An isolated incident or something else?
The victim, a Redditor named “t0pli,” is a PC builder with two decades of experience.
It ran smoothly without overclocking or high temperatures.
Then, the system shut down out of nowhere while t0pli was watching shows.
Upon inspection, the 9800X3D chip and ASRock motherboard showed severe thermal damage (masthead).
The crazy part is that t0pli says he didn’t use any overclocking tricks or push the hardware excessively.
Besides enabling AMD’s EXPO memory profiles, the rig was idling with stock controls.
HWMonitor confirmed that temperatures appeared normal before the failure, too.
This incident isn’t the first time a user has reported a failed 9800X3D.
In November, another user had their $479 chip unexpectedly burn up, taking the motherboard with it.
However, in t0pli’s case, the cause is unclear.
Worse still, t0pli bought the motherboard and CPU from different retailers, which could complicate warranty coverage.
So far, AMD hasn’t officially commented on these chip failures.
Of course, AMD isn’t the only chipmaker facing flagship processor issues.
Last year, Intel experienced similarproblemswith its Raptor Lake CPUs, which weresusceptibleto permanent damage.
Numerous reports revealed that the processors were receiving excessive voltage.
