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Buying one of the best processors from a retailer like Amazon seems like a safe bet, but that isn’t always the case. A hardware reviewer just bought an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU on Amazon only to find out that it was fake. The box looked convincing enough, but the hardware found inside had nothing to do with the beastly CPU you’d expect to find. The worst part? I found fake listings on Amazon right now for that same CPU.
Crmaris from HWBusters is the unlucky shopper. He needed an extra Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU for testing purposes, so he ordered one from Amazon Germany. The reviewer claims that the CPU was sold directly by Amazon and was brand new, which should imply that it’d arrive in good condition.
Well, it may have been in good condition, but it certainly wasn’t a 9800X3D.
The difference was glaringly obvious just as soon as Crmaris opened the box, which looked legit. Inside, there was a CPU that had some semi-dodgy lettering that claimed it was a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It also said it was diffused in the U.S. and in Taiwan, but made in China. The sketchy-looking front was just one of the problems; it also had a different heatspreader and entirely different pins.
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The text on the heatspreader turned out to be a sticker. When the sticker was peeled off, the CPU turned out to be an old AMD FX processor from 2011. Needless to say, it wouldn’t fit into an AM5 socket motherboard, and it certainly wouldn’t perform like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.
Seeing as this was sold directly by Amazon and wasn’t a returned product (where the previous buyer could’ve replaced the CPU in the box), a deeper investigation needs to follow on Amazon’s part. The reviewer asked for a refund and will need to wait up to three weeks for the money to be returned to his account.
This story prompted me to check out Amazon U.S., and lo and behold, the first listing I found was suspiciously good. It’s a sponsored listing, so it appears right at the top of the search. It’s sold by a third-party company, not Amazon, and has no reviews. The most telling part is that it’s sold for $429. Checking Newegg tells me that price isn’t right — the , which is much more in line with its current price. (Unfortunately, due to availability issues, the 9800X3D is pricey even months after launch).
Long story short, it’s important to be careful when buying components online, and if something doesn’t feel right, go ahead and get a refund — people will sell fakes just about anywhere.
Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…
This is the one gaming CPU I recommend over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D
AMD’s new Ryzen 7 9800X3D is already one of the best processors you can buy. It delivers productivity and gaming gains across the board, though not in equal strides. Despite the improvements AMD made, the last-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D is still potent competition, particularly when it comes to gaming.
These are two of the go-to gaming CPUs right now, and although the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is newer and faster, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is still the right CPU for most people. That becomes clear when you look at the main focus of these CPUs — gaming performance — and how prices are starting to settle.
Specs and pricing
Scalpers are already jacking up the price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Blink and you missed it — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is sold out everywhere. As you can read in our Ryzen 7 9800X3D review, it’s one of the best processors you can buy, and just minutes after the first listings went live, the CPU went out of stock. Scalpers on eBay are already capitalizing.
Dozens of listings are live, most of them over $900. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has a suggested retail price of $479. These are “preorder” listing on eBay. Quotes are important here because, unlike a traditional preorder, these smaller sellers on eBay purchase a chip for list price and then flip it for a much higher price. In other words, scalping. None of the listings have sold yet, though one eBay shopper picked up the chip for $564 yesterday.
I tested the Ryzen 7 9800X3D against the Core Ultra 9 285K. It’s not even close
AMD’s hotly anticipated Ryzen 7 9800X3D is finally here, and I’ll tell you right away that it’s one of the best processors you can buy. It introduces AMD’s next-gen 3D V-Cache tech, and it dominates in games. But there’s still plenty of competition coming from Intel.
The recent Core Ultra 9 285K offers more cores and higher speeds overall, and although it’s a flagship CPU, the price increase on the Ryzen 7 9800X3D means the two CPUs are closer than ever in price. I threw them on the test bench to see which CPU comes out ahead, and the race wasn’t nearly as tight as I thought it would be.
Specs and pricing
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