Fulcrum29
Honorary Master
I'll throw my thoughts on the matter. Maybe this turns out to be a bigger deal down the line, but based on experience this is the media hype-train in full effect. I've watched these hype-trains in the past and seen the effects they have.
The following will include some anecdotes as well as stats based on figures that are 100x larger than the SA market as a whole.
Asus motherboards melting AM5 CPUs
Asus have two motherboard distributors in the country, neither took action, and neither even knew about the issue. Asus ZA was unaware as well and, to date, hasn't had a return due to a motherboard melting a CPU.
Gigabyte PB-series PSUs exploding
There are two distributors for Gigabyte PSUs in the country. One had two returns within the affected serial number range. Of the two, one was just completely dead (POSSIBLY (and I say this with no evidence) due to load shedding, which was a daily occurrence at the time), and the other was returned because the customer wanted a replacement that didn't fall within the SN range. The other distributor is oblivious to the matter as there weren't returns.
NZXT cases catching fire
This had probably the greatest effect on sales of all the hype-train events of late. I watched disti stock levels stay exactly the same for about a week. No issues were reported.
As with all previous events, this MIGHT end up being a big deal. It might end up being the biggest deal since the Pentium FVID bug from 30 years ago. AS IT STANDS, though, this is just media hyping up a situation to get views. Clickbait gets views, drama gets views, and before you know it something is blown completely out of proportion.
Across the board, whether I look at my own returns, speak to distributors with national figures, speak to vendors' local offices to see if international figures are worth talking about, or even look at international retailer numbers that have been released, 13th and 14th Gen have had a lower failure rate than AM5. Everyone is aware of the situation, but nobody is seeing the same figures the media is portraying.
Side note, strangely, and I don't really see the correlation, more RAM is returned from AM5 systems than Intel DDR5 systems .
Some recent stats:
Intel: This covers 10th, and 12th through 14th Gen - yes, some people still buy 10th Gen
Intel CPUs sold: 118
Intel CPUs returned: 0
Intel CPUs replaced: 0
Intel return rate: 0%
Intel replacement rate: 0%
Breakdown of returns:
- N/A
AMD: This covers Ryzen 4000-, 5000- and 7000-Series - no recent 3000-Series or older sales
AMD CPUs sold: 97
AMD CPUs returned: 5
AMD CPUs replaced: 4
AMD return rate: 5.2%
AMD replacement rate: 4.1%
Breakdown of returns:
- 1 x Ryzen 5 4500 - faulty
- 1 x Ryzen 7 5800X3D - no fault found
- 1 x Ryzen 5 7600X - faulty
- 1 x Ryzen 7 7700 - faulty
- 1 x Ryzen 7 7700X - faulty
All failure rates have been below 5%, which is an industry-acceptable level.
Anecdote. I have a friend that deployed five i9-13900 (non-K) CPUs as servers more than a year ago. Budget is the only thing that prevented the company from doing more at the time, as the five really aren't enough, and seldom drop below 100% load 24/7. All five are still rock-solid.
The only failure since 2020 which was actually a big deal was a Corsair DDR4 dummy RAM kit, which had around an 80% failure rate with most being DOA. I pulled them from sale once returns indicated there was clearly an issue, and Corsair recalled them very shortly thereafter.
I have other reasons to steer people away from 14th Gen, such as lack of upgradability (future LGA1700 CPUs will lack E-cores and AI cores), often poorer value for money, sometimes poorer performance, higher power draw (and therefore poorer thermals), etc.
With the above in mind, I'll be keeping a close eye on the Intel situation and act accordingly
May I ask what your returns on AM5 MSI boards looks like?
