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Come on, "literally no reason"? Maybe because AMD can't keep up with demand for their new CPUs. I can't buy a Ryzen 3900X without paying substantially inflated

Come on, "literally no reason"? Maybe because AMD can't keep up with demand for their new CPUs. I can't buy a Ryzen 3900X without paying substantially inflated ebay prices, the BIOS issues out of the gate are super annoying, and all of these factors are not necessarily technical or performance factors but the fact is that I can get a 9900K right now with mature UEFI firmware on them from reputable motherboard manufacturers, and then I can actually do something with the hardware. I've been holding out on building a desktop because I could go for a while without it but my patience is wearing very thin after waiting months and now having to wait even longer just to get CPUs in stock in the first place. Intel's advantage is OEMs and sheer output volume, but the hyperscale infrastructure folks are going to be shoring up AMD financially while Intel has problems and maybe in two years or so of this nonsense AMD might be much more of a serious decision, but as of this moment it isn't a slam dunk for AMD at all.

chubbyrabbit 7y ago
> I can't buy a Ryzen 3900X without paying substantially inflated ebay prices. I'm experiencing the opposite. There has been so many deals on 3900X that I have to constantly tell myself I don't need an upgrade.
- snazz 7y ago
  Same here. Find nearest Micro Center, see wonderful deal, spend more than you came in looking to spend, repeat. Unless you don’t have any kind of physical computer store near you, I don’t see why buying it on eBay would be useful.
  - gwicks56 7y ago
    Damn, I have been desperately trying to get one since launch. Think the USA is getting them all, and the rest of the world is getting screwed. I paid on launch day, my store is getting 2 3900x's this month, they have 78 people who have paid in full and are waiting.
    - wyldfire 7y ago
      Arbitrage to the rescue?
    - tooop 7y ago
      I am in Europe and a reputable local online shop shows that i can get it after a week for 690$ but that is including VAT (575$ without VAT).
      - Macha 7y ago
        I am in Europe and a (previously?) Reputable online retailer showed me the same 2 weeks ago, but 1 week ago ( 2 days after the expected ship time) updated the expected time to a month and just said they didn't get the shipment expected, deal with it
    - snazz 7y ago
      My original comment was quite ignorant, then, and I apologize for it. They’ve got quite a few at my Micro Center for $449 if you purchase a compatible motherboard, so I was (incorrectly) assuming that this applied to the rest of the world too.
- devonkim 7y ago
  I am genuinely intrigued. I've been going to my local Microcenters in the DC VA area for weeks now and they said they have gotten ZERO shipments in since release day of the 3900X and have a couple 3700X maybe on shelves. This doesn't necessarily completely invalidate my point though - distribution by AMD is clearly needing some work when one region is drowning in 3900X processors and a very wealthy metro area has none in retail channels.
  - ckozlowski 7y ago
    Same. The Nutley St. location sold out on the first day and hasn't been any since.
  - Teknoman117 7y ago
    Odd. I was in Microcenter on Tuesday and they had a few 3900X's in the case. When I was there closer to launch, there weren't any and they told me that people would come in and ask for them before they even hit the shelf.
    - devonkim 7y ago
      Which Microcenter location though? The Fairfax one the employee in the section on Sunday said the two boxes in the floor cases were 3700X and not 3900X because the boxes for the 3900X are larger.
      - Teknoman117 7y ago
        Tustin, CA
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    Consumer doesn’t really matter. Pretty much any IT admin I know is ordering one directly through wholesalers. I’m actually surprised people physically go to stores anymore.
  - ksec 7y ago
    Or may be ( cough ) someone in your local Microcenters hasn't been ordering to fulfil those stocks. This strategy is quite widely used in many other industry as well. Although given it has only been launched for less than a month and demand is actually through the roof ( I have been seen reviews being so Pro AMD, even in the AMD Athon 64 days ). So I think it is simply supply is a little tight while TSMC are working hard.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  Where have you been able to find them? PCPartPicker hasn't exactly shown great availability on the 3900X so far [0], Amazon is full of scalping [1] and Ebay... Well, $700+ is what I'm seeing there. This is the CPU that'll probably be powering my next build, so if you've got a source close to MSRP I'd love to hear it! 0: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tLCD4D/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-36-ghz-12-core-processor-100-100000023box https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tLCD4D/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-36... 1: https://smile.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-3900X-24-Thread-Processor/dp/B07SXMZLP9 https://smile.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-3900X-24-Thread-Processor...
  - Apotheos 7y ago
