Ryzen 5000 CPUs sell out in minutes, appear on eBay with inflated prices

[midian182]

In a nutshell: The Ryzen 5000 series launched yesterday, and, in what is a surprise to nobody, getting hold of one right now is proving an impossible task—unless you pay a fortune on eBay.

It's a memorable time for gamers, with the Xbox Series X/S, PS5, new RTX and Radeon cards, and the Ryzen 5000 series arriving. Sadly, they all have one thing in common: buying or pre-ordering any of these pieces of hardware has been hampered by scalpers purchasing in bulk and selling at inflated prices, usually through a combination of bots and eBay.

According to a purported leaked document from AMD last month, the company sent a list of instructions to retailers spelling out how best to avoid scalpers during the Radeon/Ryzen launches, such as the use of Captcha and purchase limits.

Unfortunately, the Ryzen 5000 chips are suffering the same availability issues as the other big tech products. AMD’s website, Best Buy, B&H Photo Video, Amazon, Newegg, and others sold out within minutes if not seconds yesterday and are all currently showing as out of stock.

Get used to seeing this

The depressingly familiar scenario is that if you want a Ryzen 5000 processor right now, you have to pay way above the MSRP on eBay. Looking at the auction site's highest prices, the Ryzen 9 5950X, which sells for $799, has one listing for $1,825; the $549 Ryzen 9 5900X is going for $1,000; the Ryzen 7 5800X ($449) is also $1,000; and the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X is $599.

Bargain!

Hopefully, the situation will improve, and we won’t have to wait until next year to buy a new Ryzen 5000 CPU.

Make sure to check out our glowing review of the Ryzen 9 5950X.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/87490-ryzen-5000-series-sold-out-minutes-appear-ebay.html

 

[Irata]

That sucks. Checking Mindfactory, they only had the 5600x but that was available for over an hour. Last I could check (product page was removed) it said "over 850 sold" so I assume they had around 1,000. The other models were not listed. But at least there you could get the 5600x at MSRP without F5ing.

Alternate had all models listed, at least the 5600x and 5800x were available but no idea for how long or how many they sold.
Alternate's prices are already going up. Mindfactory sold the 5600x for €299, when I checked Alternate a few hours later it showed 319 and now 339. Imho, anything above msrp is inacceptable.

It will be interesting to see how the stock situation develops over the coming weeks.

 

[amghwk]

Sounds bad. But I can wait. Even a year or two. I'm in no hurry to give my money to robbers.

Even though I am really excited to finally upgrade to Zen 3 from my 8th-gen i7.

Won't give in to these unscrupulous bast@rds.

Missed the old days when things were more fair.

 

[treetops]

Idk why they don't limit like 3 per customer, seems like they had way more stock then Nvidia from reading comments. Most people who tried to get one on release got one. I think scalpers are going to be quite disappointed in the next few weeks.

 

[Irata]

Idk why they don't limit like 3 per customer, seems like they had way more stock then Nvidia from reading comments. Most people who tried to get one on release got one. I think scalpers are going to be quite disappointed in the next few weeks.

Mindfactory had a limit of two.

 

[Ren128]

Here in Australia, PCCaseGear had them in stock for quite a while or at least 5600x/5800x but they're gone now with more coming on the 9th. My local retailer Umart actually got 5600x/5800x in stock right now.

I actually would like to get one to upgrade my Ryzen 2600 but since I got a B450 motherboard gotta wait till new year (not that I'm complaining, at least I don't have to buy a new MB). And also I really wanted 5700 (or maybe even 5700x) so I'm hoping they might be out by the time new BIOS arrives?

 

[Morphine Child]

Mindfactory had a limit of two.

When you see how much they sold from 2nd and 3rd gen, this will go like crazy for months. Should be better in January or so, hopefully.

 

[JamesBlond]

Assuming this is correct and AMD themselves are not taking legal action, I would assume its them giving a few thousand cpu's to people with accounts selling them, otherwise how stupid would AMD be to sell CPU's above Intel price and to make their own name bad... no logic behind it, as they lose if people are doing it, and the only way to win is to sell 2000 of each CPU at a higher price and then later to drop the prices like crazy making an anouncment for the 6000 range of CPU's ... I used to like AMD... I used to like Intel... I used to like Nvidia... monopoly can make even the best intentions into a bad business evenutally

 

[JamesBlond]

Sounds bad. But I can wait. Even a year or two. I'm in no hurry to give my money to robbers.

