When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
(Image credit: Zephyr on Bilibili) Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google In 2023, reports of dead Navi 21 GPUs began to surface, raising questions about the cause of the surge. While this was essentially a contained, isolated event that has since been put to bed, we've now received an update to the story more than a year later. Zephyr, a GPU brand from China, has just revealed that it has replaced numerous high-end RDNA 2 GPUs under warranty to date, all of which had dead cores. The company also displayed GPU dies that had died due to cracking, bulging, or shorting, saying there was "a 1% chance of it exploding every year" in reference to the odds of this occurring to users.
zephyr西风, a gpu brand in china, showed a tray of dead rdna2 (6800/6900xt) gpu dies, to prove that zephyr is willing to handle rma regardless of whether the gpu die is shorted / cracked / has the substrate blistered.afaik, this is the first time a gpu brand confirmed these… pic.twitter.com/YjgAz1h1Jf December 27, 2025
The company posted pictures of a tray of these seemingly dead GPUs, all from the RX 6000 family, that it has RMA'd so far. It stated that while other vendors often deny warranty coverage under these circumstances, Zephyr has always honored it and will continue to do so. The post was quite earnest, admitting the brand has taken missteps in customer service while highlighting the good it has done.
There were also two videos showing these cores up close, with various deformities. Most are short-circuited; some are visibly bulging ( "growing muscles," as titled on Bilibili ); and some have cracked dies. All these dead GPUs sit in Zephyr's offices as a reminder of the customers they've helped, regardless of the severity of the damage.
GPU surgeon attempts to rescue fatally-bent RTX 4090 that came in for a melted power connector fix
Zotac denies RTX 5070 Ti fan-related RMA and then offers to dispose of the GPU free of charge
Asus quotes customer $3,350 repair bill for RTX 5090 with microscopic 'surface irregularity', more than the entire card's value
At the time when the terminal RX 6000 series fiasco was unfolding, a German retailer had already attributed their death to a combo of the crypto boom and high-humidity storage . However, no manufacturer had come forward to make a statement, as this wasn't a large-scale issue that ever took precedent. Therefore, it's interesting to see a vendor-side corroboration so many years later.
We can argue that the primary goal of Zephyr's post was to flex its muscles as the only brand that will take on warranty claims for dead GPU cores. However, we finally learn that AIBs may have received various fatal Navi 21 cards at the time, making this incident more widespread than previously imagined. Many people still rock RDNA 2 GPUs for their incredible value proposition, so don't let this turn you away from them.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/chinese-gpu-manufacturer-zephyr-confirms-dead-rdna-2-gpu-dies-from-cracking-bulging-and-shorting-company-says-it-has-replaced-several-dead-navi-21-cores-under-warranty#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Former Samsung engineer accused of giving 10nm DRAM data to China's CXMT, handwritten notes detailed over 600 process steps — gas flow ratios, photoresist setti
- As AI Grows More Complex, Model Builders Rely on NVIDIA
- Amiga motherboard project to add NVMe SSD boot support and a driver for the onboard Ethernet — Mirari project hopes to ‘breathe new life into the next-gen Amiga
- Extremely rare East German game console from the late 1970s tested — only such device produced by communist GDR, bought for $1,000 at auction
- Marine Biological Laboratory Explores Human Memory With AI and Virtual Reality
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.