A recent discovery that overclocking AMD's latest chips blows a fuse to denote the chip has been overclocked has led to slightly misleading claims that it will automatically void the chips' warranty for any type of failure. However, AMD clarified to Tom's Hardware that overclocking AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 (Storm Peak) and non-Pro lineup, among the best workstation CPUs, doesn't automatically void the processor’s warranty.
“Threadripper 7000 Series processors do contain a fuse that is blown when overclocking is enabled. To be clear, blowing this fuse does not void your warranty. Statements that enabling an overclocking/overvolting feature will “void” the processor warranty are not correct. Per AMD’s standard Terms of Sale, the warranty excludes any damage that results from overclocking/overvolting the processor. However, other unrelated issues could still qualify for warranty repair/replacement,” an AMD representative told Tom’s Hardware.
In summation, overclocking your Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 or non-Pro processor will not void the warranty — only damages directly resulting from overclocking will. As always, AMD isn’t against overclocking. If it was, the chipmaker wouldn’t advertise overclocking support as one of the features of the WRX90 and TRX50 platforms. Only OEM systems lack overclocking support.
The issue was thrust into the limelight by a screenshot from X user David Huang with a BIOS disclaimer from the ODM. The disclaimer says, “Overclocking mode will now be permanently enabled for this processor and effectively void the warranty as previously stated.” However, there is some nuance to this boilerplate warning.
Some Threadripper motherboards have two warning messages: The first is a copy and paste of AMD’s standard PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) warning, and the second is a one-sentence warning from the ODM. To be clear, only the PBO legalese is from AMD. Therefore, the company is working with its partners to clean up any offending ODM BIOS warning messages because they don't represent AMD’s official stance on overclocking Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 and non-Pro chips.
The presence of secret fuses isn’t anything new in AMD’s processors, especially the HEDT and Pro workstation chips. The fuses were already present in some Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-series (Chagall) processors.
Enabling overclocking will permanently blow the fuse, meaning AMD will know that, at some point, the user has overclocked the processor. As usual, AMD’s warranty only excludes damage from overclocking. If your chip wasn’t damaged due to overclocking, AMD would cover it. Of course, AMD won’t detail how the chipmaker determines if the processor’s death resulted from a bad overclock. We certainly haven't heard of any reports of AMD revoking warranties for Chagall due to having merely enabled overclocking, but do note that this is simply anecdotal.
You can still overclock Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 and non-Pro processors, but you should do so responsibly. Unless you’re pushing these Zen 4 chips to the max to break world records, we don’t think you’ll have any problems. There’s no word whether AMD will add this fuse to future Ryzen consumer processors. At least, for now, we know it isn’t there. We can only wonder if Intel has a similar implementation on its chips.
