Phenom stepping/batch overclocking database

[Psychlone]

No problem. It was just weird that you seemed to have one that was made in 2003!

Week 16? Unusual.
You do have an excellent CPU there.

If I'm not very much mistaken I believe the only ones we have seen so far have been week 9, 10 11 or 12. All of a sudden an (apparrent) 4 week gap. Interesting.
Maybe they were on holiday.
On a more serious note perhaps this is not a coincidence that your CPU overclocks so well. Maybe something significant changed in the manuafacturing process. Perhaps CPUs from week 16 onwards are different/better builds. This is all just speculation and cojecture at this point. We need others with Week 16+ plus 9850 Black editions to test.

Has anyone seen or does anyone have a 9850 Black edition with a batch of weeks 13-15 of 2008??

I would have to put in the old addage of the 'Wednesday Car'...the analogy goes like this:
Monday - everyone is still thinking about that party they went to on Sat or Sun and is probably still nursing a hangover - quality down the drain
Tuesday - everyone is starting to get back into the swing, but dreading work - quality is coming up, but not the best
Wednesday - everyone is at the top of their game - quality at max
Thursday - everyone is beginning to think about the weekend ahead - quality lowering
Friday - everyone is ready to get the Hell out of work to party - quality at it's lowest
(...repeat)

I would suspect, like you, that the missing weeks were time-off...perhaps there was a problem at the plant, maybe they all earned vacation, could be that they were tweaking something to make it better...

In any case, in one of the databases that I've seen, there are no steppings from weeks 14-16 (there was a single JAAHB 0813 APMW 9550 that I found while skimming real quick, but nothing at all for 14-16), then picks back up again at week 17 and goes to week 21 (for an X2 4600+) - may be that they weren't focusing on the Phenom plates at that timeframe and were pumping out some other or older cores just to get rid of the dies...I really don't know, and this is speculation.

Just out of interest Psychlone how well/poorly do your other two Phenom 9850 Black editions overclock with the same setup?

Well, let's break them down by stepping:

JAAFB AA 0809APMW (2.75GHz stable at 1.28V but wasn't stable at higher freq without over 1.45V)
JAAFB AA 0810BPAW (2.92GHz stable at 1.25V but wasn't stable at higher freq without over 1.45V)
JAAFB AA 0812EPMW (2.88GHz stable at 1.24V but wouldn't clock higher no matter how much voltage I threw at it)
And then the *winner*:
JAAHB AA 0816GPMW (3.49GHz stable at 1.375V and will go higher, but I don't dare give it much more voltage - this one I'm keepin'! )

Psychlone