The thermal diode is not disabled in Denebs,that would never happen BTW.I don't know what Francois was thinking when he said that..
It is just calibrated so that it doesn't lock the chip when temp. drops below certain level or go above certain level.That's all.The thermal monitoring works and is not disabled like Francois claims.This was achieved with some changes in design + a big change in manufacturing(apart from smaller node AMD ,for the first time,applied DFM strategy for it's first gen. 45nm parts,which cuts costs and improves yields).