PC components are really expensive, especially if we are looking to buy the newest thing that has come out. To save money, many people opt for older pieces, and the second-hand market often has some bargains. However, there are some components such as graphics cards that are sold much cheaper in AliExpress and similar stores, and then are actually a complete scam. This type of scam we have seen it on numerous occasions, although now we are talking about processors, since an alleged Core i9-12900KS for $500 that ends up being an Intel Celeron much cheaper, so we are facing a cpu clearly false.
When we are looking for the cheapest graphics cards, many times we come across real “bargains” from NVIDIA RTX They sell for much lower prices. Upon entering we realize that they are Chinese GPUs, where the sellers assure that it is a mid-range or high-end graphics card at a price of about 100, 200 or 300 euros. Of course, if we compare this price to the real one, we talk about saving more than half the money and everything seems very nice, until we buy it and we face reality. Although aesthetically they look like a high-end GPU, when passing benchmarks and games we see that they really They don’t perform as well as expected. Well, they are really low-end GPUs. Many times we find these graphics scams where modify the BIOS to make us believe that we are facing a real.
There are 2 Intel Core i9-12900KS, one is real and the other is a Celeron
Not only did we find fake graphics cards that are scams, but we also found them Intel CPUs can also be counterfeited. The second-hand market is increasingly unreliable, as Gamers Nexus shows us. In this new video, we have a comparison between a real i9-12900KS and another one that is counterfeitwhere at first glance they appear almost identical. However, there are some differences to take into account to know if it is real, because unlike graphics, with a processor the hardware is fully visible to the naked eye.
For example, if we rotate the processor and look at the SMD, we can see differences between both CPUs, where the densest one comes from the i9 and the other is… a Celeron. Yes, as you read, the affected user spent $500 on an Intel Core i9-12900KS to later discover that this CPU was fake, well it was about a simple Celeron G6900 that barely costs 40 dollarsa complete scam.
These are the ways to differentiate a fake Intel CPU from the real one
Fortunately, there are a number of tests that can be done in addition to SMD, since we can use the Intel official tool to check if the CPU is legitimate. With official and free software like this, we can already imagine that this is a real problem and passing the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool it can be verified that it is indeed a Celeron G6900 with 2 cores and 2 threads. However, the most effective thing is to look at the physical differences, because as we said, the hardware is clearly different. At first glance they may seem almost the same, but if we look at the small dots on tophe i9-12900KS has a total of 66while the fake CPU has 60where we see clear gaps where they are missing.
As we said before, if we want to find out that it is not the real CPU, we can look at the back, as there are clear differences. Likewise, we have other ways of finding out if it is false, for example by looking at the partial identification number engraved on one end of the chip. This can be used in the Intel support service to verify information about your warranty in case it is real. When trying to put the fake CPU scam, Intel itself determines that the code is invalid and it effectively doesn’t match an i9-12900KS.