Hong Kong Distributor Runs Out of Replacement Core i9-14900K, Offers Refunds

[btarunr]

Synnex Technology International is a major Hong Kong-based distributor of PC components, which also retails directly. PC enthusiasts in Hong Kong have been trying to avail replacements for their Intel Core i9-14900K processors under Intel's laid down procedure, including extended warranties for the processor, which has been hit by the notorious physical degradation issue. A customer sent in their i9-14900K to find that they are not getting a replacement chip, because Synnex ran out of chips to send customers as replacements.

The retailer sent in a template response that the chip sent by the customer cannot be repaired or replaced, but the customer can avail a cash refund of HKD $4,200 (around $540), which is close to the street price of the processor. The processor itself has been running out of stock in many places, partly because inventory in the channel is being directed toward honoring warranty claims. The only practical way to honor a processor warranty claim is replacement, since there is very little that can be repaired by a distributor (except maybe the stock cooler). HKEPC reports that the user took Synnex up on its offer for refund, sold everything in their machine except the SSD, and is now planning to build a new machine based on the Ryzen 9 9950X.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[las]

I would take the refund, sell mobo + RAM and then buy Arrow Lake instead, or 9000X3D if AMD bothers to announce it.

 

[64K]

Well, so much for it only affecting a few i9 Raptors then. I'm wondering if this is the beginning of the flood of defective returns being insurmountable for Intel to cover? Might not go that far though but the bad news just keeps coming for Intel. All I can say is bad decisions usually have bad consequences. The Raptor mess has been great advertising for AMD that money just can't buy. Lisa Su should send Gelsinger a Thank You card for sending so much business her way.

 

[john_]

That's a nice way to drive people to the new platform.
We don't have more CPUs to give you, CPUs that we might have to replace again in 6-12 months, so here, take some money, sell your motherboard and jump to the next platform. Don't worry the next platform is perfect.

 

[las]

Well, so much for it only affecting a few i9 Raptors then. I'm wondering if this is the beginning of the flood of defective returns being insurmountable for Intel to cover? Might not go that far though but the bad news just keeps coming for Intel. All I can say is bad decisions usually have bad consequences. The Raptor mess has been great advertising for AMD that money just can't buy. Lisa Su should send Gelsinger a Thank You card for sending so much business her way.

Bad news keeps coming? Not really:

Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake looks to be good, even very good. Intel beats both AMD and Qualcomm in mobile battery tests and is very competitive in performance (Intels APU beats AMDs APU in gaming tests). Leaks shows good perf at much lower power usage. They are using TSMC 3N aka 3nm - for Arrow Lake at least - and has node-advantage over AMD again. Intel 18A has good yields and should be ready for 2025 + Intel is soon granted 8.5 billion dollars too (Chip act - Thank you Joe Biden)

Things are turning pretty fast considering how bad AMD handled Zen 5 launch, with windows bugs, no guidelines for testing, powerlimited chips (9700X especially), delayed motherboards and no mention of 9000X3D. Zen 5 was a brand new arch that delivered close to no gain for regular people. AMD cheaped out on process-node as well, going with TSMC 4N which is 5nm instead of 3N/3nm which was ready (but more expensive) - Intels timing is perfect. They will be hitting the market like 3 months before Ryzen 9000X3D is revealed (CES 2025), lets hope 3D cache can fix Zen 5 for gamers especially.

Zen 5 / Ryzen 9000 is called the worst Ryzen launch by Tech Spot (go watch their video if in doubt) - Hardware Unboxed on youtube.

AMD still can't manage do to a full proper CPU release after all those years, meaning new chips and boards on day one, which is very sad. 800 series chipsets are pure rebrands but 600 series boards needs firmware update to work with 9000 series. Simply a terrible decision. Ryzen 9000 sales numbers are not bad, THEY ARE TERRIBLE.

AMD also struggle with dual CCD issues still, latency even increased on Zen 5, which means dual CCD chips are kinda crap for most regular people and especially gamers. This is why 7800X3D beats 7950X3D in gaming for example. 7900X3D is pretty terrible due to only 6 cores with 3D cache (hence the price, close to 7800X3D) - Sadly with AMD, you have to choose between 3D and non-3D. No chip does it all. Another issue AMD has. Gamers want SINGLE CCD chips, and 3D cache.

7800X3D is the best gaming chip today, I own one, but outside of gaming, its pretty meh. I could easily see myself going Intel 285K in a few weeks if they deliver. If not, I will probably replace it with a 9800X3D if clockspeeds are higher and they are unclocked for OC like rumours claim.

