[SOLVED] I have two AMD 5900x, I'm selling one - Should I stress test silicon lottery or leave one sealed for selling?

Raven A

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Feb 2, 2015
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Title says it all: I had ordered the AMD Ryzen 9 5900x from multiple webshops and received two at the same time. Now I'll have to sell one, but I'm doubting whether I should check for a performance disparity between the two I have before selling one off. Obviously, opening the box and tearing the seal would reduce the resale value, but it would allow me to see which one of the two has won the sillicon lottery, if any.

Some extra info that may be relevant:
  • I may overclock the one I'm keeping slightly but not up to the edge of stability, I tend to keep it somewhat safe
  • I'll soon be upgrading to a custom watercooling loop with triple radiator
  • System: Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO V2 mobo; MSI Ventus RTX 3080; corsair DDR4 Vengeance RGB Pro 16gb x 2 (32GB); PSU is currently 750W (may have to upgrade to 850?)
  • System is not setup yet; I am waiting for my AM4 mobo to arrive

What do you guys think? How big are the disparities between different units of this processor?
 
Solution
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What do you guys think? How big are the disparities between different units of this processor?
Conventional overclocking itself is rarely worth it on Ryzen unless you're doing it for some sort of competition. Those who do it are usually content running multi-thread benches and ignoring that they've hurt single thread performance in the process.

Leave the package sealed and sell as new...and include the original receipt so the buyer knows they have full warranty from AMD. With the money you get back buy a much better cooler as that will do as much...or more....than overclocking it.

"Silicon lottery" refers to the fact that some individual CPU's have more overclocking potential than others as a result of inevitable...

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
I think it's not worth the inquiry into a better chip since you're not going to pursue some sort of bleeding edge number or performance. Also, you'd be spending a good amount of time stress testing them both to figure out which one is better so if you plan to sell them soon, that's not happening soon.

750W is the wattage, what is the make and model of the unit?
 

Raven A

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Feb 2, 2015
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I think it's not worth the inquiry into a better chip since you're not going to pursue some sort of bleeding edge number or performance. Also, you'd be spending a good amount of time stress testing them both to figure out which one is better so if you plan to sell them soon, that's not happening soon.

750W is the wattage, what is the make and model of the unit?

Thanks for your reply. I wasn't too sure what the term 'silicon lottery' refers to exactly since I've never had the luxury of owning multiple chips before, but I guess it's more so for those who try to push a chip to the absolute limit of what it can do, right? So not that I may be left with a chip that is significantly worse for everyday use in programs and games?

My PSU is the Corsair CX750M. It's from a couple systems ago but it's still holding up alright; had it while running SLI 970s.
 
....
What do you guys think? How big are the disparities between different units of this processor?
Conventional overclocking itself is rarely worth it on Ryzen unless you're doing it for some sort of competition. Those who do it are usually content running multi-thread benches and ignoring that they've hurt single thread performance in the process.

Leave the package sealed and sell as new...and include the original receipt so the buyer knows they have full warranty from AMD. With the money you get back buy a much better cooler as that will do as much...or more....than overclocking it.

"Silicon lottery" refers to the fact that some individual CPU's have more overclocking potential than others as a result of inevitable variability of the manufacturing process. The thing is, AMD has implemented a strict binning process that sorts all their 7nm CPU dies into a large number of end-products that range all the way from low-end 5600X CPU's to high-end server CPU's. That's a key feature of the chiplet manufacturing approach, but the result is there's not much of the "lottery" left by the time you get one.
 
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Raven A

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Feb 2, 2015
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Conventional overclocking itself is rarely worth it on Ryzen unless you're doing it for some sort of competition. Those who do it are usually content running multi-thread benches and ignoring that they've hurt single thread performance in the process.

Leave the package sealed and sell as new...and include the original receipt so the buyer knows they have full warranty from AMD. With the money you get back buy a much better cooler as that will do as much...or more....than overclocking it.

"Silicon lottery" refers to the fact that some individual CPU's have more overclocking potential than others as a result of inevitable variability of the manufacturing process. The thing is, AMD has implemented a strict binning process that sorts all their 7nm CPU dies into a large number of end-products that range all the way from low-end 5600X CPU's to high-end server CPU's. That's a key feature of the chiplet manufacturing approach, but the result is there's not much of the "lottery" left by the time you get one.


Thanks, some very interesting insights here that I did not yet know. I will sell one as new, as you guys suggested.
 

RagedAPE

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Jan 6, 2014
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I hear that PSU is not that strong to start with, with respect and with it being a few years old it might be worth that upgrade, but I am a newbie so I would look into that further since your system is going to have a beastly 5900x in it.