Ryzen 5000 failure rates: We reality‑check the claims

Problems with bad Ryzen chips may be overblown.

- GORDON MAH UNG

Are Ryzen 5000 chips failing? We looked into the original story and the issues around quality control at system vendors, and the problem may not be as bad as it initially appeared. The kerfuffle kicked off on Sunday, when system builder PowerGPU tweeted to its 222,000 followers: “The failure on the new AMD CPUs are still too high.” The company said that of the 320 Ryzen 5000 series CPUs it had received, 19 were “DOA” (dead on arrival), an eyebrow-raising 6 percent failure rate. The company also said it had seen three to five failing B550- and X570-based motherboards a week.

HotHardware’s Paul Lilly initially covered the tweet (go.pcworld.com/plil), which became even more controversial when PowerGPU deleted it on Monday. PowerGPU then tweeted, “We just had a chat with AMD. We are going to work together testing out some CPUs and motherboards.”

PCWorld reached out to PowerGPU for comment, but we have not heard from the company. PowerGPU did, however, tell PCMag’s Michael Kan why it deleted the tweet. “I didn’t want fanboys from both sides just filling up our timeline,” the company told Kan. “The good thing is AMD does really care for our brand and they want to help us and make sure our business continues forward.” In his column, Kan noted he had personally experienced a bad Ryzen 5000 chip, which was eventually replaced after some hassle (go.pcworld.com/pexp).

SHOULD RYZEN CUSTOMERS BE WORRIED?

Ryzen customers were understandably worried after this news. PCWorld reached out to AMD, and officials told us this was an isolated incident.