Intel raised warranty by 2 years on affected models, I bet return rate is like sub 2% - I know plenty of people with 13th and 14th gen i7s and i9s and they don't have any issues at all. You can be 100% sure that many people are trying to abuse this too. Hence the lack of chips possibly.

It is not like AMD is doing too well, their GPU business is a money-sink with little income. Their CPUs are good but their GPUs are pretty meh and they spend tons of CPU earnings on GPUs (mostly AI tho, gaming GPUs is a dead-end for AMD and they left high-end market officially here)

So yeah, instead of a full great Zen 5 release using TSMC 3N, AMD fcked up bigtime, in pretty much all areas and now Intel is ready to launch their true next gen platform and chips using a superior process. I'd say things are looking very good for Intel right now actually.

Intel has been throwing money into their fabs for years and years, first now its beginning to pay off, with 18A and beyond. However, they can also just use TSMC like everyone else for some of the chips (K/KF series)

 

[RogueSix]

All I can say is bad decisions usually have bad consequences. The Raptor mess has been great advertising for AMD that money just can't buy. Lisa Su should send Gelsinger a Thank You card for sending so much business her way.

In theory, yes, in practice not so much .

I was 100% ready to ditch my degraded i9-13900K in favor of a Zen 5 + X870E system but AMD botched this so hard that I feel forced to go with Arrow Lake in spite of really not wanting to stick with Intel.

AMD fucked this up completely with their stupid USB 4.0 requirement. All of the X870(E) boards have lane sharing to hell and back. I want to be able to install three M.2 drives in reasonable locations on the board (i.e. especially NOT in the M2_1 hot spot between GPU and CPU).
This is not even remotely possible. Just check the footnotes or fine print of any X870(E) board. You slash your GPU bandwidth from 16x to 8x lanes as soon as you plug your SSD into one of the "nice" (cooler) M.2 slots. You can only install a SSD in M2_2 OR M2_3 but not both... yada... yada... yada... you need a frickin' degree to figure out which M.2 slots are actually usable on a X870(E) board.

There is no way that I will build a platform around all those crappy compromises. AMD failed hard here. They really should have put in more work to either provide more CPU lanes with Zen 5 or give us an all new chipset (X870 has the same old Promontory 21 chips as X670). They also should have left USB 4.0 optional, of course, or, IF they have to make it mandatory then put it in the X870(E) chipset, of course. No need at all to steal away four CPU lanes for USB 4.0. What a ludicrously dumb decision...

Honestly, as much as it pains me to say this but Z890 + ARL will be the MUCH better platform since Intel will actually be offering more lanes than Z790 + RPL. There will probably be a nice variety of boards to choose from with regard to M.2 setup and as an added bonus, board makers will probably be offering up advanced features like backside connectivity from the start (haven't seen a single AMD X870(E) board with such features so far).

Really sad... I was ready to go with Zen 5 and the successor of the awesome looking white/silverish ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-A but then came AMD and fucked it all up. Oh well, since ARL is 100% built on TSMC N3B, it should be safe from Intel's clumsy af paws at least.

The news here are music to my ears. I 'd much rather receive money for my degraded 13900K than a replacement. Intel have announced that they will provide another update on the Vmin shift instability issue by the end of the month. I definitely kinda sorta smell an upgrade offer coming up. Send in degraded RPL, receive juicy ARL discount. I'm in if that should be the case...

 

[iameatingjam]

I was reading a thread on intel's site the other day where a customer was concerned because their mobo set their 13900k's tjmax to 115. They were advised to leave it alone or else it would be considered overclocking and would void their warranty, if they lowered it! It was an old thread, but still, with policies like that, no wonder there's so many failures. The board partner can mess with the chip however they like, but the customer can't fix it. I guess I can kind of understand the second part - the customer might not know how to fix it properly or w/e. But still. wtf! Never should have been allowed like that in the first place.

 

[64K]

The 'what about AMD failing too' posts have already started I see. Deflecting the topic at hand to AMD's mistakes isn't going to lessen the 14900k problem. This article is about Synnex running out of 14900k chips to replace the returns. That at least implies that there are more than the normal amount of returns.

 

[Daven]

Intel went through all the motions of a recall without actually declaring a recall. I don’t think they realized how wide spread the problem really was. Because of this, they didn’t prepare enough replacement chips so as not to take any real financial hit.

 

[las]

The 'what about AMD failing too' posts have already started I see. Deflecting the topic at hand to AMD's mistakes isn't going to lessen the 14900k problem. This article is about Synnex running out of 14900k chips to replace the returns. That at least implies that there are more than the normal amount of returns.

