AMD’s Ryzen 9 3900X has reportedly been given a price cut in the wake of Intel’s new Comet Lake processors hitting the shelves, which could certainly be viewed as a reactive move following the 10th-gen desktop launch.
According to a report by TechPowerup, AMD has signaled to retailers to drop the price of the 3900X to around $410 over in the US, where it will compete with the Core i9-10900K and indeed the Core i7-10700K. If this isn’t a reaction to the launch of those Intel processors, then the timing is certainly what you’d call interesting…
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There’s a bit to unpick with this story, however. As far as the official price listed by AMD goes, the 3900X launched at $499, but is now listed at $449 on AMD’s website. As mentioned, TechPowerup contends that a drop to around $410 is being marshaled with online retailers, although prices are kind of peppered around that mark.
Furthermore, note that the 3900X has been dropped to this kind of just-over-$400 level before.
Going back to the current prices, the Ryzen 3900X might have been $410 yesterday at Amazon, but now sits at $420 there, or $432 at Newegg in the US – but as one eagle-eyed TechPowerup reader spotted, it has crashed down to $390 at Micro Center.
Now that really is a steal, given that even the Core i7-10700K has launched at around $410. That’s an 8-core Intel part, compared to the 12-core Ryzen.
3900X threat
The 10-core Intel Core i9-10900K is pegged at $510 or more, and as we pointed out in our review, it is outdone by the 3900X in most CPU-heavy workloads (and some games which hit the processor hard across multiple cores).
In the UK, the 3900X can now be had for around £410 online, at the time of writing, and the 10700K is around the same mark, with the 10900K pitched at about £530.
Looking at the value of the 3900X in the US at Micro Center, then, this AMD 12-core processor presents a highly tempting proposition for many users looking at building a beefier PC, no doubt. And remember that you get a cooler bundled with the 3900X too (although many may well want to upgrade that component, the fact is it’s still there by default).
AMD would seem to be making it clear that it’s not going to relent in the slightest with its push in the desktop CPU arena, and of course that’s not even taking into account that we have Ryzen 4000 processors on the near horizon, ready to debut in September according to the rumor mill.
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Via Videocardz, PC GamesN
