B850M-X [WiFi] quick review > it killed my 9800X3D

First, I wanted to say, I don't know why people post tech support posts on this "Media & User's Review" sub-forum, when there are separate Tech Support sub-forum here.

Anyway, I posted a positive review of this motherboard on Valentine's Day of 2025, and well, my 9800X3D CPU died on December 29th, 2025, 4 days after I updated the BIOS from 3.50 to 4.03.

I was watching some YouTube stream and just started a session of Holocure, and the screen went blank for a few seconds, came back to a static image of what was displayed before. It was hard locked then, so I had to press the power button for 3+ seconds to power it down. After that, it never came back up again.

All I got was CPU (red) and DRAM (orange) diagnostic LEDs, just as described by many other known cases of ASRock motherboard + 9800X3D death syndrome. Reseating memory, CPU, flashback to 3.50, CMOS clear, etc. didn't help. Neither the CPU nor the socket had any sign of damage. The CPU was installed once back in February and never touched, so I don't see how the socket pin would get damaged anyway.

I purchased ELEVEN ASRock AM4 boards, including one DeskMini X300), and never had a problem with them. Some of them are so old, I had to replace CMOS batteries on them, yet they're all going strong.

But this B850M-X WiFi (R1.0) was my first and only AM5 board, so I couldn't do further testing. It turns out, nothing else in the system was bad. Power Supply, RAM (expensive workstation ECC UDIMMs), SSDs, and even USB devices are all fine. I know now, because I resurrected the system using a new replacement CPU AMD sent me. I did buy a new non-ASRock AM5 motherboard, because I saw someone in similar situation lose the SECOND 9800X3D to the same motherboard.

There are many write ups about these Ryzen 9000 series (mostly X3D chips) failures on mostly ASRock motherboard online (Reddit, various tech websites, and videos by Gamer's Nexus and Level1Techs), but no one has reached a conclusion as to why these chips were dying.

My case is likely quite unusual, so my intent is to document it somewhere (here).

I purchased the CPU in early 2025 and completed the build in the first week of February, 2025. The CPU was manufactured in the last week of November, 2024 (CF 2448PGY). 2448 (Year 2024, Week 48) is the #1 represented failing batch when you add up 2448PGE and 2448PGY, so this points to manufacturing issue at AMD / TSMC.

I've NEVER enabled PBO.
I even disable standard Performance Boost feature, so my CPU was limited to 4.7GHz (rather than 5.25GHz boost) the whole time I had it. The only times it might have gone over that is on the first boot and after each BIOS update. I'd immediately go into BIOS and disable Performance Boost.

I've NEVER enabled EXPO/XMP. I don't even have a DDR5 DIMM with such profiles. The only DDR5 DIMMs I have are two sticks of Micron MTC20C2085S1EC56BR, which are 100% JEDEC spec 5600MT/s CL46 Unbuffered ECC Workstation DIMMs.

I've also NEVER used SLEEP feature. I turned the PC on soon after waking up, and turned it off right before going to sleep. Other than occasional overnight runs, it lived like this for close to 11 months before dying.

I also ran the CPU in 65W TDP ECO mode.

For maybe the 2nd half of its life, I also ran the memory underclocked to 5200MT/s, because I didn't like the relatively high VSOC of 1.19V when running 1:1 MEMCLK:UCLK. Running it at 5200MT/s allowed VSOC to be lowered to 1.10V. Running it in 2:1 mode (MEMCLK at 1400MHz, UCLK at 2800MHz, 5600MT/s) allowed way lower VSOC, at 0.90V, but I didn't want to give up that much.

I started with L3.18 AS01 BIOS, then updated sequentially to L3.18 AS02, 3.20, 3.25, 3.30, 3.40, 3.50, then 4.03. Some people claim that the issue was fixed at 3.25, and since I ran the system for a few months prior to 3.25, it could've degraded the CPU by then. I honestly don't believe this, because there are people who managed to kill the CPU starting out with BIOS 3.25 or later.

Other than maybe a couple of weeks when I had a RTX 9060 XT 8GB in the system, it did NOT have a dGPU, so I was using the 2CU RNDA2 iGPU. I doubt that had anything to do with the failure, though. Almost no one with 9800X3D would run without a dGPU, so it's just another uniqueness with my case.

Have ASRock & AMD root-caused this issue? I can believe it if at least one of them did, but won't say anything because it's cheaper to stay silent. I can also believe they're both clueless.

Ryzen 7000 series and 9000 series CPUs (not APUs) have IDENTICAL IODs, so unless AGESA is misprogramming it on the 9000 series, I don't see the IODs themselves being the problem. If IODs were the problem, 7000 series would be failing the same way. So I'm more inclined to think that it's the 9000X3D's CCDs that are dying. Surely, AMD must've analyzed bunch of returned CPUs to see what's going on. Silence from AMD is deafening. Then why are ASRock motherboards so overtly represented? I've no idea.

Whatever is the case, I needed to absolutely minimize the chance of killing the warranty replacement CPU, so I bought a new ASUS TUF Gaming B850M-PLUS WIFI to resurrect my system. The once murderous ASRock B850M-X WiFi now sits in its original box. I've no idea what to do with it. This ASUS model did not exist when I built my system originally, but it turned out to be a nice upgrade for me. I went from pokey 6+1+1 VRM to 14+2+1 VRM. I got an extra NVMe slot, and also the audio is the top-notch ALC1220P. If I had ALC1220P from the get go, I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy a Topping D10s DAC. Of course, even ALC1220P is no match for the D10s, and I already have it, so I'll keep using the D10s.

The replacement CPU is CF 2538PGE (manufactured mid-to-late September, 2025), so is much newer. If the problem was with CPU itself, hopefully the issues were resolved long time ago and my new CPU won't ever have a problem.

I can't even remember the last time any of my PC components died on me. So this was a bit traumatic for me. I'm talking over 25 years of me keeping records.