AMD has issued a second statement on the issues surrounding its Ryzen 7000 processors, noting that the company will cap SoC voltages to rectify the issues we've seen with Ryzen chips partially melting due to excess voltage. The damaged chips have not only bulged out and overheated to the point they have become desoldered, but they have also significantly damaged the motherboards they are installed in. Here is the full statement:
"We have root caused the issue and have already distributed a new AGESA that puts measures in place on certain power rails on AM5 motherboards to prevent the CPU from operating beyond its specification limits, including a cap on SOC voltage at 1.3V. None of these changes affect the ability of our Ryzen 7000 Series processors to overclock memory using EXPO or XMP kits or boost performance using PBO technology.
We expect all of our ODM partners to release new BIOS for their AM5 boards over the next few days. We recommend all users to check their motherboard manufacturers' websites and update their BIOS to ensure their system has the most up-to-date software for their processor.
Anyone whose CPU may have been impacted by this issue should contact AMD customer support. Our customer service team is aware of the situation and prioritizing these cases." — AMD Representative to Tom's Hardware.
AMD's new statement builds upon the information it provided when it first acknowledged the issue and mentioned that it would ensure its ODM partners (motherboard makers) delivered the correct voltages to its Ryzen processors.
As we noted in our original coverage, there have been reports of failures with both the specialized Ryzen 7000X3D and standard Ryzen 7000 models. However, AMD's original statement only mentioned the 7000X3D variants. This statement doesn't specify which CPUs are impacted, so we should consider it a blanket statement for all Ryzen 7000 and 7000X3D series processors for now.
AMD has now delivered AGESA updates, the building block for the motherboard BIOS firmwares that the motherboard vendors will distribute, to its ODMs. AMD says users should check for motherboard firmware updates over the next few days. AMD's statement mirrors the press releases we've covered from all motherboard makers saying they would issue new firmwares to correct the problem.
The issues are known to occur either when a user adjusts the SoC voltage manually to a value beyond 1.3V or when the motherboard firmware automatically increases the SoC voltage beyond 1.3V when an EXPO memory overclocking profile is engaged (The EXPO profile itself does not increase the SoC voltage, the board vendors assign a pre-determined value of their own to support the increased speed of the EXPO profile).
Our own sources have told us that this higher SoC voltage can destroy the chips' thermal monitoring and protection mechanisms, thus causing a cascading failure that ends up with the chip requesting too much voltage from the motherboard. You can read more about that here. Notably, AMD's statement says SoC voltage is the root cause but doesn't mention if that impacts the thermal monitoring/protection mechanisms.
These higher SoC voltages are needed to support higher memory overclocks, but AMD says that the 1.3V limit will not materially impact overclocking headroom, an important distinction.
AMD's warranty does not cover overclocking in any form, including using EXPO memory overclocking profiles. However, the company notes that it is prioritizing service for customers impacted by this issue, and it's doubtful that it would not fulfill RMAs for any impacted processors.