Even though I am really excited to finally upgrade to Zen 3 from my 8th-gen i7.

Won't give in to these unscrupulous bast@rds.

Missed the old days when things were more fair.

Blame the miners, they buying these CPU's because the CPU mining XMR makes its ROI in 12months

 

[dirtyferret]

Sounds bad. But I can wait. Even a year or two.

In a year or two there will be better CPUs from both AMD & Intel.

 

[quadibloc]

With the video cards, the performance improvement over the previous generation appeared to be 60%, but here it's only 20%, so I'm somewhat surprised the same scenario has played out. Possibly it's because the coronavirus has inflated demand, with more people spending more time at home with their computers. I upgraded last year, so I'm not in the market for a few more years.

 

[amghwk]

In a year or two there will be better CPUs from both AMD & Intel.

All the more reasons these CPUs will further drop in price at that time. For me nothing should be paid over it's value, no matter how tempting it is. Yes, Zen 4 will be better but Zen 3 at lower price is still an upgrade for me. Looking at how 3950X is holding on, I wouldn't succumb to greed for the future processors immediately.

 

[brucek]

I'm more concerned about why there is not an orderly process where I can easily submit my back-order, receive a reasonable estimate of when my turn will be, and spend no further time on it.

There was a time when I considered the whole hunt and F5 and competition maybe a fun part of being an enthusiast, but I'm over it.

There will come a time when these parts and the new GPUs are easily available on shelves, but if that time is months from now it will also be that much closer to the next-next-generation. For discretionary upgraders, that might result in a skipped generation where a better process could have resulted in a sale.

I feel like these manufacturers are being foolish for mismanaging their rollouts. Apple can manage the global launch of iPhones that sell in much higher day one volume, why can't they?

 

[Ludak021]

ROFL

edit: I mean, I am lauging, because everyone put hate on nVidia, and fate in AMD - and it's even worse The fumiest thing is to think that AMD has bigger manufacturing ability than Intel or nVidia or to not know that they can't even come close, alone that's is just super funny.

 

[Vrmithrax]

Assuming this is correct and AMD themselves are not taking legal action, I would assume its them giving a few thousand cpu's to people with accounts selling them, otherwise how stupid would AMD be to sell CPU's above Intel price and to make their own name bad... no logic behind it, as they lose if people are doing it, and the only way to win is to sell 2000 of each CPU at a higher price and then later to drop the prices like crazy making an anouncment for the 6000 range of CPU's ... I used to like AMD... I used to like Intel... I used to like Nvidia... monopoly can make even the best intentions into a bad business evenutally

This has nothing to do with AMD, or Intel, or Nvidia. This is all about scalpers taking advantage of ways to buy out the products from retailers, create a shortage of supply and high demand, and then resell them for inflated prices. The scalpers are not buying these units directly from the manufacturer, so there is no real legal recourse for those manufacturers to pursue (that would in any way impact the situation, that is) - this is a retailer issue, plain and simple. If you want to complain and lose faith in a company, put that negativity where it belongs and complain about the retail outlets. But, be aware that even with the safeguards many retailers try to implement, the scalpers always seem to find ways around it to sweep the inventory of newly launching products.

The saddest part of this is that this story would never even exist if it weren't for the fact that there are enough people out there with more money than common sense, who are stupidly paying exorbitant prices for new tech just to be the first ones to have it. If you feed the scalpers, they'll keep coming back - if people were actually smart and refused to pay over-inflated prices for parts, scalpers would go broke and the trend would be broken.

 

[Ludak021]

Well, TS will get them for free, so forgive me if I don't buy your "concern " for the buyer...

 

[Vrmithrax]

I feel like these manufacturers are being foolish for mismanaging their rollouts. Apple can manage the global launch of iPhones that sell in much higher day one volume, why can't they?

That's a case of comparing Apples and oranges (yes, pun intended).

