Buying a used Ryzen 7 5800 X3D CPU has locked its new owner out of Valorant. Reddit user After-Cartoonist-196 posted on r/PCBaumeister that they bought the chip through the German classifieds site Kleinanzeigen and have owned it since September 21. The CPU apparently works fine.
However, Valorant kicked them out at launch, even though the game ran normally on their previous processor. Riot support reportedly told them the CPU's ID was blacklisted in Vanguard on August 12 because the previous owner had cheated. The user also claims their motherboard and storage drive got flagged, and that support refused to lift the ban.
However, Riot's head of anti-cheat, Phillip Koskinas, responded on X and disputed part of that. Here's what he posted: Hardware bans last 4 months maximum, they apply only to the game cheats were detected in, and we don't ban everything else when we match one component. Support will give you the time remaining on request.
If it were up to me, we'd have soul bans that followed them into hell. By that timeline, this chip should work in Valorant again by mid-December. We still don't know how Vanguard tells one 5800 X3D from another, since a CPU doesn't report a unique serial number to Windows.
The firmware TPM inside the processor is the likely answer, since Vanguard's on-demand mode requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. Riot hasn't confirmed the method. AMD relaunched the 5800 X3D at $350 in June, so plenty of AM4 owners are eyeing used ones right now.
Unfortunately, there's no apparent way to check the chip for a ban before buying it.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing