AMD Ryzen Threadripper Availability Seems Strong, Not So Much For Intel’s Core X-series

Since both Intel’s 10th-gen Core X-series and AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processors hit the market back in November, availability has been a little hit-or-miss. We’ve been paying attention to some etailers these past few weeks, though, and it seems like AMD has been doing well with availability, with both of the new Threadrippers being found in stock at the primary etailers we check.

In particular, Amazon is selling the Threadripper 3970X right now for $1,950, which is $50 less than SRP. The 3960X hasn’t followed the same path, as it’s still priced at its $1,399 SRP. There are some bundles that might help bring overall costs down, though.

Even on the Ryzen front, the Ryzen 9 3950X which was extremely hard to find after its launch has become less so. It’s currently available at the same etailers we’ve been checking, including Amazon. It’s also priced at its SRP of $749, while the also-previously-elusive 3900X finds itself priced at $30 off, putting it at $470.

On the Intel front, options are not as plentiful. We’ve heard multiple complaints from readers who are intrigued by the 10-gen Core X-series, but have not been able to find any in stock. Browsing the web, we’ve seen similar comments mentioned elsewhere. Consider the fact that we reviewed the Core i9-10980XE over two months ago, and it’s still incredibly difficult to acquire. We actually noticed someone posted a $100 reward on reddit the other day to anyone who could find one in stock (the thread was quickly removed, for obvious reasons.) That’s how desperate and annoyed people are getting.

Over at B&H Photo, the 10980XE is shown as being expected on February 26, 2020, but that’s been a date that’s been pushed ahead at least once before. It could be that chips came into stock and sold out immediately, but it’s hard to tell.

At the moment, we can only find the 10- and 12-cores available on Amazon, and both are overpriced. The i9-10980XE itself is supposed to SRP for around $1,000, but we can see the 12-core i9-10920X priced at $829.99 from one seller, which is about $140 above SRP, and $250 less than where we saw its price just a week or two ago. At that time, the 10-core cost almost as much as what the 18-core is supposed to.

We asked Intel about the ongoing availability issues, and were simply told that they are on sale globally, and will have varying supply based on vendors and their market. We were told that if readers are keen on snatching one of these new chips, then they should touch base with their favorite vendor or retailer to get more up-to-date information.

At the end of the day, we’d be quicker to recommend just going with AMD Ryzen Threadripper based on what we’ve seen in our reviews, and not to mention the fact that it’s actually available. The motherboards are a lot more expensive than typical Intel X299 options, but the CPUs themselves offer an unbeatable bang-for-the-buck. There are still many out there who would rather go with Core X, though, so hopefully this rough availability won’t last for too much longer.