    Check out the buildapcsales subreddit, that's where I consistently find the biggest discounts.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      I don't care about getting it at a discount, I care about getting it at MSRP...
      - y4mi 7y ago
        Then check out the discounted deal and mail them you'd like to pay extra
        notmyaccount 7y ago
        Good Morning Sir, I hope this letter finds you in good health. Since I've seen that you are offering AMD 3900X at a discount, I'd like to inform you that I am not like those pleebs and would therefore like you to pay in full MSRP. Please let me know where I can send the goats. I have the honor to be your obedient customer. N. Pleeb
        jotm 7y ago
        Funny enough, I had two buyers saying pretty much this. "I'll pay 49" on a £35 item. Why? Because apparently that's "what it's worth". I appreciate the thought, but it just looks insanely suspicious...
ken47 7y ago
AMD is literally facing unprecedented demand. There's no hype here. This is the real thing. Shortages are to be expected, but you can assume that AMD is smart enough to route their production such that they get the highest return -- e.g. to recurring enterprise customers.
clhodapp 7y ago
What? Intel are currently in the midst of a massive ongoing supply shortage. Lack of ability to keep up with demand is at least as much an Intel problem as it is an AMD one at this point.
- philliphaydon 7y ago
  Intel also has lower yields than amd which doesn’t exactly help intel our much.
- mtgx 7y ago
  Intel's shortage is due to I tel's 10nm screwup not "high demand'.
gameswithgo 7y ago
you dont have a cpu yet but the bios issue is super annoying? i have one and there is no bios issue. i got the cheapest x570 mobo and everything is great
- ben-schaaf 7y ago
  To add to this, I've got a B350 Asus board (B350 Prime Plus). Updated the bios and my 3700x works great!
jdietrich 7y ago
>Maybe because AMD can't keep up with demand for their new CPUs. You're confusing bandwidth and latency. Ryzen 3000 launched a month ago, the 3900x outperformed expectations, so the initial shipments sold out faster than expected. You can't magic up stock out of thin air, so there's an inevitable lag between retailers reporting unusually high demand and AMD being able to deliver sufficient stock. The bandwidth question is much more important and bodes very poorly for Intel. TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity; they're already in risk production for 5nm, which is expected to free up substantial capacity at 7nm/7nm+ into 2020. Intel's 10nm has been a complete debacle and (despite the Ice Lake launch) is still blighted with sub-par yields.
- paulmd 7y ago
  > TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity Yields in terms of getting lots of operational dies, sure, but one of the underlying problems here is chip quality. They have lots of chiplets but most of those chiplets are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for the 3900X. In fact, even a lot of the chiplets sold as 3900X are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for 3900X, as well as elsewhere throughout their range. There are a lot of people finding their chips only boost to 50-200 MHz less than the advertised frequency of the chip. Essentially, the boost algorithm now takes chip quality into account when determining how high it will boost. And most of the chips have silicon quality that is too poor to hit the advertised clocks, even on a single core, even under ideal cooling, etc etc. Thus, AMD has the somewhat dubious honor of being the first company to make the silicon lottery apply not just to overclocking, but to their stock clocks as well. They really wasted no time before shifting to anti-consumer bullshit of their own; all they had to do was advertise the chips as being 200 MHz lower and everyone would have been happy, but they wanted to advertise clocks the chips couldn't hit. And again, the underlying problem is chip quality - a lot of these chiplets can't boost to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz let alone 4.7. AMD simply can't yield enough 4.7 GHz chiplets to go around, even if the chiplets are nominally functional. The process may be "stable and providing excellent yields" but it's not stable and well yielding enough to meet AMD's expectations. That's a major reason they're now introducing 3700 and 3900 non-X variations - that will allow them to reduce clocks and satisfy demand a bit better.
x3sphere 7y ago
Eh, it just came out last month, give them some time. In fact Intel had supply issues with their 9900K at launch too, for at least a month or two they were often out of stock at the major retailers. If getting ahold of a 3900X is still tough by next month then maybe that's cause for concern. I would agree that Intel is more mature on the BIOS side of things. AMD usually has launch issues that need to be ironed out with UEFI updates. But, if the past few launches are any indication, they've always got things fixed.
- snvzz 7y ago
  >If getting ahold of a 3900X is still tough by next month then maybe that's cause for concern. Next month, the 3950X will be the one hard to get a hold of.
Dylan16807 7y ago
The way you avoid both demand issues and BIOS issues is to purchase 2-3 months after launch. These chips launched on schedule on 7/7, almost exactly one month ago. If you've been exasperatedly waiting for months it's not AMD's fault. The "literally no reason" part is okay, what you need to do is adjust "at the moment" to "once we're out of the launch window".

