AMD has revealed the official pricing for its first four Ryzen 9000 processors, which are set to launch in late August (after a slight delay), and it's a case of good news and bad news – at least in some ways.
The good news is that the quartet of next-gen CPUs will debut with cheaper MSRPs than their currently released Ryzen 7000 counterparts, but the not-so-good news is that the prices aren't as cheap as a retailer leak suggested – at least not for the Ryzen 9 models.
AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors are ready to deliver top-of-the-line performance for gamers and creators. Available August 8: • Ryzen 7 9700X• Ryzen 5 9600X Available August 15: • Ryzen 9 9950X• Ryzen 9 9900X pic.twitter.com/L9YOAyKmHgAugust 6, 2024
It turns out that the Ryzen 9 9950X will cost $649 in the US, and its sibling, the Ryzen 9 9900X, will sell for $499. In both cases, that’s $50 more than a recent leak indicated (with the caveat that one source, Newegg, did price the flagship model correctly, to be fair, but every retailer got the 9900X wrong). However, both of these MSRPs are still $50 lower than the launch price of the 7950X and 7900X.
Retailers were right in accidentally posting prices for the Ryzen 7 9700X at $359 and the Ryzen 5 9600X at $279 (a drop of $40 and $20 respectively, generation-over-generation).
These are all US prices and we don't have confirmation for other regions yet. In theory, if we see proportional reductions, we can expect a 7-10% discount on MSRPs in other countries. However, when factoring in import duties and sales, regions outside the US are unlikely to see the same level of downward movement.
Analysis: A surprising reduction, perhaps?
Okay, so the good news outweighs the bad in this case, for sure. After all, AMD is making a new generation of Zen 5 desktop chips that cost about 10% less than the current generation across the board (at least with these initial product launches), so that can't be seen as a bad thing.
In some respects, we're surprised that Team Red has dropped prices. After all, Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake CPUs are still a ways off, perhaps, so the Ryzen 9000 chips are effectively entering the fray with an old, not-too-convincing refresh of the Raptor Lake silicon. (And Raptor Lake is almost two years old now.) Plus, Intel is currently knee-deep in a quagmire of stability issues that, at least judging by some online comments, are deterring some people from choosing Team Blue for their CPUs.
In some ways, we're betting that AMD could have done without cutting prices at all, except perhaps for the fact that some Ryzen 7000 models have dropped quite a bit below their suggested retail prices now, and Ryzen 9000 must make some sort of sense when viewed from that perspective, too.
One particularly telling comparison for PC gamers will be how the Zen 5 range’s new workhorse 9700X stacks up against the 7800X3D in terms of price/performance, as the latter is only 5% more expensive at current prices. There was some buzz about it due to a previous AMD reveal, so there are a lot of eyes on that particular gaming CPU comparison.
Via VideoCardz
You may also like
