AMD's new Ryzen 9950X and 9900X CPUs are already heavily discounted below MSRP

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD's Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPUs just hit the market earlier this month and now the top two SKUs are already on big sales at Amazon. Having debuted with a $649 MSRP, the 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X is now down to either $559 or $623 depending on whether you are comfortable buying from a third-party Amazon seller or if you prefer getting the chip from Amazon itself. 

The 12-core, 24-thread Ryzen 9 9900X is now down to $449 after having started at $499 just a couple of weeks ago. Both of these are all-time lows for the new chips, 

Ryzen 9 9950X: now $623 at Amazon

Ryzen 9 9950X: now $623 at Amazon (was $649)
The top-of-the-line Ryzen CPU has 16 cores, 32 threads and a boost clock of 5.7 GHz with a 80MB of cache. It's actually listed as $559 if you buy it from Amazon seller XIEGUANGXUAN which is not well-known. $623 is what it costs if you choose Amazon as the seller. It's the same $623 at Newegg.

Ryzen 9 9900X: now $449 at Amazon

Ryzen 9 9900X: now $449 at Amazon (was $499)
This 12-core, 24-thread CPU operates at a max boost clock of 5.6 GHz and features 76MB of cache.

When we reviewed the Ryzen 9 9950X a few weeks ago, we were impressed with its multithreaded productivity performance, but a little disappointed in its gaming prowess as it trailed Intel's top chip, the Core i9 14900K and AMD's last-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D (because of the 3D cache). 

However, it still performed well in gaming and it led the pack in multi-threaded. The Ryzen 9 9900X wasn't far behind. 

Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X multi-threaded performance

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

However, if you're looking to save money, the last-gen Ryzen 9 7950X goes for just $451 right now and it has the same 16 cores and 32 threads as the 9950X. The Ryzen 9 7900X, which has 12 cores and 24 threads like the 9900X, is now $319. Both provide really good productivity performance and solid gaming.

Avram Piltch
Avram Piltch is Tom's Hardware's editor-in-chief. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
  • Amdlova
    These processors came out only two weeks ago.

    Still worse than the old ones!
    Reply
  • Giroro
    I would be suspicious of that $559 9950X.

    I've been tracking the 7950X and 7950X3D pricing on amazon because I keep seeing them listed at $449 and I thought that was an interesting price. Every afternoon a 3rd party seller with few/no store reviews lists the processor at that price, then it's gone by evening. The next day, a completely different store with few/new store reviews posts it at that price around the same time of day, then it goes away again.

    It's weird that it's always a different seller. I think something is up.
    I think the 9950X might be seeing that same suspicious pricing pattern from unvetted sellers, so keep an eye out.

    Although Amazon itself has the 7950X at $451 today, that one seems legit.
    Reply
  • TeamRed2024
    Amdlova said:

    Still worse than the old ones!

    I guess that depends on your use case. I personally don't care about having 5 less fps than something like the 7800x3D in some random game... because the 9950X (and 7950X) will run circles around the 7800x3D in other non-gaming tasks.

    Best of both worlds.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Sounds like the same old marketing tactic of inflating the price at launch to make the "real" price seem like a good deal.
    Reply
  • TeamRed2024
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Sounds like the same old marketing tactic of inflating the price at launch to make the "real" price seem like a good deal.

    After paying the $649 I got the price match refund to $623 this morning. Either way... the 7950X is $513... and that $110 difference might be a dealbreaker for some but I'll take the performance bump. When you do the math I'm paying like $10 for every 1% increase in performance over the 7950X.

    Why say no to that? :cheese:
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Without the awful marketing leading up to the release I don't think this would have happened quite so quickly (well maybe the 9900X because the dual 6 core CCD parts seem almost unwanted by the DIY community). The only time any of these are going to be worth the money over their Zen 4 counterpart is if you're doing workloads that they're disproportionately good at. If you have a system that works and aren't making money off of those things it'd still be better to wait for lower prices though.

    Personally speaking the 9950X is the only one of the 4 CPUs that's a clear winner over Zen 4 parts and that's because its power consumption is flat out lower.

    Looking forward to the end of the year to see what else AMD has planned and what the performance on Intel's ARL looks like.
    Reply
  • Guardians Bane
    Amdlova said:
    These processors came out only two weeks ago.

    Still worse than the old ones!
    Price/performance yeah... But I wouldn't go as far as to say they're worse. They are on par, if not better in most workloads. Just not gaming, for sure. And they never expected it to be a gaming powerhouse. That's what X3D will be for. And I've got my hopes up, but cautiously.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Guardians Bane said:
    And they never expected it to be a gaming powerhouse.
    In the presentation regarding Zen 5 they literally said it would be a little faster than the 7800X3D. Then there was of course these slides:
    AMD set awful expectations which poured cold water on the launch. Zen 5 is a good product with extremely poor expectations set and a poor comparative price.
    Reply
  • Guardians Bane
    thestryker said:
    In the presentation regarding Zen 5 they literally said it would be a little faster than the 7800X3D. Then there was of course these slides:
    AMD set awful expectations which poured cold water on the launch. Zen 5 is a good product with extremely poor expectations set and a poor comparative price.
    Vs Intel in those slides. And anyone shopping for gaming parts knows damn well that X3D is the one to get. AMD even said that Zen5 would Not beat the X3D series. And X SKUs DO have higher clocks and can be faster in most workloads over their X3D comparable CPUs.

    I'm not saying Zen5 is a good bargain right now. The 7000 series SKUs are the price/performance SKUs with AMD to get right now.

    AMD really did fumble the launch of the 9000 series.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Guardians Bane said:
    Vs Intel in those slides.
    Slides that happen to be completely incorrect which is the point.
    Guardians Bane said:
    And anyone shopping for gaming parts knows damn well that X3D is the one to get. AMD even said that Zen5 would Not beat the X3D series.
    They actually said it would: uQ2vfw6eDJEView: https://youtu.be/uQ2vfw6eDJE?si=vjEwEiL2qYFTLhdQ
    Reply