AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Is $540 off Launch Price

(Image credit: AMD)

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, a 2.9-GHz, 64-core processor that's one of the best CPUs for 3D modelers, is now on sale for $3,449.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab). That’s $540.01 off its $3990.00 price when it launched earlier this year, and its lowest price ever, according to CamelCamelCamel (opens in new tab).

A competitor to Intel’s Xeon processors, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper line is a series of chips with high CPU core counts and high clock speeds used for professional-level rendering, encoding, compiling, streaming and pretty much everything a typical Ryzen isn’t cut out for. It’s been used on movies like Terminator: Dark Fate, and at 64 cores and 128 threads with a max boost speed of up to 4.3 GHz, the Threadripper 3990X is easily the most powerful model in the series.

As we noted in our AMD Threadripper 3900X review (opens in new tab), this CPU also brings PCIe 4.0 support and enthusiast-level features, like overclockability and competitive per-core pricing. Sure, $3,449.99 might seem like a lot at first blush, but compared to Intel’s $10,000-plus Xeon 8280 (opens in new tab), the Threadripper 3990X offers comparable, and sometimes higher, performance. Of course, this Threadripper is also plenty capable as a gaming CPU, even if it’s a bit overkill.

With so many of us now working from home, plenty of folks are looking to upgrade their CPU. If you’re a 3D modeler, financial analyst, VFX specialist or other professional in need of business-tier computing, this deal is a great way to up your productivity without breaking the bank.

Michelle Ehrhardt

Michelle Ehrhardt is an editor at Tom's Hardware. She's been following tech since her family got a Gateway running Windows 95, and is now on her third custom-built system. Her work has been published in publications like Paste, The Atlantic, and Kill Screen, just to name a few. She also holds a master's degree in game design from NYU.

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26 Comments Comment from the forums

NightHawkRMX

I have to wonder why AMD is doing this. Intel has NOTHING that is competitive in raw CPU performance, and Intels best attempt still costs FAR FAR more.

AMD didn't need to drop their prices, but yet they still axed nearly 15% off. Not complaining.
Reply
JamesSneed

NightHawkRMX said:
I have to wonder why AMD is doing this. Intel has NOTHING that is competitive in raw CPU performance, and Intels best attempt still costs FAR FAR more.

AMD didn't need to drop their prices, but yet they still axed nearly 15% off. Not complaining.

If I had to guess they are clearing stock.
Reply
InvalidError

JamesSneed said:
If I had to guess they are clearing stock.
Yup, I'd expect Zen 3 EPYC and TR with a single double-sized CCX per CCD to be a substantial boon to high core count CPUs. Gotta shift units and clear stock while it can still get good money for them.
Reply
gfg

but compared to Intel’s $10,000-plus Xeon 8280, the Threadripper 3990X offers comparable, and sometimes higher, performance.
are you kidding?3990X has more than double the performance of the 2x8280... :censored:

Reply
spongiemaster

JamesSneed said:
If I had to guess they are clearing stock.
Why would that be necessary in a market with supposedly such high demand? And why does Intel never have to "clear stock?" Seriously, you never see Intel CPU's hit the bargain bins when a new series release is imminent. Are they just better at knowing what volume to manufacturer?
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JamesSneed

spongiemaster said:
Why would that be necessary in a market with supposedly such high demand? And why does Intel never have to "clear stock?" Seriously, you never see Intel CPU's hit the bargain bins when a new series release is imminent. Are they just better at knowing what volume to manufacturer?

If Zen3 is as good as many predict the multi threaded performance is going to have a large increase to a point these high core count CPU's will have to sell at a huge discount or not at all. Intel CPU's don't ever hit bargain bins, even 5 year old CPU's. Intel simply eats the lost sales so it never competes with itself but then that is what you do when you run a virtual monopoly. Intel can lose 10's of millions in old CPU's that don't sale and they make money by not reducing the prices competing with themselves on next generation sales. This will stop once AMD has close to 40-50% of the market share if that ever happens.
Reply
TerryLaze

NightHawkRMX said:
I have to wonder why AMD is doing this. Intel has NOTHING that is competitive in raw CPU performance, and Intels best attempt still costs FAR FAR more.

AMD didn't need to drop their prices, but yet they still axed nearly 15% off. Not complaining.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-10500k-10900k&num=10
The 10900k equaled the 3900x in business workloads so basically ryzen cores just lost about 20% of value.
Maybe this swapped over to threadripper as well.

JamesSneed said:
If Zen3 is as good as many predict the multi threaded performance is going to have a large increase to a point these high core count CPU's will have to sell at a huge discount or not at all.
See this is a huge problem for AMD,the over hype keeps people from buying their current products because people think that the next batch will be so much better.
When they announced ZEN it caused their revenue to drop significantly,and zen1 only got them back to EOL faildozer levels because even hardcore AMD fans knew that their first iteration wouldn't be as good as the refresh.

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JamesSneed

@TerryLaze No argument. This is very likely the reason AMD is also doing a small refresh this summer to try to keep people from holding out. However if the 8-core CCX, shared cache, and IPC improvements are true Zen3 is going to be a pretty large jump.
Reply
InvalidError

JamesSneed said:
Intel simply eats the lost sales so it never competes with itself
Intel does not eat the cost of unsold stock to artificially inflate its older chips' prices, it issues product discontinuance and last order notices when sales are expected to wind down in the transition to next-gen parts so it can terminate production of older parts as soon as its pre-booked final orders and warranty replacement inventory needs are met. Because of that, it rarely has excess inventory to write off.

Intel's old CPUs keep their value for a very long time simply because there aren't enough of them on the market to drive prices down while they are still relevant.
Reply
spongiemaster

JamesSneed said:
If Zen3 is as good as many predict the multi threaded performance is going to have a large increase to a point these high core count CPU's will have to sell at a huge discount or not at all. Intel CPU's don't ever hit bargain bins, even 5 year old CPU's. Intel simply eats the lost sales so it never competes with itself but then that is what you do when you run a virtual monopoly. Intel can lose 10's of millions in old CPU's that don't sale and they make money by not reducing the prices competing with themselves on next generation sales. This will stop once AMD has close to 40-50% of the market share if that ever happens.
This sounds like the rant of a jaded ex more than anything with any sort of factual content. Any evidence to back any of this up?
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