Samsung issues warning about fake SSDs in Europe as the PC crisis sparks a massive slump in CPU sales

Date:
Fri, 17 Apr 2026 11:34:22 +0000

Description:
More fake SSDs and a CPU sales slump the casualties of the RAM crisis are piling up, sadly.

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More fake Samsung SSDs have been uncovered, and the drive maker has said it's 'taking consistent action against such counterfeits' At the same time, CPU sales are seemingly in a major slump, the worst seen in a decade, we're told With the PC component crisis just getting more intense, there is hope for
some relief later this year but the way it'll be realized isn't very comforting As the PC component crisis intensifies, with CPU sales now apparently in a serious slump, we've had another warning about fake Samsung SSDs as scammers try to capitalize on expensive higher-end drives.

First off, let's look at the SSD nastiness, with German tech site
ComputerBase reporting ( via VideoCardz ) that an Austrian buyer had the misfortune to receive two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs from a retailer that have both been confirmed to be fakes. While the packaging of the 1TB drives looked authentic enough, and didn't ring any alarm bells, inspection of the SSDs
did, as they had a blue circuit board (rather than the black color Samsung uses). They also used the wrong SSD controller (a Realtek model rather than a Pascal controller). Article continues below You may like SSD fakes are now more sophisticated here's how to avoid falling victim DDR4 RAM price falls but don't get carried away with any optimism yet Samsung RAM prices have doubled and the worst is yet to come

The real sign that something was very wrong, though, was the fact that these solid-state drives didn't work at all. (Unlike better fakes, which work, and can even appear to be the correct model when installed in a PC if you don't engage in anything other than a cursory inspection).

When Samsung was told about this incident by ComputerBase, the company provided a statement that read: "Samsung takes such reports about counterfeit memory products very seriously. We are taking consistent action against the distribution of such counterfeits.

"We recommend purchasing Samsung storage media exclusively through the
Samsung Online Shop or authorized retailers. Consumers can also use the Samsung Magician software to verify that their product is genuine."

With the price of CPUs creeping up, maybe we'll also need to be wary of an uptick in processor fakes (such as the counterfeit Ryzen 9800X3D chips we've seen palmed off on unsuspecting consumers in the past). Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

More broadly, is it the case that pricier processors, and the squeeze from
the memory crisis in general, are killing sales of desktop silicon? Apparently, this is indeed happening, as mentioned at the outset.

PC Gamer reports that TechEpiphany, who regularly posts figures from major German retailer Mindfactory, shared some recent data on X showing that processor sales have fallen sharply in the last three weeks (after being in something of a slump across the whole of March). It's mainly AMD Ryzen sales that have dropped actually though that's partly a function of Intel sales numbers already being a great deal less at the start of 2026 and it's an eye-opening slump.

Based on that data, and other sales figures drawn from the likes of Amazon , TechEpiphany posted on X that: "In 10 years of tracking retail CPU (and related) sales, I have never seen such a steep decline." What to read next Forget the RAM crisis storage prices are spiralling, and CPUs may be next I've picked the top 3 SSDs you should buy now to avoid price rises TrendForce report sparks hope that we might be turning a corner in the RAM crisis Analysis: an 11.5-level crisis (Image credit: Alexander_Safonov / Shutterstock) Saying that this is the single biggest slump which TechEpiphany has witnessed in the last decade is quite a statement regarding CPU sales. When asked 'on a scale of 1-10, how done are we?' in a follow-up post on X, TechEpiphany replied that we're at '11.5' currently.

Are processor prices really rising that steeply? Well, following rumors of major price increases late last year, they are going up, certainly, as
there's a CPU shortage which is getting more serious .

However, this isn't just about processors in a bubble, but the entire custom PC market. With the prices of all components going up, and particularly RAM along with storage, building a computer from scratch or looking at a substantial upgrade to a new motherboard platform for an existing system has become a ridiculously pricey affair.

So, people just aren't doing that, and this is going to depress CPU sales,
and indeed all components not just the memory side of the equation, where
the price hikes have been truly astronomical.

Counterfeit products being increasingly wheeled out as scammers try to profiteer from these high prices isn't going to help the situation, either. It's not great news that fake Samsung SSDs have now reached Europe, after an increase in Japan was already observed though at least this latest bout of fakery wasn't as sophisticated as previously seen .

There's one hope here, namely that these stupidly high prices and the PC market in general getting out of hand is indeed resulting in a refusal to
buy from consumers (as apparently seen with CPUs, but also RAM recently, too ). That in itself could rebalance the supply and demand seesaw to some
extent, and lead to prices falling. And as PC Gamer also spotted , MediaTek
is tentatively predicting a more optimistic pricing trajectory for RAM in the second half of 2026 based on this kind of theorizing.

MediaTek's SVP and head of global sales, Eric Fischer, recently told analyst firm Counterpoint: "We're super cautious, maybe cautiously optimistic about the second half [of 2026], about where it goes because, at some point the prices are going to have an impact on the consumer's ability to spend
whether it's notebooks or [other] consumer products."

This is a sentiment we've heard elsewhere , but it isn't really all that comforting that the best hope for the RAM crisis to slacken its grip on our wallets is that pricing simply gets so high that people point-blank refuse to spend. But, here we are, and this is seemingly what it's come to... The best laptops for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/storage-backup/samsung-issues-warning-abou t-fake-ssds-in-europe-as-the-pc-crisis-sparks-a-massive-slump-in-cpu-sales


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