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YouTube channel Hardware Busters claims it bought what regarded like an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU from Amazon for processor testing functions. Good for them! Upon opening the field, nevertheless, a couple of issues stood out. One, it wasn’t the proper socket and heatspreader design for an AM5 chip, and two, an eagle-eyed viewer observed that the supposedly silkscreened brand on prime gave the impression to be a sticker.
Closer inspection (and a little bit of fingernail prying) revealed that beneath the sticker lay an AMD FX 4100, a 14-year-old Bulldozer chip that may be discovered on the used marketplace for round $10.
The quad-core, four-thread FX 4100 is a socket AM3+ chip with a 3.8 GHz increase clock and help for DDR3 reminiscence. The $479 AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, nevertheless, is an eight-core 16-thread, 3D V-Cache-imbued powerhouse of a gaming CPU on the AM5 socket with help for DDR5 reminiscence, and a 5.2 GHz max increase clock.
Basically, they could not be additional aside if one was top-of-the-line CPUs for gaming, and the opposite was a ham sandwich.
So what tomfoolery has occurred right here? Well, that is doubtless a case of some unscrupulous Amazon buyer shopping for a near-$500 gaming CPU, then marking it as defective and returning a a lot, less expensive processor again to Amazon—with a sticker on prime.
Returned digital elements are unlikely to be checked by somebody certified to inform whether or not they’re the proper mannequin or not. After all, it got here again in the best field, and even eradicating it from the packaging reveals what seems like the proper CPU mannequin to an untrained eye.
The unscrupulous purchaser will get to maintain their mega gaming CPU totally free, a nearly-worthless processor is misplaced in alternate, then the field is plastic wrapped, put again on the cabinets, and a few poor soul buys it for his or her subsequent gaming rig. Or on this case, take a look at bench machine.
As Hardware Busters concludes, it is vitally essential that you simply verify {hardware} elements contained in the packaging as quickly as you obtain them to see if they are surely those you paid for, even from an in any other case respected retailer.
Return home windows differ, and the earlier you may get a mislabelled (or on this case, poorly-stickered) part again for a refund, the higher.
At least on this case the variations had been apparent, nevertheless it may not be fairly so clear within the case of, for instance, a GPU. The less-tech savvy amongst us may fairly simply match a lower-model graphics card with deceptive branding on it with out realising they’d been ripped off, so all the time confirm your {hardware} after set up with helpful {hardware} diagnostic instruments like CPU-Z or HWInfo.
The extra you already know, and so on. What I need to know is, who’s going to all the difficulty to print pretty convincing stickers with a view to rip off retailers for gaming CPUs? Still, it is extra convincing than writing “Ultra quick AMD superchip” on the heatspreader in marker pen, I suppose.
