Well-known hardware reviewers aren't immune to tech retail fakers, and to demonstrate this, Hardware Busters has shared images of a counterfeit AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and its packaging. Dealing with fakes seems to be part and parcel of being a tech enthusiast nowadays, but luckily Aris from Hardware Busters will very likely get his money back, via the returns process he has now begun on Amazon.de.
The retail box that the fake Ryzen 7 9800X3D was shipped in was a decent enough copy to pass inspection (the packaging might even have been genuine). Aris Mpitziopoulos, the head honcho at Hardware Busters (and who you may also know for his in-depth power supply reviews here on Tom's Hardware), says that he received the CPU on March 4, but only got around to ripping away the shrink wrap on March 9, due to a hectic schedule.
Once the box was opened, fakery was immediately apparent. See the side-by-side genuine Ryzen 9000 chip (left) and faked 9800X3D (right) in our gallery, and the coveted X3D chip is obviously a fraud. AMD transitioned to the now-familiar octopus shaped IHS with the advent of the Ryzen 7000 series of desktop processors.
So, perhaps Aris got an AMD CPU that was a couple of generations old? No. As you can see from the amazing IHS sticker peel image (top) under the sticker was an AMD FX-4100, a 32nm quad-core Bulldozer architecture chip that launched in 2011. Even in its prime, this AMD CPU lagged behind the Intel’s Core i3-2100 in gaming comparison tests we conducted in early 2012.
The faked 9800X3D also features a completely different package with pins rather than pads, so an unobservant amateur PC DIYer could accidentally kill an expensive motherboard trying to crush this processor in an AM5 socket. That would be a terrible loss, and Aris was thankfully awake when he unboxed the counterfeit processor.
There are a few more details about this Amazon.de purchase that are interesting to repeat. Aris says that this 9800X3D was bought new, not used or returned, from Amazon direct, rather than a third-party seller. The sealed packaging seemed genuine to him.
Now Hardware Busters has to deal with the waste of time and inconvenience of receiving this fake 9800X3D. Aris reckons it will take three weeks to be refunded the significant chunk of cash spent on this fake CPU.
If you are in the market for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which sits confidently among the best CPUs, please be scam-aware. We have previously reported on Amazon US being flooded with fake $199 9800X3D listings – targeting the Black Friday sales events last year. More recently, we noticed fake Ryzen 9000 series chips in China upcycling Ryzen 7000 parts, giving the fake CPU substrates a characteristic green tinge (they should be a shade of blue).
