Following up on reviews for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, a flurry of reports are coming out about AMD’s pricing for its new Zen 5 CPUs. Across the lineup, which is sure to earn some spots among the best processors, AMD reduced prices compared to the previous generation. That’s great. But it’s not exactly an accurate picture of pricing right now.
First, the prices. You can see in the picture below the prices for the main four Zen 5 CPUs. Both Ryzen 9 models are $50 cheaper compared to their last-gen counterparts, the Ryzen 7 9700X is $40 cheaper, and the Ryzen 5 9600X is $20 cheaper. That’s only true if you compare the list prices that AMD set. Ultimately, it’s up to retailers to dictate the final price, which is something we saw in full effect with AMD’s last-gen CPUs.
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AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors are ready to deliver world class gaming and creator performance.
Available Aug 8: • Ryzen 7 9700X• Ryzen 5 9600X
Available Aug 15: • Ryzen 9 9950X• Ryzen 9 9900X pic.twitter.com/L9YOAyKmHg
— AMD Ryzen (@AMDRyzen) August 6, 2024
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If you recall, AMD’s last-gen CPUs weren’t super popular out of the gate. Despite being great performers, Intel’s Core i9-14900K arrived more than $100 cheaper than the Ryzen 9 7950X while offering similar performance. Lower down the stack, Intel provided better multi-core performance while arriving at the same price. This battle of CPU giants quickly led to a race down to lower prices, which AMD’s last-gen lineup has maintained for months at this point.
To give some perspective, here’s what you’ll spend on AMD’s Zen 4 lineup if you pick up a processor today:
- ($300 at launch)
- ($400 at launch)
- ($550 at launch)
- ($700 at launch)
It’s not surprising to see prices go down on last-gen components over time, but AMD’s last-gen CPUs almost immediately dropped below list price after releasing and have only gone down in price since then. The cut on list price for new Zen 5 CPUs is, more than anything, a more accurate reflection of what these CPUs are likely to sell for out of the gate.
It’s also important to take stock of last-gen pricing given the performance of the new Zen 5 chips. As you can read in our Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review, AMD delivered some solid performance gains in certain applications. However, in heavily-threaded workloads — tasks that make use of all of the cores — Zen 4 and Zen 5 are very close. Then there’s gaming, where AMD’s last-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D still mops the floor with and is available for around the same price as the new Ryzen 7 9700X.
The Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X go on sale on Thursday, while the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X will be available on August 15. AMD lowered the recommended prices this generation, but we’ll ultimately need to wait to see where the prices land at retailers once the processors are available for sale.
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