[hami11]

Do you think it would be possible to purchase open box/new epyc rome processors for under 400$ on ebay? Most of the new/open box ads are chinese (wouldn't trust those) but occasionally one pops up from the UK or US, so what's your view on the legitimacy of these listings?

[the_phew]

Originally Posted by hami11

Do you think it would be possible to purchase open box/new epyc rome processors for under 400$ on ebay? Most of the new/open box ads are chinese (wouldn't trust those) but occasionally one pops up from the UK or US, so what's your view on the legitimacy of these listings?

I've never bought one of those CPUs from a Chinese seller on Ebay, but TSMC does have several fabs in China, so there would be legitimate inventory in the country. Counterfeit kids toys are one thing, but counterfeit CPUs are much harder to pull off; if it's from a long-time seller with good feedback, the CPUs are probably genuine. If everything (cache, clocks, model, stepping, etc.) looks correct in CPU-Z, it's probably a 'real' CPU. Run some benchmarks (CPU-Z's own benchmark is sufficient) to make double sure. If not, Ebay's protection policy would have you covered. There are rare examples of 'engineering samples' being passed off as retail CPUs, but you can Google how to sniff that out.

Often Chinese electronics are genuine, but the supply chain to get them to you was shady. For instance, I have a lithium battery pack I bought from Aliexpress comprised of grey market Farasis cells; their dimensions, capacity, everything is identical to the genuine Farasis cells, but there is no brand labeling on them. There was a news article around the time I bought the pack that Daimler had cancelled a huge order of Farasis cells for their EVs, so most likely those cells were 'dumped' via resellers on Aliexpress. They probably removed the Farasis labeling to absolve themselves of liability. But I've been abusing the heck out of that battery pack and it's performed flawlessly, with minimal cell degradation and near-perfect uniformity.

I've read that most of the computer components on Ebay from Chinese sellers are 'recycled'; i.e. companies reclaim parts from defunct server farms and resell them without testing. You could get a dud, but it's unlikely and you're usually protected by Ebay/Paypal.

[hami11]

I also noticed a lot of them were listed as new or open box. Would that be false or do you think that they really are new? Also, would there be any way to confirm this?

[the_phew]

Originally Posted by hami11

I also noticed a lot of them were listed as new or open box. Would that be false or do you think that they really are new? Also, would there be any way to confirm this?

I don't think there is much practical difference, as it's unlikely you'd be able to get AMD warranty service on either a 'NIB' or 'Open Box' EPYC CPU purchased from a Chinese vendor via Ebay. But typically any CPU issues would be identified immediately and covered by Ebay/Paypal Buyer Protection; the only concern would be issues that arose later (a situation I've never actually encountered with any CPU, no matter how old/abused).

Short of running full load with no heat sink, server CPUs can't really be abused the way desktop CPUs can. Which is why most of those vendors have 99%+ positive feedback.

But again, there are definite risks with purchasing this route, hence the massive discounts. Caveat emptor.