According to data culled from Reddit, 98 of the fancy 3D V-Cache processors have failed inside ASRock boards, accounting for the lion’s share of the 108 reported fatalities.

Asus boards account for 16 more silicon corpses, MSI five, and Gigabyte just one. All victims were reportedly working post-boot before carking it without warning.

These expensive chips are listed at $479 but scalped for up to $999 when demand spiked last November, so their owners are really cross. ASRock has issued a couple of BIOS updates since February, claiming they resolve boot issues but denying any connection to actual CPU failure.

Redditors aren't buying it, and with 45 per cent of reports tied to X870 chipsets and the rest spread across B850, B650 and X670, the failure doesn't seem to be confined to a single platform.

The figures paint a worrying picture—especially for ASRock, whose gear appears to be the common factor. Still, it’s unclear whether that’s due to faulty boards or simply the sheer number in circulation

So far, PC Gamer’s trio of 9800X3Ds—one in a Gigabyte and two in MSI rigs—have been okay, but that’s hardly a big enough sample to dismiss the issue. No word yet from AMD, but the silence is getting louder by the day.