a new wafer out of it.

I also don't think that re-using the same design chip a bad practise. The limited microcenter run of the 5600X3D was, I believe,  a re-use of "damaged" 5800X3D chips.

RX580 were indeed a "rebrand" of the RX480 but there is more to it than just a re-use.

[FunkZ]

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@johnnyenglish wrote:

No, unfortunately recycling semiconductors is an incredibly hard, expensive and complex thing to do. Its far more cheap to do it brand new.

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That is exactly the point I made. It's technically possible, but nobody is going to do it, because new material is so plentiful and inexpensive.

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@johnnyenglish wrote:

I also don't think that re-using the same design chip a bad practise. The limited microcenter run of the 5600X3D was, I believe,  a re-use of "damaged" 5800X3D chips.

That is not a rebrand, that is called binning. Binning occurs with every chip, every generation. Rebrands are a shady practice that fortunately occurs much less frequently.