AMD seems determined to disrupt Intel’s new CPU launch as much as possible, with the company announcing a sweep of price cuts across all its new gaming CPUs, effective immediately. The new AMD Ryzen price cuts affect every new chip in the new Zen 5 lineup, with $50 slashed off the cost of the Ryzen 9 9950X, and $30 taken off the other chips in the range.
With the Intel Arrow Lake launch coming later this week, and the Ryzen 9 9000X3D release date coming in early November, it looks as though AMD is attempting to make its range of new Ryzen 9000 CPUs look more appealing. A cynic might also argue that the chips were overpriced in the first place, and that they should have launched with these prices originally, but we’ll take it either way. Cheaper CPUs are good for all of us.
Let’s start with the 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, which has dropped from $649 to $599 – a $50 drop. That’s still not cheap, especially when the Intel Core i9 14900K has recently dropped in price to $445, but it’s still a reduction of 7.7%. Although this CPU isn’t really aimed at gamers, its 16 Zen 5 cores make it a monster in heavily multi-threaded software.
At the other end of the scale, the six-core AMD Ryzen 5 9600X has dropped in price from $279 to $249. It’s still a fair bit more expensive than the Ryzen 5 7600X, which now goes for just $207, but it’s good to see the price heading in the right direction. Proportionally, this is the biggest fall in price of the lot as well, equating to just over 10.7%.
Meanwhile, the eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has dropped from $359 to $329, although you can currently pick it up for a little cheaper on Amazon, where it’s going for $326.75. Finally, the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X, which had a launch MSRP of $499, has also dropped by $30 to $469. Again, though, you can pick it up much cheaper already, with Amazon listing it at $429 right now.
AMD describes these new CPU prices as an “early holiday promotion,” so they may not be permanent. However, with Intel launching its new CPUs later this week, AMD will be feeling the pressure to keep its processor prices competitive.
If you’re thinking of putting together a new rig with one of AMD’s new chips now that their prices are a bit more tempting, check out our guide on how to build a gaming PC, where we take you through the whole procedure step by step, including installing your CPU. You can also read our guide to the best gaming CPU, where we run you through all our favorite chips right now.