Who cares, 7000X3D were burning on release as well, people got over it eventually and we moved on

Intel went through all the motions of a recall without actually declaring a recall. I don’t think they realized how wide spread the problem really was. Because of this, they didn’t prepare enough replacement chips so as not to take any real financial hit.

Recall is not needed, because most chips work just fine - No point in doing so.

They added 2 years longer warranty, even on chips not really affected (i5 and i7) seems fine to me

5 years of CPU warranty is pretty good yeah, would gladly take a refund after x years too if I was offered one = New shiny stuff instead

 

[_roman_]

It always depend on the "workload", power on hours, operating system, ... of a system if you have an issue or not.

totally off topic: System instability i see the fastest with the gnu toolchain while compiling software. Not in windows 11 pro while gaming.

5 year of warranty is nothing. A bad joke - that extended warranty.
2nd Generation of Intel Core Processors should be around 2011. Many still use these processors. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core

This is not even remotely possible. Just check the footnotes or fine print of any X870(E) board. You slash your GPU bandwidth from 16x to 8x lanes as soon as you plug your SSD into one of the "nice" (cooler) M.2 slots. You can only install a SSD in M2_2 OR M2_3 but not both... yada... yada... yada... you need a frickin' degree to figure out which M.2 slots are actually usable on a X870(E) board.

This applies for mostly any INTEL and AMD based mainboard. This is not only an AMD only issue. The homepages and manuals could be written more "do it yourself" friendly and easier to read.
I also dislike boards where not every peripherals can not be used together always. Or mechanical PCIE 16 slots with PCIE 3.0 connections with only one or two lanes.

I read several online available mainboard manuals regardless if it's intel or AMD processor based. The information is always only in the handbook. Not on the product page.
The flaws can be only found in the manual.

 

[Hecate91]

Who cares, 7000X3D were burning on release as well, people got over it eventually and we moved on

The deflecting of "AMD cpus went bad too" of course, without the fact that it only happened to a few AMD X3D cpu's, AMD issued a recall right away. Intel hid this issue for a year, then blamed mobo makers, then claimed setting defaults in bios was a fix, I doubt the microcode is a fix either as its still pushing over 1.5V on some boards.

Recall is not needed, because most chips work just fine - No point in doing so.

They added 2 years longer warranty

Well if Intel can't provide enough replacements then most aren't working fine. And the warranty seems rather pointless if Intel doesn't have anything to replace it with, especially if the replacement cpu's will still degrade.

 

[las]

The deflecting of "AMD cpus went bad too" of course, without the fact that it only happened to a few AMD X3D cpu's, AMD issued a recall right away. Intel hid this issue for a year, then blamed mobo makers, then claimed setting defaults in bios was a fix, I doubt the microcode is a fix either as its still pushing over 1.5V on some boards.

Well if Intel can't provide enough replacements then most aren't working fine. And the warranty seems rather pointless if Intel doesn't have anything to replace it with, especially if the replacement cpu's will still degrade.

Nah, tons of people were affected by 7000X3D instability and burned chips, how many we don't know, just how we don't know how many Intel chips are affected. My guess is very few, considering I know several people using 13700K, 13900K, 14900K/KS and most of them did not even update the firmware.

AMD blamed mobo makers as well. Because it was their fault, also true for Intels situation. The chips are not the culprit. New AGESAs were put out and new firmwares, AMD did not make a recall at all, they worked with board partners, just like Intel.

No chips are degrading if you update motherboard firmware, its all about voltages, this is also why the "fix" won't work on CPUs already affected. Pretty simple really. The worst binned chips will likely see issues eventually, but 95% will likely never see any issue.

Intel 13th and 14th gen is old news. Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake is dropping in a few weeks. Obviously stock is very low for last gen stuff at this point. Plenty of stock here in germany tho. This news is based on a single retailer in Asia...

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

I would take the refund, sell mobo + RAM and then buy Arrow Lake instead, or 9000X3D if AMD bothers to announce it.

After this, your first option is still intel. ..

Don't worry the next platform is perfect.

Thats what i dont get. These people will continue buying intel, regardless of how intel treats them.

The 'what about AMD failing too' posts have already started I see. Deflecting the topic at hand to AMD's mistakes isn't going to lessen the 14900k problem. This article is about Synnex running out of 14900k chips to replace the returns. That at least implies that there are more than the normal amount of returns.

I honestly do not understand the hate that AMD gets and all the free passes that Intel (and Ngreedia for that matter)

intel has been crapping on their customers for years, lying, releasing broken cpus and yet, these people keep giving them money and blind support.

If i was affected by this, luckily getting a refund, how the heck would I even consider buying anything from them again?

 

[las]

After this, your first option is still intel. ..

