AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Prices Slashed by a Third Over MSRP, Drops to $434

[Vayra86]

This is one of my hobbies, I collect hardware.. why would I send it back

To fetch a better price ...

so you can buy MOAR hardware of course!

I can't speak to your needs as your mind is already made up and then some. But I can speak about the overall market. Here is a popular graph that people like to share:

View attachment 407097

According to you, AMD should be zero at all points of this graph. Even though it only goes to 2017, we all know that its shifts big time in Nvidia favor more recently. AMD even managed to stay above 30% market share preventing an outright monopoly for most of that time. While Nvidia was always on top, AMD and Nvidia switched back and forth with GPU quality over the years until recently when Nvidia did three things to increase it's mindshare:

1. Convince users that it's drivers are better and AMD drivers are inferior (NOT TRUE)
2. Convince users that you need DLSS (even @W1zzard made the bias decision in some reviews to tell users not to buy anything without DLSS, a proprietary Nvidia tech)
3. Convince users that you need RT (99% of games don't have it)

With the above three, Nvidia increased its mindshare even though general rasterization supported by 99%+ of games was similar to the competing AMD solution. We all know that the 7900XTX, 9070XT, 5070Ti, 4080, 4080S and 5080 are all within 20% of each other in general rasterization. These parts make a huge part of purchased GPUs. But AMD has a < 10% marketshare and Nvidia has >90% marketshare. That's not because of benchmarks but mindshare (most gamers don't use DLSS and RT or even know what they are or how to activate it).

I will grant Nvidia this much, their marketing department is very good. AMD's marketing department will never win any awards given their past performance.


That's right.

Its important to consider also why marketshare was it was in each time period. A lot of it relates to the dedication each company had towards its graphics lines. The drops in AMD's line are all pretty easy to explain, as are the rises in Nvidia's share.

Mindshare and actual dominance do go hand in hand, they just don't necessarily happen at the same time. What does always count immediately at its inception, is the launch of new GPUs. We can tell each other fantasy % about what number of consumers know this or that but the fact is, sales peak at launch and people are most certainly watching GPUs and secondly watching people talk about GPUs to get a handle on what to buy.

If you look at the adoption of Zen CPUs for example, when they launched and were mildly successful people were already saying 'why aren't people choosing AMD' - well Zen 1 wasn't really faster at anything people used. The only people who were really looking for them were those eager to abandon the eternal quadcore. Similar things occurred with adoption of Epycs in servers. It proliferates slowly. This underlines how important consistency really is. Mindshare won't be growing off a single 'good gen'. Mindshare grows with, and IS, trust. It is explicitly NOT marketing. Mindshare doesn't grow from commercials, what companies get from commercials is exposure. Mindshare is something else: the confidence as a consumer that you know 12-14 months from now, something better pops up again so the company stays in the race and that your support post-sale is consistent, you get your drivers, you get your stability and your shit gets fixed. There is a bond of trust; a contract honoured.

AMD has been building and been consistent with its Zen line up, minor hiccups along the path, but the strategy and the scalability are proven by actual products in a somewhat consistent cadence. That is why enterprise has moved towards it. Not just because they are cheaper, or faster, or more efficient. I think we can all agree this has not been the case with their graphics line up - like ever. I mean, sure, Radeon exists, their pro line exists... but it can go whichever way the wind blows at any given time and people feel that.

 

[A Computer Guy]

To fetch a better price ...

so you can buy MOAR hardware of course!

I struggle with this now. It might have been cheaper to be a stamp collector but 3950x, 5950x, 7950x are in my collection now. I learned my lesson after getting the 3800x at launch so I wait for the price drops. Currently patiently waiting for 9950x to dip below $400.

And Zen 6 is coming, and you know the best CPU's come from the first run.. dammit!

You may be on to something there. The first stepping 5950x I got from ebay is a bit better than the first one I bought after the big price drop to $550 after release from $799.

 

[Vayra86]

I struggle with this now. It might have been cheaper to be a stamp collector but 3950x, 5950x, 7950x are in my collection now. I learned my lesson after getting the 3800x at launch so I wait for the price drops. Currently patiently waiting for 9950x to dip below $400.

You may be on to something there. The first stepping 5950x I got from ebay is a bit better than the first one I bought after the big price drop to $550 after release from $799.

I've learned to wait, and every time I didn't have any more patience, I overspent by a good margin. The latest, rare, example is my 7900XT. Could've had a 9070XT now for 200 less. Then again I understand the feels, the urge, the yolo moment you have when you just click buy...

 

[freeagent]

You may be on to something there. The first stepping 5950x I got from ebay is a bit better than the first one I bought after the big price drop to $550 after release from $799.

All of my Zen 3 parts are first run, or close to it.. and they are stronger than most people's that show their results. Some are better though, and that bugs me

My 9900X is pretty decent, cant do 6600 1:1 though. 6400 at 2200 is what I normally run.

Edit:

Maybe it can do 6600.. I should relax my timings a bit and try again..

Edit again:

I noticed this trend with Intel like 15 years ago.. not sure if it is the same with them since they had their recent scandal..

