AMD’s pricing for its next-gen Ryzen 9000 processors appears to have been aired early by some major US retailers, and it looks like good news for those hoping to buy a Zen 5 CPU without paying over the odds.
Indeed, the prices that VideoCardz spotted, from Best Buy and Newegg, are cheaper than the launch price tags seen in the last generation of CPUs, Ryzen 7000.
Apparently, at least if these leaked prices are right – add salt now – the Ryzen 9 9950X will be $599 in the US, a big drop from the $699 that the 7950X launched for. Then there’s the Ryzen 9 9900X at $449 (compared to $549 for its predecessor).
Below the top tier, we have the Ryzen 7 9700X at $359 (compared to $399 for the last-gen equivalent) and the Ryzen 5 9600X at $279 (compared to $299 for the 7600X).
Again, pass the saltshaker and give all this another good dose of seasoning, but the emergence of these prices yesterday, on July 31 – the previously intended launch date for the Ryzen 9000 range, before it was delayed – sort of makes sense.
The fact that the pricing aligns for major US retailers adds some considerable weight to the prospect that this is what we can expect for the Zen 5 chips, too. Mind you, there’s a slight wrinkle here as observed by leaker @momomo_us (on X) in that Newegg differs in one respect with a purported price of $649 for the Zen 5 flagship.
All these product listings have now been taken down, in case you were wondering. The official launch for the next-gen Ryzen CPUs is now August 8 for the Ryzen 9700X and Ryzen 9600X processors, and August 15 for the two Ryzen 9 models.
Analysis: A smart move by AMD – tempting pricing to leverage Intel’s woes to the max?
This looks to be about as good as we could hope for in terms of this being a new generation of silicon from AMD coming in substantially cheaper for the high-end Ryzen 9 chips, with a hundred bucks knocked off both (well, in theory – there’s that wrinkle around the flagship 9950X as noted).
If it pans out as per this leak, with the Ryzen 9 9900X, this would represent close to a 20% drop in MSRP, which is a major move. More importantly, though, is the workhorse Ryzen 7 9700X, which is the CPU a lot of mainstream buyers will be looking to grab from the next-gen range – that’s apparently getting a 10% drop, and it being near the $350 mark, rather than $400, is a pleasant surprise.
While these are US pricing leaks, we can hope to see similar reductions of around 10% to 20% in other regions – with the heavy old caveat that this may not be the case when other factors involving shipping, sales, and import taxes, have been applied to the pricing equation (as ever). We shall see, but whatever the case, this pricing leak is a hopeful one in terms of the potential affordability of these Ryzen 9000 CPUs arriving later in August.
It’s also a great sign for the future, in theory – by which we mean after Zen 5 processors have been around for some time, they will be well below these already substantially lower MSRPs, of course. For example, you can pick up a 7700X for around $290 on Newegg at the moment, so fast forward the best part of two years, and imagine what the 9700X will be going for at that point…
Of course, it won’t be long at all before we get something of an initial discount on the new Zen 5 CPUs – the 9600X in particular might struggle a bit out of the gate, compared to the price level the 7600X has dropped to now (it’s around a third off its launch price in the US). However, Ryzen 7000 stock won’t last forever, of course, and we mustn’t forget that the newest Zen 5 CPUs offer a good performance uplift, too.
The other point to consider here is Intel’s current problems with the stability of some of its 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors – an ongoing saga that’s a veritable pot of worries, and has cast a deep shadow over Team Blue’s silicon. This might steer buyers more firmly towards Ryzen CPUs, especially if the next-gen offerings debut with these relatively affordable MSRPs.