AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is probably the best pure gaming processor on the market right now. We reviewed its 16-core counterpart, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which is also an excellent gaming SKU and will additionally serve multitaskers well.
While that is something for AMD to be happy about, it also seems like several of its 9800X3D parts are failing. Users are reporting that their CPU burned up or died for some reason they can't quite pinpoint. As we mentioned above, though, there is also the possibility that several of them are first-time buyers and may not be all that familiar with DIY PC building quirks. So user-side error is certainly possible too.
Curiously, it looks like ASRock motherboards are the ones where users are reporting the highest number of failures. There is apparently mounting evidence to suggest may be the case.
A Reddit user natty_overlord on the ASRock subreddit has compiled as many as such cases and in total, the number of 9800X3D failures has crossed 100. They write:
So far there are 108 stories from people of 9800X3D which passed POST, and was working for a short amount of time before suddenly dying with no signs of failure. Also 2 9950X3D, and 10 other 9000 series Ryzen CPUs.
The issue is also not prominent on one or two particular motherboard variants or chipsets, as it is being seen across the board. They include ASRock Steel Legend, ASRock Taichi, Riptide, and more.
Out of the 108 total Ryzen 9000 failures, Tom's Hardware calculated that ASRock mainboards saw 98 failures or 82% of cases. Asus came second with 16 or 13% of the cases, MSI had five failures or 5% of the cases. Gigabyte managed to top the chart with just a single failure or approximately 1% of the cases.
Meanwhile, in terms of chipsets, the newer 800 series chipset boards had the majority of failures.
On one hand, situations like these especially on such an expensive gear, are never desirable; but on the other, we have also reported about instances where overclocking enthusiasts have pushed CPUs to their extremes, like this 9950X3D at 6 GHz. So they could well be user-side errors too.
Hopefully, AMD and ASRock as well as the other motherboard vendors, are investigating. But for that, the companies may require more data as the sample size is still fairly small compared to the total potential number of Ryzen 9000 CPUs out there. It is noteworthy here that ASRock had already issued a firmware update to fix X3D problems towards the end of February.
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