https://boilingsteam.com/an-in-depth-look-at-the-steam-deck-apu/
A Suprising Discovery Inside The Steam Deck's APU
Even if you managed to activate them, they would probably not be useful for a gaming handheld, as they were designed for image processing.
Yeah, that's also my theory, and even if you could get it functioning in a way to benefit gaming, it would abso-fucking-lutely make the thermal situation worse.
I hear lots of people are about to be hit by blizzards. Gotta find alternative heat sources
Maybe they are not hooked up to the board. Otherwise there probably would have been something to see in the drivers, I reckon.
usually AMD nowadays severs the unused parts for core unlocking. AMD occasionally had parts between 2009-2013 which could be unlocked (e.g athlon tri cores to quad cores, 6950 to 6970, r9 290 to r9 290x) but hasnt really happened since then.
You had to win the silicone lottery to do so though. Or the supply and demand lottery, I guess. Tri core CPUs started as quad core silicon where one of the cores was damaged during manufacturing, but as the manufacturing got better they started having fewer mistakes and started supplying the price bracket with perfectly working quads with one core disabled.
the 290 to 290x situation was basically the same. You had to get a cpu/gpu that was fully working, but artificially limited to to provide for the numbers of the lower tier product due to demand. with all of the unlockable chips, its was very specific time windows where it was possible to get a functional one.