The Intel 285K CPU in my high-end 2025 Linux PC died again! 😡 Notably, this was the replacement CPU for the original 285K that died in March, and after reading through the reviews of Intel CPUs on my electronics store of choice, many of which (!) mention CPU replacements, I am getting the impression that Intel’s current CPUs just are not stable 😞. Therefore, I am giving up on Intel for the coming years and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D CPU instead.
I’ve swapped back and forth between brands since I built my first computer almost 30 years ago. It was intel forever until AMD showed up with their early Athlons, amazing CPUs for the price. Then Intel fought back with with their Core 2 Quads, AMD with Thunderbirds, back to intel with their higher i-series, up until about 2-3 years ago and now AMD’s Ryzen offering the better performance/$ again. It’s too bad intel seems to be unable to keep costs competitive and maintain quality. I’ve never had a CPU quit on me yet (knock on wood). Motherboards, RAM, PSUs, sure. I used to partial upgrade every 2 years or so, but the golden era of PC building is gone. The high prices of GPU’s alone really killed the momentum we had from say ‘05-‘15.
I know this is sort of still doable with aliexpress kits, but I miss the days of being able to make “weird” builds. My first build was an Athlon XP-M 2500+. It was a mobile chip that was just a binned desktop chip. It used the same socket as desktop, had no IHS, and ran at a “lower voltage” thanks to the binning. Overclockers DREAM in back in like 2005.
Intel’s strategy seems to be just chugging power into the CPU and hoping for the best.
It feels kinda like there’s a race and one person’s breathing hard and sweating bullets only to have another runner breeze past them like it’s nothing.