Motherboard maker MSI has confirmed that it's looking into a Redditor's burned out 9800X3D CPU and X870 Tomahawk motherboard socket.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming processor currently on the market and a much better option than the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. If you're waiting for a discount on this processor for Black Friday, though, don't hold your breath. It's very unlikely the price will drop before the end of the year.

AMD’s Ryzen 9800X3D has been very well-received, but the problem with the CPU is that keen PC gamers who want to buy the chip aren’t able to – amidst scalping woes – and if a new rumor is right, they could be waiting for quite some time for an opportunity to pull the trigger on a purchase.

A Reddit user showed off their damaged 9800X3D, but a closer look at the story points to a likely user error, rather than a design flaw.

The two Ryzen 7 9800X3D owners shared photographs of the CPU with burned contacts and the AM5 socket with burned pines. The pictures suggest that improper CPU installation was the

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor and AM5 socket burned to a crisp, both physically damaged either due to a fault, or a user error during installation.

A damaged AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU has garnered significant attention on Reddit. The issue was first reported by a user in the large PC Master Race subreddit. The user shared several images showing the compromised CPU,

AMD has dominated PC gaming CPU performance for more than two years. Its X3D chips have provided a boost that Intel has been unable to match, and its new $479 Ryzen 7 9800X3D goes a step further to not only improve gaming performance but also day-to-day tasks and creative workloads.

AMD may already have won this generation of desktop processors. But the company is convinced that you should also be turning to Ryzen processors for mobile gaming, as a series of AMD’s own benchmarks show the Ryzen AI 300 absolutely dominating.