yeah I pretty much lucked out when I got this week 15, I was desperately buying early after seeing the results at XS so I could get a good core, ended up with DOAs and thought I was screwed at that point but luckily got a decent one still
Really when you think about it these cores aren't anything new anymore, I remember back in March and April people were waiting MONTHS for these cores and there was a huge cult-following and they got hyped up, they really aren't that special anymore
Chris - the same pattern followed with the Winchester core when it was first released, the early ones overclocked well but that trait soon degraded in later cores. I suspect that the early cores are not speedbinned as tightly because the architecture is newer and has a lower success rate, but as time passes AMD improved success rate and was able to tighten their binning and ship processors that were "tighter" to their initial specifications