AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X has been reduced to $299 in the US – A $150 price cut

Intel’s Alder Lake launch has set the CPU wars into motion once again, with many of Intel’s latest processors delivering aggressive pricing compared to its Ryzen counterparts and higher performance levels in some key areas. See our full Alder Lake I9-12900K and i5-125600K review for more details. 

Today, the question on everyone’s lips is how AMD will respond to Intel’s Alder Lake launch. We already know that AMD plans to release enhanced Zen 3 processors in early 2022, but how does AMD plan to combat Intel’s aggressive CPU pricing? Yes, AMD’s AM4 platform generally has lower motherboard/DRAM costs than Z690/DDR5 Alder Lake setups, but that doesn’t mean that AMD’s CPU pricing is not a factor that’s worth considering. 

In the US, the retailer Micro Center has heavily reduced the pricing of AMD’s Ryzen 9 5800X processor. Today, AMD’s flagship 8-core processor costs $299.99, representing a $150 price cut. Translating that to UK prices, that’s equivalent to AMD selling their Ryzen 7 5800X for around £269.99 (including VAT). Today, AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X costs around £349.99 in the UK.   

At this time, it is unclear whether or not AMD plans to officially reduce the pricing of their Ryzen 5000 series processors to combat the threat posed by Intel’s Alder Lake CPU lineup. Is Micro Center’s Ryzen 7 offer temporary, or is it the start of a broader range of price cuts from AMD?

As it stands, AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X costs only $20 more than their Ryzen 5 5600X at Micro Center in the US. That’s $20 for a 33% increase in core/thread count and a moderate boost in rated CPU clock speeds. That’s an incredible deal, so much so that buying a Ryzen 5 5600X right now is simply a bad idea.