chubbyrabbit 7y ago

> I can't buy a Ryzen 3900X without paying substantially inflated ebay prices. I'm experiencing the opposite. There has been so many deals on 3900X that I have to constantly tell myself I don't need an upgrade.

snazz 7y ago
Same here. Find nearest Micro Center, see wonderful deal, spend more than you came in looking to spend, repeat. Unless you don’t have any kind of physical computer store near you, I don’t see why buying it on eBay would be useful.
- gwicks56 7y ago
  Damn, I have been desperately trying to get one since launch. Think the USA is getting them all, and the rest of the world is getting screwed. I paid on launch day, my store is getting 2 3900x's this month, they have 78 people who have paid in full and are waiting.
  - wyldfire 7y ago
    Arbitrage to the rescue?
  - tooop 7y ago
    I am in Europe and a reputable local online shop shows that i can get it after a week for 690$ but that is including VAT (575$ without VAT).
    - Macha 7y ago
      I am in Europe and a (previously?) Reputable online retailer showed me the same 2 weeks ago, but 1 week ago ( 2 days after the expected ship time) updated the expected time to a month and just said they didn't get the shipment expected, deal with it
  - snazz 7y ago
    My original comment was quite ignorant, then, and I apologize for it. They’ve got quite a few at my Micro Center for $449 if you purchase a compatible motherboard, so I was (incorrectly) assuming that this applied to the rest of the world too.
devonkim 7y ago
I am genuinely intrigued. I've been going to my local Microcenters in the DC VA area for weeks now and they said they have gotten ZERO shipments in since release day of the 3900X and have a couple 3700X maybe on shelves. This doesn't necessarily completely invalidate my point though - distribution by AMD is clearly needing some work when one region is drowning in 3900X processors and a very wealthy metro area has none in retail channels.
- ckozlowski 7y ago
  Same. The Nutley St. location sold out on the first day and hasn't been any since.
- Teknoman117 7y ago
  Odd. I was in Microcenter on Tuesday and they had a few 3900X's in the case. When I was there closer to launch, there weren't any and they told me that people would come in and ask for them before they even hit the shelf.
  - devonkim 7y ago
    Which Microcenter location though? The Fairfax one the employee in the section on Sunday said the two boxes in the floor cases were 3700X and not 3900X because the boxes for the 3900X are larger.
    - Teknoman117 7y ago
      Tustin, CA
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  Consumer doesn’t really matter. Pretty much any IT admin I know is ordering one directly through wholesalers. I’m actually surprised people physically go to stores anymore.
- ksec 7y ago
  Or may be ( cough ) someone in your local Microcenters hasn't been ordering to fulfil those stocks. This strategy is quite widely used in many other industry as well. Although given it has only been launched for less than a month and demand is actually through the roof ( I have been seen reviews being so Pro AMD, even in the AMD Athon 64 days ). So I think it is simply supply is a little tight while TSMC are working hard.
DuskStar 7y ago
Where have you been able to find them? PCPartPicker hasn't exactly shown great availability on the 3900X so far [0], Amazon is full of scalping [1] and Ebay... Well, $700+ is what I'm seeing there. This is the CPU that'll probably be powering my next build, so if you've got a source close to MSRP I'd love to hear it! 0: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tLCD4D/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-36-ghz-12-core-processor-100-100000023box https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tLCD4D/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-36... 1: https://smile.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-3900X-24-Thread-Processor/dp/B07SXMZLP9 https://smile.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-3900X-24-Thread-Processor...
- Apotheos 7y ago
  Check out the buildapcsales subreddit, that's where I consistently find the biggest discounts.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    I don't care about getting it at a discount, I care about getting it at MSRP...
    - y4mi 7y ago
      Then check out the discounted deal and mail them you'd like to pay extra
      - notmyaccount 7y ago
        Good Morning Sir, I hope this letter finds you in good health. Since I've seen that you are offering AMD 3900X at a discount, I'd like to inform you that I am not like those pleebs and would therefore like you to pay in full MSRP. Please let me know where I can send the goats. I have the honor to be your obedient customer. N. Pleeb
        jotm 7y ago
        Funny enough, I had two buyers saying pretty much this. "I'll pay 49" on a £35 item. Why? Because apparently that's "what it's worth". I appreciate the thought, but it just looks insanely suspicious...

