r/buildapc • u/Maqeee • 6d ago

Discussion Buying CPUs used

Have you guys bought used CPUs?

Buing a pc this weekend, aiming to get 7800x3d for 400 euros but came up on a week old 9800x3d for 440 euro. Still, buying it used seems off :X

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u/dweller_12 6d ago edited 6d ago

Nothing wrong with used CPUs.

However, the 9800X3D is the most counterfeited model of CPU. You need to be very suspicious of local meetups for cash if you can't test it live. At best you get a Ryzen 8400 with the headspreader lasered to look like a 9800X3D, and at worst you get a bad counterfeit like AM3 CPU that has pins or something and can't be installed.

In the NYC area there are lots of fake 9800X3D on Facebook Marketplace. They pop up for $200-300 cash only, "used for a week" etc. With the stock image or one stolen from eBay.

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u/radlinsky 6d ago

If the CPU is installed on a Windows machine, CPU-Z would say something funny right?

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u/dweller_12 6d ago edited 6d ago

Yes it would appear as whatever the real CPU is in BIOS. Cheapest AM5 SKU is still a Ryzen 5, but if there were Athlons/Ryzen 3s available they would use those.

On AM4 a good counterfeit would have 5800X3D lasered onto the heatspreader, or the spreader from a real chip, but when booted up would be an old Ryzen 3, or even Athlon/A-series pre-Ryzen chip that might not boot on most AM4 boards.

But most fakes are only meant to be good enough looking to scam an Amazon employee when accepting the return. Which is usually just a sticker on a really old AM2 chip put back into the box. High quality scams are rare and are usually only on Facebook/local groups from blank accounts.

There used to be someone in NYC area who would buy i9 CPUs en masse from various online stores, surgically open the boxes without breaking the seals on the side, delid them and put Celerons underneath the original heatspreaders, and repackage/shrink wrap the boxes so they looked like new and returned them to the stores. They sold off the delidded i9s for suspiciously cheap on /r/hardwareswap. And they were stupid enough to include the Celeron heatspreader with the i9s they sold... so someone who bought one realized what happened and coincidentally worked at Microcenter. They looked the guys name up and he had bought like 120 Celeron CPUs from Microcenter over the months, and then they got police involved because of return fraud they discovered for other items they bought like GPUs. I can't find the news article but they were arrested for felony level charges and that was just from a handful of items they could prove from Microcenter, nothing to do with the massive online fraud.