Thats what i dont get. These people will continue buying intel, regardless of how intel treats them.

I honestly do not understand the hate that AMD gets and all the free passes that Intel (and Ngreedia for that matter)

intel has been crapping on their customers for years, lying, releasing broken cpus and yet, these people keep giving them money and blind support.

If i was affected by this, luckily getting a refund, how the heck would I even consider buying anything from them again?

The difference here is that you are an AMD Fanboy and I don't really care, I simply buy the parts that suits me, which is 7800X3D + 4090 right now.

I could easily see myself going Intel 285K in a few weeks, because it will deliver much better all-round performance. If 285K performs like 7800X3D in games but beats it massively outside of games, its just a better all-round product. After all my 7800X3D don't even perform like a 7700X in applications. Beat by i5-13600K even.

Intel threated me fine, so did Nvidia. Had plenty of issues with AMD products thru the years tho. Lately a 6800XT with 110C hotspot temps that AMD says is within the acceptable range, meanwhile my 4090 hits 85C hotspot.

 

[Hecate91]

Nah, tons of people were affected by 7000X3D instability and burned chips

Have any proof then? You're making this claim deflecting an Intel issue back onto AMD.

AMD blamed mobo makers as well. Because it was their fault, also true for Intels situation. The chips are not the culprit LMAO. New AGESAs were put out and new firmwares, AMD did not make a recall at all.

The issue with AMD were the mobo makers, Asus set voltages way too high and chips blew up. AMD took the blame for it and offered replacements with free return shipping, its more of a recall than Intel is offering. However with Intel the chips are to blame, when the chips can't run as advertised in the specs then the chips are to blame.

No chips are degrading if you update motherboard firmware, its all about voltages

The voltages are still too high according to Buildzoid testing the updates with a scope on the voltage rails, the update should fix things without the user having to manually adjust voltage.
A cpu is the last thing anyone should have to worry about failing, I wouldn't trust a microcode fix since most cpu's people are already using would likely be affected depending on usage, if I had a 13th/14th gen CPU I'd RMA it and sell the return avoiding Intel completely for a while as their response to the whole issue has been a mess.

 

[las]

Have any proof then? You're making this claim deflecting an Intel issue back onto AMD.

The issue with AMD were the mobo makers, Asus set voltages way too high and chips blew up. AMD took the blame for it and offered replacements with free return shipping, its more of a recall than Intel is offering. However with Intel the chips are to blame, when the chips can't run as advertised in the specs then the chips are to blame.

The voltages are still too high according to Buildzoid testing the updates with a scope on the voltage rails, the update should fix things without the user having to manually adjust voltage.
A cpu is the last thing anyone should have to worry about failing, I wouldn't trust a microcode fix since most cpu's people are already using would likely be affected depending on usage, if I had a 13th/14th gen CPU I'd RMA it and sell the return avoiding Intel completely for a while as their response to the whole issue has been a mess.

Any proof of Intels failure rate? Sigh.

The issue with Intel chips were also motherboard makers fault. Voltages were too high which led to degradation on the worst binned chips.

You would sell it because you are an AMD fanboy. It is as simple as that. AMD had more fuckups than Intel ever did thru the years.

Lets see if Intel gets hit with a class action lawsuit, like when AMD paid up for marketing FX 8000 and 9000 series as 8 core chips, even tho they were not.

 

[john_]

I honestly do not understand the hate that AMD gets and all the free passes that Intel (and Ngreedia for that matter)

It's easy. It's psychology. You see, Intel and Nvidia brands always where promoting themselves as "Premium" brands. And congrats to their teams, they ARE considered the premium brands. On the other hand AMD was mostly the "Value" brand, even when offering better products. Many who choose hardware or in any case anything, from the brand of their milk, to the PC hardware, to the car and whatever they can really afford, they prefer buying ONLY "Premium" products, meaning products offered by the "Premium" brand. AMD offering the best hardware in both CPUs and GPUs while maintaining the "Value" brand, will be pure nightmare for those people. That's why you see all this hate.
Of course not everyone is like that or thinks like that, but many do and many will make it completely clear that considering Intel or Nvidia inferior to AMD, will NEVER be acceptable.

 

[Vayra86]

Nah, tons of people were affected by 7000X3D instability and burned chips, how many we don't know, just how we don't know how many Intel chips are affected. My guess is very few, considering I know several people using 13700K, 13900K, 14900K/KS and most of them did not even update the firmware.

AMD blamed mobo makers as well. Because it was their fault, also true for Intels situation. The chips are not the culprit. New AGESAs were put out and new firmwares, AMD did not make a recall at all, they worked with board partners, just like Intel.

