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Budget Laptops Sold With Fake CPUs
16 Mar
Summary
- Older AMD Ryzen CPUs were swapped for advertised newer models.
- Chuwi and Ninkear laptops allegedly used Zen 2 instead of Zen 3 chips.
- A white box manufacturer from China is reportedly behind the deception.

Investigations into budget laptops have uncovered alleged deception regarding CPU specifications. Brands such as Chuwi and Ninkear have reportedly advertised laptops with AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors while actually including older, less powerful Ryzen 5000 series chips. This practice appears to be orchestrated by Emdoor Digital, a Chinese original design manufacturer (ODM) that supplies generic hardware to various brands.
While both the advertised Ryzen 7430U and the found Ryzen 5500U are 6-core chips, the latter is based on an older Zen 2 architecture. Evidence suggests the deception was masked in software and BIOS, with the true CPU only identified upon physical inspection. This alleged "CPU fraud" is a concern, especially considering these budget brands compete with established names like Acer and Lenovo.




