AMD strictly moderated (AMD)

[chipdesigner]

Yes, I think the buying public generally knows they are buying a single core or dual core part. In the single core case, I'd imagine that 99.9x% of buyers have no idea that their part might be a defective DC part.

Surely you don't expect them to pry the heat spreader off and count the number of dies and then compare vs the number it reports on bootup.

I think you're confused. AMD has no plans to produce 3-core parts on purpose. Thus all 3-core parts would be known to be partially defective quad-cores by default.