Receiving a fake piece of performance hardware is every PC builder’s nightmare, and it’s evidently becoming harder to separate the scams from the actual products.
This time, Amazon sold Aris Mpitzipoulos of Hardware Busters fame a fake version of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, widely regarded as the best processor for gaming in the world.
For an idea of the timeframe — and to give you a better idea of whether or not you should indeed check out that new CPU you’ve yet to unbox — the “Ryzen 7 9800X3D” was ordered on February 25, 2025, and arrived on March 4 after being purchased from Germany’s Amazon.de.
In this example, the “Ryzen 7 9800X3D” arrived in a sealed retail box. Amazon is supposed to do a quick check on products it ships out, but a retailer selling as many different items won’t always have the know-how to spot a fake.
And, as Mptizipoulos states in a blog post on Hardware Busters, nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first:
“All seemed legit till I opened the box, with the weird looking processor, having nothing to do with the 9000 series. I immediately noticed the different heatspreader, the pins (!) on the bottom side, and the writing on the heatspreader which tells from miles away that it is “fake”! After realizing I have no 9800X3D to use in my upcoming CPU review, I grabbed my camera to shoot some photos and a video!”
As you can see in the above image, which I grabbed from the Hardware Unboxed post, the fake chip’s heatspreader reads “AMD Ryzen 7 9700X3D” and has the extra codes and numbers you’d expect to find.
Looking closer, of course, reveals some oddities, like the year, place of origin, and actual shape of the CPU’s lid — the real Ryzen 7 9800X3D has a cutaway lid rather than a full square, as seen on the fake.
The fake says it was made in China and has a 2020 date on it, but a sticker was peeled away by Mptizipoulos to reveal an AMD FX-4100 CPU from 2011. Talk about a Scooby-Doo moment.
Someone with less PC knowledge might not have noticed the differences until attempting to install the chip in one of AMD’s compatible AM5-chipset motherboards.
It wouldn’t actually fit properly in the socket, but it could certainly do some damage if someone were to attempt to mount it.
How did Amazon miss a Ryzen 7 9800X3D scam like this?
The troubles experienced by Hardware Unboxed are unfortunately not unique, and Amazon is often the retailer shipping the scam hardware.
As I mentioned, the retailer is so big that it can’t possibly keep track of everything it ships. Amazon is far from a PC-focused storefront, and even the more specialized stores can fall prey to this level of scam.
Mptizipoulos seems convinced that this particular scam is at a “different level,” owing to the fact that he purchased the CPU new from Amazon itself rather than a third-party seller hosted on the storefront.
I find it hard to believe that AMD itself would attempt to sell a 14-year-old processor in lieu of the mighty Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but stranger things have happened.
What I expect happened is someone purchased the Ryzen 7 9800X3D from Amazon, carefully opened the packaging, replaced the chip with the doctored FX-4100, and resealed the packaging.
Shrink-wrap gizmos that can produce results similar to those of an actual factory are no longer a heavy investment, especially if a scammer foresees making big money off of the process.
After returning the chip, which would have gone back looking like it’d never been opened, Amazon returned it to a live listing to sell again as new.
No matter what actually happened behind the scenes, the scam made it quite far down the line before being discovered.
Mptizipoulos has entered the return procedure via Amazon, but he now has to wait for up to three weeks before getting any money back.
This is a reminder to check the PC hardware you purchase
In this case, the scam was quite evident once the chip was out of the box, but that’s not always the case.
As reported by Tom’s Hardware in January 2025, fake Ryzen 7 9800X3D chips coming out of China looked a whole lot more legitimate with the right lid and printing.
You should also be ever-wary of scams involving irresistible prices. During 2024’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Amazon had listings for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D priced at $200, less than half the MSRP, just days after the official launch.
👉 Where to buy AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D
I’ve yet to fall victim to a scam like this despite often dealing in PC hardware (knock on wood), but I’m always careful to ensure that what I ordered is what I received.
This situation with Hardware Busters should serve as a reminder to us all to double-check our hardware for any noticeable differences before attempting to install.