 

[Vayra86]

All of my Zen 3 parts are first run, or close to it.. and they are stronger than most people's that show their results. Some are better though, and that bugs me

My 9900X is pretty decent, cant do 6600 1:1 though. 6400 at 2200 is what I normally run.

Edit:

Maybe it can do 6600.. I should relax my timings a bit and try again..

So deep down in your mind, you want to buy yourself into a top spot. Its a bit like cheating in online games isn't it

 

[freeagent]

So deep down in your mind, you want to buy yourself into a top spot.

Maybe

Its a bit like cheating in online games isn't it

Not really.. I just exploit what it can do that's all

 

[A Computer Guy]

All of my Zen 3 parts are first run, or close to it.. and they are stronger than most people's that show their results. Some are better though, and that bugs me

My 9900X is pretty decent, cant do 6600 1:1 though. 6400 at 2200 is what I normally run.

Do the Zen5 chips have a better shot at 6400? My prior understanding for Zen4 was 6000 is the sweet spot, 6200 can be problematic, 6400 was difficult.

 

[freeagent]

Do the Zen5 chips have a better shot at 6400? My prior understanding for Zen4 was 6000 is the sweet spot, 6200 can be problematic, 6400 was difficult.

I am not sure, I only have one

But mine did 6200 no problem, 6400 didn't take much work, but 6600 is a bit tough. I would have to relax timings a bit, and probably run 1.3 VSOC. Also my VDDG's could have probably used a bump. I will try again later..

 

[wolf]

I don't want to derail the thread, and I want this to remain respectful so please don't take this as antagonizing but I want to try address this/add a point of view with the aim that we can all continue to improve this long running situation.

You must be young. The people you call AMD fanboys have a much longer memory than yours. They remember the decades of AMD trolling on every tech site in the industry, inc. reviewers.

Does it happening in the past excuse anyone from doing it today? This feels akin to trying to break generational cycles like generational trauma, and we should all be striving to be the best versions of ourselves and break those cycles, be better than the people who did it to us, lest the cycle continue. Having copped it a decade or two ago doesn't feel like much of a justification to do it to people who never did it to you. I don't mean you specifically in this instance, I mean generally for anyone.

Team Blue did WAAAY more hate bashing than you have ever experienced going the other way.

This comes across as an assumption on your part about their experience, which you have no way to truly know. You might be right, but you also might not which is why I try stay away from that kind of speculation.

People with long memories and the basic understanding that monopolies are very bad for tech know that you have to root for the underdog to succeed and support them when you can.

I certainly do, and from my perspective they do too, we want AMD to succeed and support them by purchasing their products when they're the right product for our need at the time, and recommending them to friends, family etc when we believe it's the right product for them too, I don't believe that means willingly buying products we believe will be worse for meeting that need, just to support the underdog. But to each their own, I can appreciate some are willing to weight that aspect with some significance when making purchases.

In this instance I believe that notion (supporting the underdog) is somewhat decoupled from what they're saying about toxic fandom/comments, and that toxic fandom can achieve the opposite of the desired effect (where the underdog attracts more fans and customers), by putting people off a given company or product/range by association with those undesirable traits/people/comments.

 

[JustBenching]

Then just stop and look at yourself as an example of why Nvidia and I guess Intel too don't always have the best product in all cases.

Intel, for sure, they don't have the best product for every scenario. AMD is better in a lot of scenarios actually. Overall id say they are both neck and neck in the desktop space, with AMD having better gaming out of the box solutions and Intel having a lot more MT performance at the mid / high range segment. But in GPUs it's more black and white, there isn't anything that amd is really better at - especially with RDNA 4 ( RDNA 3 at least offered more vram?). They can only compete in price - which means they do have the inferior product. If you are not a fan of the company, there is nothing compelling about amd gpus unless they are cheaper. An AMD gpu is an option if it's cheaper, if it's not cheaper it's not an option - I don't know why this is a contestable point.

 

[_roman_]

Did the socket frame lower temps at all? The only reason I have seen to use one is to keep the thermal paste mess off the gaps in the IHS.
Edit- I didn't consider a offset bracket before, that may be worth doing for an OC but I personally don't want to remove a socket mechanism.

the noctua offset brackets which i used on am4 does not change anything in the shown cpu frequency in /proc/cpuinfo while compiling. Heavy workload in the gnu userspace.
e.g. ryzen 5800x @ noctua nh-d15 chrom... black
the picture below also show the noctua offset brackets. For some reason the noctua nh-d15 stock fans are much loader as the be quiet dark rock pro 5 fans. Not a measurement!

I somehow managed to get thermal paste to the wrong spot even with that aftermarket socket.
I had for years on the graphic card dram chips on my previous asus g75vw notebook also the non conductive thermal paste. It happens, just leave it untouched.


I switched my mainboard after 2 years. There is less thermal paste at teh wrong spots at my ryzen 7600x.

Before - old mainboard.
previous asus mainboard. I already put back the asus oem cpu mounting brackets. The thermal paste was between cpu and the red cpuframe. I's not a seal.
For myself applying thermal paste is easier.