ken47 7y ago

AMD is literally facing unprecedented demand. There's no hype here. This is the real thing. Shortages are to be expected, but you can assume that AMD is smart enough to route their production such that they get the highest return -- e.g. to recurring enterprise customers.

clhodapp 7y ago

What? Intel are currently in the midst of a massive ongoing supply shortage. Lack of ability to keep up with demand is at least as much an Intel problem as it is an AMD one at this point.

philliphaydon 7y ago
Intel also has lower yields than amd which doesn’t exactly help intel our much.
mtgx 7y ago
Intel's shortage is due to I tel's 10nm screwup not "high demand'.

gameswithgo 7y ago

you dont have a cpu yet but the bios issue is super annoying? i have one and there is no bios issue. i got the cheapest x570 mobo and everything is great

ben-schaaf 7y ago
To add to this, I've got a B350 Asus board (B350 Prime Plus). Updated the bios and my 3700x works great!

jdietrich 7y ago

>Maybe because AMD can't keep up with demand for their new CPUs. You're confusing bandwidth and latency. Ryzen 3000 launched a month ago, the 3900x outperformed expectations, so the initial shipments sold out faster than expected. You can't magic up stock out of thin air, so there's an inevitable lag between retailers reporting unusually high demand and AMD being able to deliver sufficient stock. The bandwidth question is much more important and bodes very poorly for Intel. TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity; they're already in risk production for 5nm, which is expected to free up substantial capacity at 7nm/7nm+ into 2020. Intel's 10nm has been a complete debacle and (despite the Ice Lake launch) is still blighted with sub-par yields.

paulmd 7y ago
> TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity Yields in terms of getting lots of operational dies, sure, but one of the underlying problems here is chip quality. They have lots of chiplets but most of those chiplets are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for the 3900X. In fact, even a lot of the chiplets sold as 3900X are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for 3900X, as well as elsewhere throughout their range. There are a lot of people finding their chips only boost to 50-200 MHz less than the advertised frequency of the chip. Essentially, the boost algorithm now takes chip quality into account when determining how high it will boost. And most of the chips have silicon quality that is too poor to hit the advertised clocks, even on a single core, even under ideal cooling, etc etc. Thus, AMD has the somewhat dubious honor of being the first company to make the silicon lottery apply not just to overclocking, but to their stock clocks as well. They really wasted no time before shifting to anti-consumer bullshit of their own; all they had to do was advertise the chips as being 200 MHz lower and everyone would have been happy, but they wanted to advertise clocks the chips couldn't hit. And again, the underlying problem is chip quality - a lot of these chiplets can't boost to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz let alone 4.7. AMD simply can't yield enough 4.7 GHz chiplets to go around, even if the chiplets are nominally functional. The process may be "stable and providing excellent yields" but it's not stable and well yielding enough to meet AMD's expectations. That's a major reason they're now introducing 3700 and 3900 non-X variations - that will allow them to reduce clocks and satisfy demand a bit better.

x3sphere 7y ago

Eh, it just came out last month, give them some time. In fact Intel had supply issues with their 9900K at launch too, for at least a month or two they were often out of stock at the major retailers. If getting ahold of a 3900X is still tough by next month then maybe that's cause for concern. I would agree that Intel is more mature on the BIOS side of things. AMD usually has launch issues that need to be ironed out with UEFI updates. But, if the past few launches are any indication, they've always got things fixed.

snvzz 7y ago
>If getting ahold of a 3900X is still tough by next month then maybe that's cause for concern. Next month, the 3950X will be the one hard to get a hold of.

Dylan16807 7y ago

The way you avoid both demand issues and BIOS issues is to purchase 2-3 months after launch. These chips launched on schedule on 7/7, almost exactly one month ago. If you've been exasperatedly waiting for months it's not AMD's fault. The "literally no reason" part is okay, what you need to do is adjust "at the moment" to "once we're out of the launch window".