What just happened? With Alder Lake-S reviews praising Intel's chips as finally being worthy competitors to AMD's Ryzen alternatives, it seems team red is making the only move it can until the Ryzen 6000 series arrives next year: drop the price of its current lineup.
VideoCardz reports that MicroCenter has reduced the price of some AMD Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors in the wake of Alder Lake's arrival. The most significant reduction is on the 8-core Ryzen 7 5800X, which is down to $299---$150 off its usual price.
Those after an absolute monster of a chip can save $100 on the Ryzen 9 5950X, with the 16-core CPU now $699 instead of the usual $799. We gave the top Ryzen processor a score of 90 in last year's review, noting its exceptional gaming and productivity performance.
The Ryzen 5 5600X is also reduced, albeit by a smaller amount than the other two Vermeer chips. The 6-core CPU is down from the usual $299 to $279.
Not all retailers appear to be offering the same price cuts. Amazon doesn't have any Ryzen 5000 CPUs in stock right now, and European retailers are yet to offer money off the chips. There are a couple of discounts on Ryzen 5000 processors at Newegg, but they're not as substantial as those at MicroCenter.
AMD will likely feel more pressure when Intel releases its Alder Lake non-K Core i5 series, set to be priced under $300. We recently heard that a potential new budget king, the i5-12400F, might be $160, but AMD does have the advantage of better availability for its AM4 motherboards. There's also Ryzen 6000, which is expected to drop early next year.
In other Alder Lake news, Intel recently released a list of games that don't currently work with its hybrid CPUs, though patches are on their way---and there is a workaround.