The most reliable PC hardware of 2025, according to Puget Systems

Intel and AMD tied in the CPU category, newest Xeon chips had zero failures

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In a nutshell: System integrator Puget Systems has released its annual reliability report for 2025, revealing which PC hardware brands and models proved most reliable throughout the year. In the consumer CPU space two series sat above the rest: the AMD Ryzen 9000 and Intel Core 200, but an outright winner wasn't crowned.

Puget writes that it bases its reliability report on internal burn-in results and RMA records. The company stresses that its stricter standards mean the failure rates may be higher than industry standards and the information is based on its own systems, so it doesn't represent the industry as a whole.

Starting with enterprise processors, Intel stole the most-reliable title from AMD's Threadripper and Threadripper PRO lines in 2025. Impressively, none of the Xeon W-2500 or W-3500 processors Puget sold had recorded failures in 2025. The company adds that only a single Xeon W CPU saw a failure in 2024, too.

Moving on to the consumer side, the Ryzen 9000 and Intel Core 200 had almost identical failure rates of 2.52% and 2.49%, respectively. While Team Blue has the lower rate, Puget writes that the difference is too close to be statistically significant.

There were a couple of standouts within the companies' respective lines: Intel's Core Ultra 7 265K, which had a failure rate of just 0.77%, and AMD's Ryzen X3D series, which saw a 1.5% failure rate. It's also noted that the vast majority of these failures were caught before systems shipped to customers.

Puget also looked at the most reliable GPUs of last year. While Asus' ProArt and TUF GPUs were the champions of 2024, Puget did not sell enough models from specific product lines in to consider them individually. Instead, the retailer looked at the manufacturer level.

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It found that Nvidia's RTX 5000 Founders Edition models were the most reliable GPUs with a 0.25% failure rate. This was followed by Asus (0.4%) and PNY (0.45%).

For professionals, Nvidia's RTX Ada Generation and RTX Pro Blackwell GPUs both had very low failure rates, with the high-wattage RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition being the only exception. Ignoring that model, there was only one failure among the Blackwell cards and four across the various Ada Generation cards.

Being more complex, motherboards often have higher failure rates than processors and GPUs. Puget writes that the average rate has been around 5-6% over the years, with most caught at the factory before shipping.

Two motherboard models stood out last year: the Gigabyte B860M Aorus Elite WIFI6E Ice – though Puget only sold 100 of them – and the Asus TUF B850M-PLUS WIFI, which had a single failure.

The next category was RAM. Puget notes that because of the well-documented shortage and price spikes in the memory market, the vast majority of DRAM it used came from just two companies: Kingston and Micron.

Kingston had the lowest failure rate, 0.19%, though Micron was a close second with 0.27%. The Kingston ValueRAM DDR5-5600 32GB was a particular standout with a 0.09% failure rate.

Storage, the next component in the report, is also being affected by the memory crisis. The Kingston KC3000 drives that won last year maintained a very low 0.22% failure rate, but the winner was Samsung's 870 QVO 8TB SATA SSD, which had no failures last year.

Finally, Puget writes that it uses Super Flower's LEADEX units for its PSUs, which have a 0.47% failure rate. In the company's SFF builds, none of the Corsair SF1000 Platinum 1000W SFX PSUs reported failures.