Study Reveals $5.88 Million in Ryzen 5000 CPU Scalping Sales

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Show me the money!

AMD Ryzen 5000 box
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
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Michael Driscoll, the creator of a script that scrapes sold items on eBay, has shared his latest market analysis on the Ryzen 5000 (codename Vermeer) scalping situation. Given their place on the top of our best CPUs and CPU benchmarks, it's no surprise. Although pricing has stabilized over the past month, AMD's chips are still selling for well over their MSRP.

In a quick summary, Driscoll confirmed that scalpers have sold a grand total of 8,729 Zen 3 processors on eBay alone. To put the number into perspective, it's equivalent to $5,880,472 in sales. The data showed that scalpers made up to $946,259 in earnings from flipping Zen 3 processors on eBay. Nonetheless, the scalpers weren't the only party benefiting from sales as eBay and PayPal raked in a juicy profit of $625,665 as well.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician

Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mossberg
    Really wish there was a way to punish these people. Scalpers are scum.
    Reply
  • GregoryDude
    I agree! The best punishment would be to not purchase from scalpers and then let them get stuck with too much stock and have to sell at a loss.

    Sadly, human nature for consumers to "have it now" and other tendencies will continue to fuel scalpers.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    AMD should put requirements on their vendors to better control this situation. There is no reason AMD can't request their channel partners stick to one CPU per customer until they can keep up with demand, quality channel partners like Newegg, Amazon, Bestbuy, etc. do requests for other vendors (like what Sony and MS have done with PS5 and Xbox). Does it work flawlessly? No, but I know plenty of people who were able to get PS5's and XSX/XSS in the given stock windows provided by those channel partners offering only 1 per customer. With the Zen3 release you are basically screwed unless you are there the exact moment a notification comes in, otherwise Joe Scalper is buying the whole lot.
    Reply
  • Endymio
    JamesJones44 said:
    AMD should put requirements on their vendors to better control this situation.
    I find it truly amazing that people absolutely refuse to learn from history. There's only one way to solve a shortage -- raise the price. Nothing else works. Let me repeat that again for all the thick skulls out there: Nothing. Else. Works.

    If AMD would raise the MSRP on a temporary basis, there would be no margin for these scalpers, and no demand. They would have to raise it far less than what the scalpers are actually charging, and the extra profit they would thus make would also allow them to increase supply as well, if only slightly.
    Reply
  • PapaCrazy
    Endymio said:
    I find it truly amazing that people absolutely refuse to learn from history. There's only one way to solve a shortage -- raise the price. Nothing else works. Let me repeat that again for all the thick skulls out there: Nothing. Else. Works.

    There's only one way to fix a leaky boat -- drain the ocean. Nothing else works. Let me repeat that again for all the thick skills out there: Nothing. Else. Works.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    mossberg said:
    Really wish there was a way to punish these people. Scalpers are scum.
    It is only a few thousand chips, a few hundred wafers out of tens of thousand per month, only a few percent of total sales at most. Even if you successfully ended all scalping, availability would still be practically every bit as horrible overall.

    Endymio said:
    I find it truly amazing that people absolutely refuse to learn from history. There's only one way to solve a shortage -- raise the price.
    Ramping up production works too, only problem is that it takes about two years to bring new fab capacity online when all existing capacity is already booked.
    Reply
  • Endymio
    InvalidError said:
    Ramping up production works too, only problem is that it takes about two years to bring new fab capacity online when all existing capacity is already booked.
    True. And higher prices are the market signal to increase supply.

    And while new fabs do take years, even in the short term, higher prices can increase supply, by allowing manufacturers to run just a little more closely to full 100% capacity.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    If AMD would raise the MSRP on a temporary basis, there would be no margin for these scalpers, and no demand. They would have to raise it far less than what the scalpers are actually charging, and the extra profit they would thus make would also allow them to increase supply as well, if only slightly.

    I agree AMD is completely misguided for leaving all of that money on the table, clearly they could have charged more. However, I don't agree with nothing else works, the PS5 from BestBuy and XSX from Walmart in my living room beg to differ that other solutions don't work.
    Reply
  • Endymio
    JamesJones44 said:
    However, I don't agree with nothing else works, the PS5 from BestBuy and XSX from Walmart in my living room beg to differ that other solutions don't work.
    A supply shortage doesn't mean that absolutely no one gets product. It simply means that supply doesn't equal demand.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Endymio said:
    And while new fabs do take years, even in the short term, higher prices can increase supply, by allowing manufacturers to run just a little more closely to full 100% capacity.
    Most of the major players have been operating at max capacity for the last couple of years, there isn't much extra capacity left under the couches unless they discover ways to reduce the number of manufacturing steps with minor modifications to the equipment they already have.
    Reply