Cell phones are being distributed widely to thousands of carriers to sell to their customers, pre-orders readily available, and the actual manufacturer having their own stores to stock and sell those products. And that's not even considering service plans and other details associated with a cell phone.

Computer parts and components are mainly being distributed by online retailers. The mismanagement is at the retail level - the manufacturer is not the direct consumer delivery infrastructure where the system is being taken advantage of.

 

[Evernessince]

ROFL

edit: I mean, I am lauging, because everyone put hate on nVidia, and fate in AMD - and it's even worse The fumiest thing is to think that AMD has bigger manufacturing ability than Intel or nVidia or to not know that they can't even come close, alone that's is just super funny.

Except that AMD actually had significant stock and didn't sell out BEFORE launch.

The 5600X was in stock for approximately an hour at many retailers, Nvidia cards sold out 4 minutes before launch. The difference is clear, you just don't want to see it.

 

[OortCloud]

I'm trying to think of a way manufacturers could avoid this - can't think of one off the top of my head?
Anyone?
I guess eBay could stop it but can't see them wanting to do that...

 

[Vrmithrax]

I'm trying to think of a way manufacturers could avoid this - can't think of one off the top of my head?
Anyone?
I guess eBay could stop it but can't see them wanting to do that...

The trick is to make it too much of an expense risk for the scalpers, without punishing the actual legitimate consumers in the process. It's hard to come up with a way to lock this down that doesn't also impact normal buyers by forcing a bunch of extra steps, usually.

Even things like limiting quantities per shipping address / household can be helpful. If you can only ship 2 units to a single address (within some kind of time limit like days after they go on sale) it can help, but scalpers are a clever breed - they come up with lots of ways around all of the speedbumps that might impede their greedy progress.

The only way to really kill this situation is for people to stop stupidly paying high amounts for scalped items. No customers will mean no profit, which kills the desire to scalp - no reason to acquire a supply if there's no demand.

 

[brucek]

The best way would be able to launch and re-supply with sufficient volume and transparency that there is little reason to turn to scalpers. Have an easy-to-use order queue so scalpers are not providing convenience as well as acceleration.

If it was deemed crucial enough, I do see more they could do on top of that, although there is extra expense involved I'm not sure the return is there:

1. Partner with credit bureaus like Experian to devise an order taking process that allows max 1 order per credit file. The order process includes the purchaser signing that it is them and this is their sole order. A scalper trying to game the system with multiple orders is now committing felony wire fraud and subject to serious consequences. The cost of program development/expense is mitigated by having it available to multiple industries / vendors - it'll add a few bucks to each order but Experian has a new product line.

2. Reasonable Pre-order window for everyone to submit their one order, with all orders in the window then randomized in the queue. Could divide into multiple such windows if desired. Scalpers would be drowned out by legitimate purchasers so most units would go to intended users.

3. Purchase terms include term that in event purchaser wishes to sell within first X days, manufacturer has first right to re-purchase and at original price. With these agreements in place, manufacturer could contact ebay and others to have auctions shutdown.

4. In the case of GPUs, you could be required to specify the CPU they would be locked to for the first X days at time of pre-order.

5. In cases of truly constrained manufacturing capacity, manufacturer could be up front about the situation, run an auction, and keep the profits vs. giving them up to scalpers. For example, "We can make only 8,000 units in November. You can bid on the November edition here. Be aware there will be more units in December and price for December edition will be less expensive. Choose accordingly." It's an honest, straight forward process that allows for transparency and planning and doesn't need to ruffle any feathers.

 

[Stoly]

Doesn't bode well for the upcoming RX6000 series launch

 

[redgarl]

ROFL

edit: I mean, I am lauging, because everyone put hate on nVidia, and fate in AMD - and it's even worse The fumiest thing is to think that AMD has bigger manufacturing ability than Intel or nVidia or to not know that they can't even come close, alone that's is just super funny.

ROFL... even worst????!!! I could have easily purchase the 5600x and the 5800x... easily... easy peasy... however you didn't had a 12 seconds window to purchase a stupid Ampere card.

 

[redgarl]

AMD is going to resupply their inventory every week unlike Nvidia.

 

[QuaZulu]

In a year or two there will be better CPUs from both AMD & Intel.

Yep...and good luck getting those when they come out