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Just over a week ago, AMD revealed a $899 list price for the upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, which is the first CPU with AMD’s 3D V-Cache across both CCDs. Listings for the CPU are starting to go live in the United States, and Amazon has the chip listed at $999.99, $100 above AMD’s suggested retail pricing, and $340 above what the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is currently listed for on the site.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Elsewhere, B&H has a listing live at AMD’s recommended $899 price but no ability to pre-order, and on Newegg, the CPU is simply listed with a “coming soon” badge.
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AMD tells Tom’s Hardware that the suggested e-tailer pricing (SEP) for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 remains unchanged at $899. However, AMD doesn’t dictate the final price that retailers set, so Amazon (and others) could sell the chip at $1,000 if there’s enough demand for it.
It’s hard to say for sure why Amazon has the CPU listed higher than AMD’s suggest price, but it likely has to do with volume. Given that AMD’s Ryzen 9 X3D CPUs are already low-volume models — compared, at least, to the wildly popular Ryzen 7 models — it’s reasonable to assume that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 will appeal to an even smaller audience. That, and the fact that we haven’t seen a consumer-grade CPU near $1,000 since the days of Intel’s Extreme Edition HEDT processors, could explain the bloated price.
AMD is promoting the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 as a workstation-focused processor, claiming performance gains in the realm of 5% to 12% in applications compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. It’s a relatively minor gain for a big increase in price, at least based on AMD’s data, but there are significant costs for AMD to produce a chip like this.
In addition to an additional 96 MB chunk of SRAM, each Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 essentially takes away a CCD from two Ryzen 9 9950X3Ds. It’s a halo product, and like any good halo product, it’s priced accordingly.
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is set to release next week on April 22. It’s hard to say where pricing will go after launch, but for now at least, Amazon is accepting pre-orders for the chip at a slightly inflated price. Our test benches are warmed up and ready to go to see if the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 will earn a spot among the best CPUs for gaming.
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