Some people use spatula to make a slim thermal paste surface. I did it this time the first time.
Note: not in the pictures.

 

[Redwoodz]

I don't want to derail the thread, and I want this to remain respectful so please don't take this as antagonizing but I want to try address this/add a point of view with the aim that we can all continue to improve this long running situation.

Does it happening in the past excuse anyone from doing it today? This feels akin to trying to break generational cycles like generational trauma, and we should all be striving to be the best versions of ourselves and break those cycles, be better than the people who did it to us, lest the cycle continue. Having copped it a decade or two ago doesn't feel like much of a justification to do it to people who never did it to you. I don't mean you specifically in this instance, I mean generally for anyone.

This comes across as an assumption on your part about their experience, which you have no way to truly know. You might be right, but you also might not which is why I try stay away from that kind of speculation.

I certainly do, and from my perspective they do too, we want AMD to succeed and support them by purchasing their products when they're the right product for our need at the time, and recommending them to friends, family etc when we believe it's the right product for them too, I don't believe that means willingly buying products we believe will be worse for meeting that need, just to support the underdog. But to each their own, I can appreciate some are willing to weight that aspect with some significance when making purchases.

In this instance I believe that notion (supporting the underdog) is somewhat decoupled from what they're saying about toxic fandom/comments, and that toxic fandom can achieve the opposite of the desired effect (where the underdog attracts more fans and customers), by putting people off a given company or product/range by association with those undesirable traits/people/comments.

I agree, wrong is wrong no matter who is doing it. That's also why you won't find a single post of me critisizing anyone's choice of hardware. That's why I resist people trying to alter others choices. I just point out when someone else is.

 

[Super XP]

What makes you think AM6 will be any better? AM5's "problems" are the result of maintaining compatibility and that's something AMD strive for. If you want a disposable platform that breaks compatibility every generation or two, look to Intel.

As for AM5's "problems", the thick IHS makes cooling aggressive overclocks harder, but the most popular SKUs are pulling 162W at most, many of them default to 87W. Perhaps if you're trying a hefty PBO+ profile on a 9950X or 9950X3D then you'll grow to resent the IHS but it seems to be fine even for 9950X at stock settings (230W PPT) even with an affordable air cooler on it. Yes, it throttles but that just means that after 10 minutes of boosting at 5.4GHz it's running at 5.35GHz. If you really want that infinite duration max boost at 230W to get the extra 1-2% more performance, just buy a bigger cooler that can definitely handle the load.

Everyone ought to know that the efficiency nosedives and performance gains are on very diminishing returns by the point you're pushing AM5 above 200W. Just spend 10 minutes tuning an undervolt with curve modifier and get 5.5GHz performance at 180W. Heck, Ryzen Master will even do it automatically for you on a per-core basis. Click a button, walk away, and come back an hour later to some settings that you can plug into the BIOS and forget about.

Everything you said has nothing to do with me asking a question about AM6 not being LGA compliant or something. I am all for compatibility, AMDs done a fantastic job sticking with one socket for several years. There's no question AM5 platform has experienced more widespread problems, especially when it was initially launched in comparison to AM4. So we all hope that AM6 will have a similar launch as AM4 has had.

No, LGA allows to have more pins in the same area.

Clearly Intel mastered LGA where as AMD has had issues with their 1st introduction of it within its AM5 platform.
AMD has had a lot more luck with PGA.

 

[blinnbanir]

Everything you said has nothing to do with me asking a question about AM6 not being LGA compliant or something. I am all for compatibility, AMDs done a fantastic job sticking with one socket for several years. There's no question AM5 platform has experienced more widespread problems, especially when it was initially launched in comparison to AM4. So we all hope that AM6 will have a similar launch as AM4 has had.


Clearly Intel mastered LGA where as AMD has had issues with their 1st introduction of it within its AM5 platform.
AMD has had a lot more luck with PGA.

Um Threadripper boards were LGA and that was years ago. Pin count is the reality.

 

[Chrispy_]

Everything you said has nothing to do with me asking a question about AM6 not being LGA compliant or something. I am all for compatibility, AMDs done a fantastic job sticking with one socket for several years. There's no question AM5 platform has experienced more widespread problems, especially when it was initially launched in comparison to AM4. So we all hope that AM6 will have a similar launch as AM4 has had.

You said AM5 had it's fair share of problems, and I'm just pointing out that AM6 might not fix those problems because some of AM5's problems were a direct result of maintaining compatibility with AM4 coolers. As for the AGESA updates, late OS optimisations, and lower TDPs hampering performance of things like the vanilla 9900 and 9700X, some of that was true at AM4's launch too. I'm not overly concerned with a couple of rough months that get Microsoft/AGESA updates - it's software that gets patched over time. The solution is to avoid being an early adopter if you don't want to pay full asking price for a slightly unfinished platform...

I'm only guessing, but I suspect you're right in that AMD will continue to offer backwards-compatibility with AM4 coolers, meaning yet another very thick IHS. It's problematic, but only for a tiny fraction of enthusiasts.