ASUS X670E-Extreme Could Be Burning 7000X3D

[AGTDenton]

Something to keep an eye on if anyone owns this motherboard & CPU combo.

...various users have reported issues surrounding 7000X3D CPUs dying with burn marks on them when being used with an ASUS X670E-Extreme motherboard.

https://www.eteknix.com/asus-x670e-e...0x3d-cpus/amp/

[Jonj1611]

Wow seems 'extreme'

Yeah yeah will get my coat

[AGTDenton]

The price is certainly extreme - shy of £1000!
And I considered £350 for mine to be extortionate!

[ik9000]

The price is certainly extreme - shy of £1000!
And I considered £350 for mine to be extortionate!

£1k? It's the Jonny Cash edition with Ring of Fire branding.

[Saracen999]

Ah, the much mocked Asus Extreme Extreme, Extreme .... how many extremes were there? I lost count.

I guess the might be a case for justifying that price in very specifc niche cases, such as extreme (sorry) over-clocking where the absolute best (I avoided saying 'extreme' .... oh, damn) component quality is needed, and where volumes are going to be very low as a result.

For me, personally, over-clocking is a thing of the past, except maybe turning on RAM settings, and maybe a tweak or two in your tuning panel of choice. But "proper" over-clocking? Ah, the days of cutting CPU tracks to enable it. Sigh.

Nah, if it's more than a quick BIOS setting, I can't be bothered. Motherboard choice is more about ensuring I get hardware I want, or might in the short/medium term, thereby hopefully avoiding buying a new board anytime soon, and then basically running that board/CPU/GPU combination until it gasps it's last, which means paying a bit more now, but not again for many years. Hopefully.

X670? Yup. X670E? Maybe? Depends on exact spec/price. X670E Poncy Editions? Nope.

[[GSV]Trig]

I agree, if fact I run my 5800x in 'Eco' mode these days and have underclocked and power capped my 3080FE as well, monitor only does 144hz so FPS capped, then underclocked until I start to see performance drop.
Long gone are the days of drawing lines on the top of Athlon CPU's, all seems a bit extreme these days, too much time spent to eek out the odd percentage of improvement.

Did I see something about AMD GPU drivers giving them too much voltage and making things pop as well the other month?

[Saracen999]

There certainly seems to be an apparent trend for manufacturers to clock the poop out of many products, presumably to try to get/keep the "best gaming <whatever>, or to one-up the other lot.

I prefer to think of clocking in thesame way I chose to dress - whether it's a penguin suit, jeans and t-shirt, track sut and trainers, etc, depends entirely on what I'm doing. I don't (believe i or not) wear the latter two style choices to a banquet at the Lord Mayor's Mansion or a Buck House Garden Party (still waiting for my invites, BTW, just sayin') and I don't wear a Tux to McDonalds. Not that I go to McDonalds.Not for years, anyway.

Similarly clocking. I don't want my GPU (or probably CPU) imaging they're relaxng, poolside, on a cruise liner, and I don't want them in fully beating their chest "bring it on" mode, if I'm typing a brief memo in a WP.

The KB-based "performance mode" tuning, as and when I need it, is fine. I did tweak a few setting in the GPU control panel for those, but that's it. I guess, the lower the spec of the GPU (and to a lesser degree, CPU) a person has, the more they may feel the need to clock, but even the 'mobile' versions of 5800X and 3080 in this lappy are pretty effective.

[AGTDenton]

It does appear to be more than just an ASUS problem.

The users reporting the issues mostly seem to be using Asus or MSI motherboards based on the X670 chipset, and many indicated that they were using the default settings for their CPUs. But the sample size is so small that we'd avoid drawing conclusions about any particular chipset or motherboard maker.

And AMD reached out with an update:

"We are aware of a limited number of reports online claiming that excess voltage while overclocking may have damaged the motherboard socket and pin pads. We are actively investigating the situation and are working with our ODM partners to ensure voltages applied to Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs via motherboard BIOS settings are within product specifications. Anyone whose CPU may have been impacted by this issue should contact AMD customer support."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023...y-be-to-blame/

[AGTDenton]

Gamers Nexus does what they do best:

They've only bought the components that the Reddit users published last month!

[Jonj1611]

Very interesting video, certainly would be thinking twice about getting one of those processors/mainboards until they have fixed the issue/ruled out the problem

[AGTDenton]

It's good that so many in the tech community are pitching in to this.
Though it's concerning that the more they dig, the more issues they're finding in the platform.

All we can hope is that AMD learn a lot here and will address such issues from occuring on the next Zen.

[kompukare]

It's good that so many in the tech community are pitching in to this.
Though it's concerning that the more they dig, the more issues they're finding in the platform.

All we can hope is that AMD learn a lot here and will address such issues from occuring on the next Zen.

I wonder whether making AM5 "future proof" has contributed to some of this?

As in "while we currently require no more than 130W [or whatever], we better design our socket to be able to cope with any future 300W CPUs we might have to release [to compete with a future Intel 1x900KS]".

However, if the design is for the mobo to ask the CPU what it wants and then supply it, then that is asking for trouble if the CPU dies. If the BIOS must supply crazy voltages, then there should be something which polls the CPU ever few ms and re-affirms that everything is okay. A only ask at POST then continue even if the CPU dies approach is far to dangerous.

[Saracen999]

Followup video to this - Steve really unloads on "Scumbag Asus". See Scumbag ASUS: Overvolting CPUs & Screwing the Customer

Wow. Come on, Steve, don't hold back. Say what you really think.

Oh wait ...

[AGTDenton]

So ASUS has backed down and are honouring an extended warranty for using the beta BIOS.
But they haven't gone as far as reimbersing anyone for damaged CPUs.

https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-...tion-warranty/

https://www.asus.com/us/news/ihctikmgahafyrib/

2023/05/15

We want to address the concerns that have been raised by our users about whether recent BIOS updates will impact the warranty of ASUS AM5 motherboards. We would like to reassure our customers that both beta and fully validated BIOS updates for ASUS AM5 motherboards are covered by the original manufacturer’s warranty.

1. The ASUS AM5 motherboard warranty also covers all AMD EXPO, Intel XMP, and DOCP memory configurations.
2. All recent BIOS updates follow the latest AMD voltage guidelines for AMD Ryzen™ 7000 series processors.

They go on to list various warranty centres around the world.


EDIT: Further to the above, based on the original Motherboard Model in this topic, a non beta BIOS was released yesterday:

https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/ro...helpdesk_bios/

[[GSV]Trig]

Finally got round to watching the video, Asus would normally have been a contender on my build list, and while every company makes mistakes, its how you handle those mistakes and the fallout that says a lot...

[Jonj1611]

Well I have an Asus B550 Rog Strix that has an audio fault. Asus after messing around with their tech support just says sorry we don't exchange anything, contact the vendor. Cheers Asus! Thankfully that vendor was Amazon! New motherboard coming tomorrow!