'Mindblowing' fake AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D chip investigated — buyers beware

TechTuber Der8auer has highlighted the plight of one of his fans who was scammed into buying a fake AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor, normally one of the best CPUs for gaming.  The expert overclocker talks viewers through some of the outward signs that this chip was a fake, which could prevent others from falling for scams like this. He also purchased the "mindblowing" counterfeit from the scam victim to take a closer look, delid it, and deliver a thorough analysis.

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A Der8auer fan named Bruce bought the fake chip online via a Romanian outlet known as OLX. This is said to be like the Facebook marketplace, and consists mostly of private sellers, with returns or warranties not a realistic option. Bruce thought he saved about €100 on the typical European retail price of the 7800X3D, by snapping up this chip for €300…

Any warm glow of satisfaction from grabbing a bargain will have rapidly dissipated after receiving the chip and plugging the CPU into the motherboard for its first boot. Powering up a system with this chip reveals that it is dead. Nothing happens. Bruce did some basic checks, probing pads using a multimeter, but didn’t see any signs of life.

Der8auer to the rescue

Der8auer purchased the dead chip for the full retail price of a new model, meaning that Bruce could go and get a new, fully guaranteed chip from a reputable supplier. It also meant that we could enjoy witnessing the overclocker’s keen eye as he analysed the useless 7800X3D-a-like lump.

Even before Der8auer received the physical product from Bruce, he spotted some tell-tale signs that things were not all as they should be. Going from the photos alone, Der8auer noticed that the chip substrate color was wrong (too blue, not enough green). This could have been a photography lighting issue and was hard to confirm until the product was received. Secondly, on a genuine AMD X3D chip, capacitors which you see between the ‘octopus’ legs are covered in a protective resin, while the fake had shiny uniform blocks.

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On receiving the chip, the color difference and lack of resin were confirmed. With the supposed 7800X3D in hand, Der8auer also noted the fake chip had a thinner PCB and was much less a tight fit into the CPU loading mechanism. Measurements confirmed a PCB thickness of just 0.964mm for the fake, compared to 1.308mm on the genuine X3D processor -  a significant difference.

Using identical photos of the fake / original and photoshop layer opacity levels Der8auer shows that it is easy to see a lot of IHS/engraving differences between the chips. Some of these differences weren’t surfaced from inspections using the naked eye, without side-by-side comparison.

After his exterior visual inspection, Der8auer decided it was time to delid this unresponsive and non-genuine-looking AMD branded processor.

Delidding wasn’t as expected either, as the IHS separated with a lot less effort than usual. Now for the big reveal – there was no silicon on the substrate, not even some broken or lower-spec chip was present on the PCB. The maker of this faux-X3D created a rectangular bump on the underside of the IHS to mimic the CCD and I/O die, so before delid it looked like a chip was present in the gap.

Der8auer summed up that the effort put into faking the PCB and IHS made the fake chip look “professional.” It certainly seems good enough to pass inspection for those who haven’t seen or handled many X3D chips in person, and the packaging was good too.

The main fails of the counterfeiters were PCB color, and surface mount capacitor glue/resin detail, as noted above, but the capacitor number and positioning were “spot on,” according to Der8auer. Actually, the TechTuber ramped up his praise of the fake product, towards the end of the video. The IHS was of particularly good quality, he asserted, as it lacked the pronounced side-machining marks seen on the original.

Finally, there is the question of the time and effort put into this fake. This suggests that there could be many more of these around, perhaps. So, please be careful out there. This isn't the first and won't be the last CPU fake enthusiasts will need to be wary of.