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.
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.
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.