This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
the warranty excludes any damage that results from overclocking/overvolting the processor. However, other unrelated issues could still qualify for warranty repair/replacement
So they'll arbitrarily decide what to cover and always have a reason for denying coverage, got it.
They only have that option if you run the cpu outside of design spec. Rambunctious o/c’ers no longer get a free replacement at AMD’s expense, and helps amd figure out if there’s a problem with cpus if they are failing and are not o/c’d.
Yeah, I don't really see much of an issue here. If you get a defective chip back, it's probably a good data point to know if it was "abused". Even if it's just so you can ask more questions, or prioritize problems that show up on non-OC'd chips rather than flat rejecting an RMA.
I don't o/c my 7700x. I have no need to and I want longevity. I'd have even less of a need to o/c a thread ripper!
The design spec of a CPU is the clock speed it runs at coming from the factory, overclocking by definition means going above it - that's why it's called overclocking.
What a ridiculous take. I love overclocking and pushing hardware to its limits but if I operate equipment outside of its design parameters I don’t expect the manufacturer to bail me out if I damage it. I paid for a 3.8GHz 8 core processor (or whatever) and it’s on me if I decide to operate it outside of those parameters.
A lot of you have this sense of entitlement that does not line up with reality. If need a 12-core 3.8GHz processor that is what I buy. If you decide to buy a 12-core 3.2GHz processor and overclock it to 3.8GHz that is on you. It isn’t on the manufacturer to subsidize your overclocking adventure. Processors are binned according to what they are able to handle and based on benchmark data and the cost of higher-end processors factors in the reality that those higher-end processors may require more frequent replacements due to being on the cutting edge of the platform on which they were designed to run.
Deprogram yourself. If you buy a processor rated for X cores at Y GHz, that is the performance you should expect to receive. If you go beyond that you are on your own and what you encounter on that journey is on you.
What you are suggesting with this statement, whether you realize it or not, is that people who pay for what they actually need should subsidize your attempts to DIY that performance in the form of higher costs overall.
Please, void your warranty, but accept that you have voided it when you do.
The reason I feel the way I do, which I will clarify is just a feeling, is because of the nature of the device. With a car, I know Ford won't help me if I've replaced the stereo, but if the engine fails I know it would still be covered under warranty.
I agree with what you're saying entirely about hardcore CPU overclocking. The concern is, will AMD be fair and discerning if I have a CCU failure and I overclocked by 100MHz with adequate cooling? How about if my USB controller fails? Will they hear me out if I make a warranty claim? We are putting a lot of trust in a company, and I agree that on without these fuses they're placing a lot of trust in us.
I get what you’re saying. In a way I can see how it feels like setting a low speed limit so police can pull over whoever they want.
I think what I would say in response to that is, IMO, processors are all so fast these days that you can pretty much buy anything current and you will be fine for basic computing. The value of processors right now is just really high.
I just don’t think it is necessary to overclock in current year. It’s more of a hobby, and I say this as someone who overclocks as a hobby.
Back in the day, a couple hundred extra MHz would not just be a way more significant percentage numerically, but it could get you over the hump from a bad experience to a good experience. Today, we’re talking about 3300MHz vs 3500MHz, and it just isn’t a big difference when you experience it.
In fact, AMD’s precision boost overdrive will give you those couple-hundred MHz without voiding your warranty at all. So if you’re looking to squeeze out a little extra performance, you are covered. You just have to turn it off and demonstrate that you still have the issue before AMD will approve a warranty claim.
So what is actually voiding the warranty? It’s people going outside of what PBO is willing to do. That’s where we get into larger and larger increases in clock speed, and more importantly higher voltages. Higher voltages induce additional stress, leading to higher failure rates.
When I used to build PCs for my friends and family, you literally had to pay extra for the privilege of being able to overclock at all. Compared to that, AMD seems really reasonable in this case.
Processors are binned according to [...]
Yes, and when there's little demand for good bins and strong for bad bins then the good bin is sold at the price point of the bad bin. Which happens quite rarely nowadays as manufacturers know their yields and the market and set price points accordingly.
Really unless you have a bottle of liquid nitrogen at hand you should just stay away from the overclock settings alltogether in currentyear, especially with AMD: If you want to get more out of your CPU get a good cooler and a board with good VRM which will allow it to boost higher for longer. PBO invalidates the warranty, it doesn't void it, meaning that if the CPU misbehaves, crashes etc with PBO on AMD couldn't care less but if it doesn't work properly when you return it to stock settings then you have a warranty case. With those overclocking settings OTOH you can enter parameters that might right-out kill the CPU, parameters that PBO will stay away from.
No, only if you've overclocked and the fault is one that could be caused by overclocking. Honestly, I think it's absolutely fair for them to not replace a CPU if you killed it yourself by running it outside of spec. Most manufacturers would just say you're SOL if your CPU dies and it's ever been overclocked, even if the issue is unrelated, so I think this is a pretty good policy for them to have.
Granted, it's possible that they could always say that it was the overclocking that killed it whenever the fuse is blown, but considering how heavily AMD leans into customer good-will and positive sentiment about the company, they will probably try their best to honor any legitimate warranty claims.
That's a bit shitty but hopefully they don't just use it as a trap to deny any warranty coverage on an overclocked CPU.
Meanwhile Intel will void your warranty if you've enabled XMP. I don't know if they have a way of telling if you did so or not but they will try to trick you into admitting it when you're asking for an RMA.
Reviewers really should say "ok, well if it's not covered by warranty then we'll just do CPU benchmarks at the minimum JDEC speeds, as the manufacturer recommends"
Any good reviewer should already be doing a typical non-OC’d benchmark and an OC’d benchmark anyway.
