AMD’s new Ryzen processors were officially launched yesterday to great fanfare (and plentiful reviews – here’s our 1800X write-up), and they’ve sold out of stock on Amazon already, not to mention other major retailers.
Tom’s Hardware spotted that Amazon US has sold out of the flagship Ryzen 1800X, as well as the 1700X and 1700, although you can still buy from third-party marketplace sellers. You’ll pay for the privilege though – at the time of writing, the third-party vendor selling the 1800X is charging $553 (a fair bit above the recommended price of $499, which Amazon sells at).
Tom’s further noted that Ryzen processors were sold out at Fry’s and also there were no 1800X models at Newegg – although the latter now appears to have units for sale. Best Buy isn’t offering the standalone CPU at all, only prebuilt PCs powered by the chip.
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So what about the situation in the UK? It’s the same story at Amazon here, with stock sold out, but third-party vendors still selling at an inflated price. You can buy an 1800X from a marketplace seller, but it will set you back £539 (as opposed to Amazon’s £489 price).
Over at Ebuyer, you can pre-order the 1800X, but it won’t ship until Monday (and that’s an ‘expected’ date, so not guaranteed). It’s a similar story at retailers such as Overclockers, although CCL Computers does currently have stock of the flagship AMD processor at £489 (at the time of writing, at least). The latter appears to be the only major outlet where you can currently buy the 1800X.
Train of thought
As ever, the usual thoughts occur – is this being driven by demand and the hype train, or is it more to do with AMD not getting enough stock out there from the get-go?
As for the Ryzen hype train itself, that particular locomotive hasn’t come off the rails, but things have been dampened by reviews and online chatter regarding gaming performance being something of a disappointment (particularly in 1080p gaming). Although matters could potentially improve with driver updates, of course.
Something else that caught our eye (again, courtesy of Tom’s) was the fact that some manufacturers of cooling solutions are providing free upgrade kits to ensure their products work with the new Ryzen CPUs.
Fractal Design is offering a free kit to those who have purchased its Kelvin Series enthusiast-class water coolers, and similarly NZXT has a kit to ensure Ryzen compatibility with its last-gen and current Kraken water coolers.
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