Slovenian store reveals prices and release dates for desktop Zen 5
As reported, mobile Zen 5 processors, the Ryzen AI 300, will be a bit delayed to the end of July. It raised the question of whether the desktop CPUs with Zen 5 cores, i.e. the Ryzen 9000 models, might also be delayed. The answer seems to have been found – a certain Slovenian online store has now included the Ryzen 9000 in its catalog. And it shows not only the date of availability, but also the prices, which are quite interesting.
Previous information stated that desktop Ryzen 9000 processors would be released on July 31, and that still seems to be the case – or at least roughly. The Slovenian store Funtech, which apparently started to accept pre-orders, states that the shipping will be two days later (“after 2 August”). It’s not clear if this is some kind of a delay in launch by a few days, it could probably just be some kind of a provision for postal delivery. In any case, according to this source, it looks like the Ryzen 9000s won’t be delayed by much, if at all.
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This date for now applies only to the four Ryzen “9000X” desktop processor models, whose parameters AMD officially announced at Computex, i.e. standard models without 3D V-Cache. According to a statement by one of the company’s representatives, these models won’t be faster in games than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D (although it’s probably not entirely out of the question that they’ll be relatively close).
So gamers will probably want to wait for the release of the Ryzen 9000X3D models, which combine the new Zen 5 architecture with the increased cache. Some time ago, a report surfaced (via Club386) that AMD could release (or perhaps announce, with a launch a few weeks later) these processors as early as September.
This would mean a much shorter gap between regular and X3D models, perhaps because AMD will want to secure its position in gaming PCs against the new Intel processors (Core Ultra 200 “Arrow Lake”). However, this September date is not yet confirmed, for now it’s probably better to take it with a grain of salt and not rely too much on this.
Will Zen 5 have lower prices than the previous generation?
Earlier, there were concerns that AMD would make Ryzen 9000 processors more expensive, or more precisely, set the recommended prices to higher level than they were with the previous generation at launch. This was likley related to the high expectations some had for Zen 5. Funtech, on the contrary, lists surprisingly reasonable prices. They’ll be higher than the current Ryzen 7000 pricing, but that’s only due to the significant discounts they’ve seen since their launch. Compared to their original starting prices though, the Ryzen 9000s could apparently be cheaper at launch. Which in turn raises the question of whether perhaps the lower prices are a sign that AMD isn’t as confident in their market position now.
For the most powerful 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X, Funtech lists a pre-order price of 660 EUR, which should include VAT (which is 22% in Slovenia). Without VAT, it would come out to a dollar price of 580 USD, realistically the MSRP could likely be 599 USD. If this price is confirmed, the 16-core will be 1/7 cheaper on release versus the Ryzen 9 7950X, which started originally at 699 USD.
For the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X, the Slovenian store lists 500 EUR price, which comes out to 440 USD excluding VAT. Here, the price drop would also be significant, as the Ryzen 9 7900X cost 549 USD at launch.
The octa-core Ryzen 7 9700X, which could arguably be the most popular model (at least before the release of the 9800X3D), is set to cost 400 EUR with VAT, in dollars it would come out to around 350 USD (while the 7700X started at 399 USD).
For the six-core Ryzen 5 9600X, the store asks for 310 EUR, which should correspond to a price of around 270 USD. It seems we’ll see the continuation of the trend from the previous two generations, in which the cheapest six-core model was priced quite unfavorably at the start and higher models were more worth it. The Ryzen 5 7600X started at a price of 299 USD in 2022 and became more affordable only over time.
Whether this is, as they say, AMD showing a sign of weakness and the prices are lower than the previous generation because the performance increase may not be as high as AMD originally planned (some speculation going in this direction has appeared over the internet), remains to be seen. It could also be an effort to grow market share, although that’s something AMD will have to fight for mainly in the OEM market with pre-built PC manufacturers, rather than in the retail DIY market.
Sources: Funtech, VideoCardz
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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