The latest and greatest gaming U, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, has become the center of a new fake chip scam. The new U is consistently selling out, and with such popularity, it was only a matter of time before rampant fakes began to leak into the supply chain.
A new report stemming from the Chinese hardware forum, Chiphell, has shown a return of a supposed AMD AMD Ryzen 7000-series processor, disguised as a 9800X3D.
The return form details the customer's complaint, along with the examination of the processor itself. Translated from Chinese to English, the form describes "obvious abnormalities," outside of the fact it's a 7000-series U.
One key clue is the difference in "components on the edge of the PCB." While the lid of the U has been replaced, the scammers can't touch or alter the substrate of the U or they risk killing the chip entirely. More obvious is the dark green board on which the chip is built, not the blue found on the Ryzen 9000 series.
This isn't the first time the 9800X3D has been at the center of a scam. In November, a series of fake 9800X3D chips were found in Amazon listings, uncovered by outlet GameGPU. These Us were priced ridiculously low, with the listings claiming they were for the Amiga 500 from 1987. However, this scam is a little more sophisticated.
While many big retailers can be trusted, it pays to be wary of storefronts such as Amazon and eBay. Amazon does ship and stock millions of products through many resellers, and sometimes a malicious actor can slip through the cracks. For a site such as Amazon, almost anyone can start selling on the platform, which is how the previous scam gained traction.
AMD is going through it elsewhere in the industry too. With excellent processors and the RDNA 4 release now set for March.