Zen 5 failures

[Josep Vicent Sala i Siscar]

Greetings,

I have seen the info you posted about the failures running the 9950X and I
have a strong suspicion and what has happened. The Asus motherboards that
you are using are pretty bad. Asus per se is not a bad brand (I am writing
this from a system with an  Asus board) but all the vendors have different
levels of quality depending on the segmentation that apply to their
products and from time to time they release some hardware that is pure
garbage. Asus Prime boards are pretty low end stuff. TUF boards are more
decent performers. And Strix are more high end. So, getting a low end board
for running a high end chip like the 9950X is a bit of gambling, specially
if you are torturing the system 24x7. In addition, hardware tests have
demonstrated that the Asus B650 prime boards have TERRIBLE VRMs. See this
video for more info:

https://youtu.be/DTFUa60ozKY?t=743

I think that the voltage was all over the place when running because the
motherboard (not the CPU) was overheating all the time.

I think that the cooler and mounting has nothing to do with this. If the
cooler was not properly mounted you would have noticed lower performance
but would not have fried the CPU.

I would advise you to get a motherboard with better VRMs (in case you
really like ASUS don't get anything lower than TUF) and try again. It would
be best if you choose a motherboard that according to reviews or people
with hardware knowledge have top of the line VRMs.

Best regards.