Not again: Redditor claims ASRock Motherboard took out two 9800X3D CPUs

How many cases of ASRock 800-series motherboards killing Ryzen 9000 CPUs are there for something like this to happen twice ? We will probably never know the full number, as most users will never share their experiences on forums or Reddit. It seems fair to say there are more cases of ASRock 800-series boards damaging CPUs than there were burned cables on RTX 40-series cards.

Reddit user ShendoZ claims that his ASRock X870 RS PRO WiFi motherboard has killed a second CPU. He regrets trusting ASRock and blames himself for not returning the board the first time, believing instead that the new BIOS updates ASRock had been releasing for months would fix the issue.

ASRock returned his board with BIOS version 3.25, which is not the latest (that happened two months ago) but one that ASRock claims resolves the PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) limits exceeding specifications. ASRock’s VP of motherboard business even stated that they believe this “solves the problem.” It should therefore be the correct and safe BIOS. Unfortunately, for this user, it did not.

A recent investigation by Gamers Nexus suggested that the root cause may not be the PBO values themselves, even though they can exceed AMD’s limits. The situation remains unclear, as the issue is complex. AMD has not provided direct support, instead blaming motherboard manufacturers for using non-reference specifications.

It’s worth noting that the user did not provide photos or proof that the incident occurred, but given this would be the second reported case, it’s reasonable to assume it could be true.

Source: Reddit