No chips are degrading if you update motherboard firmware, its all about voltages, this is also why the "fix" won't work on CPUs already affected. Pretty simple really. The worst binned chips will likely see issues eventually, but 95% will likely never see any issue.

Intel 13th and 14th gen is old news. Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake is dropping in a few weeks. Obviously stock is very low for last gen stuff at this point. Plenty of stock here in germany tho. This news is based on a single retailer in Asia...

The cognitive dissonance is real in this post.

Beyond that, let's not feed the obvious troll because somehow this Intel topic is now about AMD.

 

[las]

The cognitive dissonance is real in this post.

Beyond that, let's not feed the obvious troll because somehow this Intel topic is now about AMD.

Another AMD fanboy enters the chat

Funny how most talking trash about Intel here, uses AMD CPU and GPU

Meanwhile I am being called an Intel fanboy, while using AMD + Nvidia ... LMAO

 

[Vayra86]

Another AMD fanboy enters the chat

Funny how most talking trash about Intel here, uses AMD CPU and GPU

No it actually coincided with you returning to TPU, as it tends to do very often. Nobody is interested in the eternal blue/red pissing contest. Get a life

 

[iameatingjam]

Nah, tons of people were affected by 7000X3D instability and burned chips, how many we don't know, just how we don't know how many Intel chips are affected. My guess is very few, considering I know several people using 13700K, 13900K, 14900K/KS and most of them did not even update the firmware.

AMD blamed mobo makers as well. Because it was their fault, also true for Intels situation. The chips are not the culprit. New AGESAs were put out and new firmwares, AMD did not make a recall at all, they worked with board partners, just like Intel.

No chips are degrading if you update motherboard firmware, its all about voltages, this is also why the "fix" won't work on CPUs already affected. Pretty simple really. The worst binned chips will likely see issues eventually, but 95% will likely never see any issue.

Intel 13th and 14th gen is old news. Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake is dropping in a few weeks. Obviously stock is very low for last gen stuff at this point. Plenty of stock here in germany tho. This news is based on a single retailer in Asia...

Dude, I'm an intel user myself and even I can tell this problem has more angles than just voltages. I know I've said it a million times before but my first 14700k died in a month and it had a huge undervolt (-225mv), very low vcore. Its a factor, absolutely, but I'm almost certain there's more to it.

 

[Hecate91]

Any proof of Intels failure rate? Sigh.

Intel could easily provide some numbers on how many chips are defective since they own their fabs, though that would mean Intel would admit how serious the issue really is and their shareholders wouldn't like that.

The issue with Intel chips were also motherboard makers fault. Voltages were too high which led to degradation on the worst binned chips.

The problem is both Intel and the motherboard makers, Intel didn't provide good enough guidelines, and motherboards makers were allowed to do what they wanted.

You would sell it because you are an AMD fanboy. It is as simple as that. AMD had more fuckups than Intel ever did thru the years.

No I would sell it because I have no trust for a cpu that could just degrade again, this isn't about AMD.

Lets see if Intel gets hit with a class action lawsuit, like when AMD paid up for marketing FX 8000 and 9000 series as 8 core chips, even tho they were not.

Lawyers are already accepting submissions for a class action, and you're trying really hard now by bringing up the dark times AMD went through lol.

Could not care less about brand, I simply buy the best.

And yet you keep deflecting back onto AMD. The brand loyalty is obvious when you keep making this some brand fight.

 

[Vayra86]

Oh its my fault? Ahh..

Could not care less about brand, I simply buy the best for my needs. That is why I use 7800X3D and 4090 in this gaming rig but 285K might replace it in a few weeks, or I will slap in a 9800X3D early next year instead, just in time for 5090.

AMD fanboys are always pissed, its almost funny

I probably spend more on AMD products than any of you ever will, 5 AMD chips in house currently but yeah I JUST HATE AMD !!

Who started talking trash about Intel in this thread? AMD fanboys.

Yes, its you.

Everyone here is buying various systems from various companies, Intel, AMD, Nvidia...

You keep talking about fanboys... but these very same people tend to also acknowledge all of the issues you speak of when it comes to AMD I'd take a long look in the mirror if I were you, you've lost the plot. There is no need to keep throwing out bait. We're one big happy family

Who started talking trash about Intel in this thread? AMD fanboys.

Its an Intel topic. What you define as trash is irrelevant, and that's exactly what set you off.
And then you say you're the neutral arbiter. Do you even logic

 

[maximumterror]

Some comments are completely unrelated to the article - they come with "how bad is AMD". I'm more interested in what the problem is with Intel CPUs, how come Intel's 7nm degrades and the other's 5nm doesn't?