Miss Ryzen 5000 chips? We have investigated the original story and the issues regarding quality control at system vendors, and the problem may not be as severe as it initially appeared. Read on to find out more.
The kerfuffle began Sunday when system builder PowerGPU tweeted to its 222,000 followers: “The failure on the new AMD CPUs is still too high.” The company said that of the 320 Ryzen 5000 series CPUs it received, 19 were “DOA” (death on arrival), a failure rate of six percent. The company also said it saw three to five faulty B550 and X570 motherboards a week.
Paul Lilly of HotHardware initially covered the tweet, which became even more controversial when PowerGPU removed the Tweet Monday. PowerGPU then tweeted that “We just talked to AMD. We are going to work together to test some CPUs and motherboards. ‘
PCWorld contacted PowerGPU for comment, but we have not heard from the company yet. However, the company told Michael Kan, PCMag, why it removed the tweet. “I did not want fanboys from both sides to just fill in our timeline,” the company told Kan. “The good thing is that AMD really cares about our brand and that they want to help us and make sure our business continues.” In his column, Kan notes that he personally experienced a bad Ryzen 5000 chip, which was eventually replaced after a hassle.
Should Ryzen customers be concerned?
Ryzen customers were understandably worried after this news. PCWorld reached out to AMD and officials told us it was an isolated incident.
“AMD is investigating a claim from a personal computer manufacturer regarding higher than expected failure rates they are experiencing with Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors,” a spokesman said. “We are not aware of similar issues at the moment.”
PCWorld has also contacted several system builders to see if they have similar experiences. PCWorld has agreed not to give the companies a name, to release the sellers to speak openly. All three vendors appear to be selling more Ryzen systems than PowerGPU.com, so their sample sizes may be more indicative of how real the problem is.
Other system vendors: What problems?
The first seller said he saw no problems with his Ryzen-based systems. The company is closely monitoring its build line and RMAs (Authorizations for Return Goods). If a component exceeds a two percent threshold, it is marked immediately.
A second seller echoes the first. Nothing unusual has been reported about the quality control, RMA and technical support lines associated with Ryzen 5000 CPUs, PCWorld said.
A third seller provided even more information. The company said PowerGPU does not see reported failure rates with its own systems. Interestingly, however, the seller did share data suggesting that Ryzen parts are failing the quality of the business at a higher rate compared to Intel chips – almost three times as high:
- Ryzen 5000 series failed by 2.9 percent.
- Ryzen 3000 series failed by 3 percent.
- ThreadRipper 3000 series failed by 2.5 percent.
For comparison, the company’s data on Intel chips:
- Intel 9th generation failed by 0.9 percent.
- Intel’s tenth generation failed by 1.2 percent.
Let’s define ‘failed’. The vendor noted that, like most computer vendors, it still ships more Intel-based CPUs than AMD-based CPUs. The sample size affects the data: if you bake one dozen cookies and burn one, the extra crisp will stick out one more than when you bake five dozen cookies and burn a few.
The third seller torture testing systems with full memory slots – even if it does not end up selling like that. The vendor also explained that the failed CPUs are not dead, as PowerGPU reported – they just do not meet the requirements to fully load low-latency or high-frequency RAM.
Interestingly, the third supplier also said there is no clear rhyme or reason for CPUs not succeeding. For example, more Core i9-10900K chips were found to pass its tests than Core i9-10850K chips, while the 64-core ThreadRipper 3990X was more successful than the 32-core and 24-core versions. The third seller said he would not describe the specific disapproval rate as a ‘problem’.
Other sites: Same here
All the companies that PCWorld spoke to were based in the United States, but other media sites abroad reported similar non-issues.
Mark Campbell of Overclock3D.net spoke to a UK computer builder who said no dead CPUs were seen. “Our source claims that they did not experience any DOA CPUs for the Ryzen 5000 series, an allegation that makes PowerGPU incredibly unhappy, or our source is incredibly happy,” said Overclock3D.net.
Australia’s popular YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed said it spoke to a popular local retailer. “… I was told the failure rate for each part is normal and below 2% …”
One latest report comes from Kitiguru.net’s Joao Silva, who quoted RMAs from European store Mindfactory. The Ryzen 9 5950X rate was 0.77 percent; Ryzen 9 5900X, below 0.37 percent; Ryzen 7 5800X, 0.58 percent; and Ryzen 5 5600X, 0.5 percent.
What to believe
Based on the three providers we spoke to, as well as reports from other sites, it appears that the issue of PowerGPU.com is an issue. We do not know what the situation was with that seller, but it is quite possible that it aimed snake eyes at a few slides, which was due to a number of unknown things.
Hopefully PowerGPU.com will post additional information on what caused the failure rates. For now, you may be more worried about whether you can even buy a Ryzen 5000 CPU, rather than whether it’s bad.
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