The majority of people don’t overclock so would only care about the stock performance anyway. And overclockers should recognize that if you damage the chip by pushing it too far, it shouldn’t be covered.
Most people don't consider enabling the advertised memory clock speeds as an overclock.
We aren't talking about taking your CPU and overclocking it. We're talking about a simple UEFI checkbox that everyone is told to do.
Well what we're talking about here is just memory speeds, not core overclocking. If you're building a computer and you're paying for RAM that is rated at a certain speed, you need to enable XMP to have it run at that speed. Since the memory controller is now integrated into CPUs, intel considers that overclocking so it voids your warranty. I think most people who are buying CPUs to build their own PCs know this and will not run at base JEDEC speeds.
That's definitely not common knowledge for people who build their own PC.
It definitely is.
Every single review and YouTube video, even from channels with broad appeal like LTT and the like always talk about the need to enable XMP and talk about it having to be enabled to get the advertised performance.
It gets advertised on memory kits and motherboards and they provide easy instructions on how to do it.
It's common knowledge to enable it.
Hah yeah actually, that should become the standard for Intel CPU reviews.
It's not shitty, it's fair. If damage is caused by the overclock why should the manufacturer foot the bill? You modified the product to run outside the specs!
The "shitty" part of it is it's a binary one time feedback. If the fuse blows that's it. It doesn't matter if the CPU failed for something else the fuse can't unblow. I don't know what type of fuse they're using, would it blow with any level of over clocking, or with an extreme amount, is it a time delayed fuse that requires a bunch of time over clocked or is it instant? If i want to over clock just a bit but test it at a higher clock rate before setting my desired speed will that blow the fuse? The only point of the fuse is to determine if the user "missused" their cpu at any point.
It's probably a collection of fuses instead of just a single one. One for xmp, one for each of the pbo options, various ones for manual OCs. I'd guess there's tiers of how aggressive the OC is, maybe a counter for how many times it was booted with that OC enabled.
It's a bit shitty because we then have to trust that they won't use this as an excuse to void the warranty on chips that had a fatal defect to begin with. Overclocking is pretty safe unless you're doing extreme overclocking and they won't say how they determine if a failure was caused by an overclock or not.
It's definitely "more fair" for AMD than Intel to do it since they don't charge a premium for unlocked processors but I still don't like it. They developed PBO, it's a feature included with the CPU I bought, I want to be able to use it without fear of losing my warranty, but even just enabling that will trip that fuse.
It's just like a car having an odometer. This would come in handy when buying second-hand, remember all the uncertainty about the condition of used GPUs?
(That is assuming they make the state user-readable though.)
That's actually a nice idea, if it's, as you said, user readable in eg. CPU-Z
this should be industry norm there is way too many bad users
A lot of people in the comments seem to not understand that overclocking IS running the hardware outside the specs, unless that hardware was specifically meant to do that.
It's exactly like overclocking GPUs in the late 90's, for them to fry themself after a month. You went outside ther specs for doing that. Even if I replace the speaker from a telephone, and the keypad stops working a month later, I have voided the warranty already by doing the speaker change as they can't know if the now not working keypad was done because of you or a failing unit.
Even if I replace the speaker from a telephone, and the keypad stops working a month later, I have voided the warranty already by doing the speaker change as they can't know if the now not working keypad was done because of you or a failing unit.
This is false. They have to PROVE that the repair that you made caused the keypad to fail in other to void your warranty, at least in the USA. Most people are misinformed as you are however, and they'll TELL you that's the case to make you go away, despite it being illegal.
eating a piece of bread after the best by date is also using hardware outside the specs
The bakery does not know when the bread will mold, but they know it probably won't start to for a certain number of days. The best by date is that day minus four to seven.
exactly
Do you even need to overclock a Threadripper?
Why not if you've got thermal space to use? Overclocking will help with single-core applications where it would struggle more otherwise. It's also just a general boost to performance for free.
I kinda wish it were possible to overclock a single core and be able to direct single-threaded processes to it. I understand how CPUs and clock speed works, I'm just saying it would be cool.
That said, as I sit here thinking about it, it might he possible to have a core that uses a higher-frequency harmonic as part of the architecture of the chip. It might need a larger L1 and some special transport architecture to step the processed data back to the lower clock speed, but I don't think there are any physical or computational reasons it shouldn't be possible.
Man the Intel Core Duo 2 was a snapshot in time where overclocking was acceptable.
Those chips could go, and that rerelease just kept that train going.
Mmm. Raising prices. Implementing anti-consumer tactics. Where have I seen this before....?
Oh, I know. When a company becomes the bad guy. Just like the Intel monopoly from 2011-2018. Or Nvidia. Or microsoft in the 90s. Or Google or Amazon now.
Remember when checked bags were free on airlines and they didn't nickel and dime you to death? When seats had room? When exit rows were free? This happens all the time, and it's never a good change.
Your airline example fails when you account for ticket price trends and access to flights for the poor.
Is it really that equitable, though? Some airlines hold a monopoly on certain routes, and people fly much more often now, to the tune of a couple hundred dollars round trip. Cars and planes doomed our already-faltering rail lines, which were our best shot at low cost, low carbon transportation. We can still do it, but we've coughed up a ton of money to a few air carriers when we used to have a booming consumer rail network.
Anti-consumer tactics of having mechanisms to detect when a customer has abused the product they might try to get replaced for free, that they say in this article won't automatically mean the warranty is rejected?
You're free to overclock your computer hardware, but you take the risk on yourself when you do so. It's always been this way. If you want to be covered by warranty, keep it in spec, hit "no" when the warning comes up that enabling this feature can void your warranty.
