In a shock email late on Friday, AMD has released a statement to clarify the situation it is in with the manufacturing of its latest Ryzen processors. And, depending on what kind of a processor you're after, it's both a good and bad announcement.

The downside? AMD is delaying its release of the 16 core Ryzen 9 3950X. Their flagship consumer desktop CPU, which will feature a full 16 CPU cores, was originally slated for September; however it is now delayed until November. According to the company, the delay is needed due to the high demand for these parts and that time is needed to ensure that sufficient stock is available

AMD Ryzen 3000 7 & 9 Series CPUs
AnandTech Cores
Threads
Base
Freq
Boost
Freq
L2
Cache
L3
Cache
PCIe
4.0
TDP Launch Date Price
(SEP)
Ryzen 9 3950X 16C 32T 3.5 4.7 8 MB 64 MB 16+4+4 105W Nov. 2019 $749
Ryzen 9 3900X 12C 24T 3.8 4.6 6 MB 64 MB 16+4+4 105W July 2019 $499
Ryzen 7 3800X 8C 16T 3.9 4.5 4 MB 32 MB 16+4+4 105W July 2019 $399
Ryzen 7 3700X 8C 16T 3.6 4.4 4 MB 32 MB 16+4+4 65W July 2019 $329

The upside? The next generation of Threadripper processors are coming, and they will enter the market in November as well. These parts will start at 24 cores, so anyone needing single-socket CPUs with more than 12 cores will find themselves with an abundance of options to choose from.

The statement from AMD says:

We are focusing on meeting the strong demand for our 3rd generation AMD Ryzen processors in the market and now plan to launch both the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and initial members of the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor family in volume this November. We are confident that when enthusiasts get their hands on the world’s first 16-core mainstream desktop processor and our next-generation of high-end desktop processors, the wait will be well worth it.

As far as we understand, this is nothing to do with recent reports of TSMC requiring 6 months for new 7nm orders: the silicon for these processors would have been ordered months ago, with the only real factor being binning and meeting demand. It will be interesting to see how the intersection of the 16 core with next gen Ryzen will play out. 

Related Articles:

Comments Locked

82 Comments

View All Comments

  • yeeeeman - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link

    Also I believe that amd gets a small chunk of tsmc production capacity since it is a new customer. It is a good problem to have high demand, but if you can't satisfy it then it means you lose money.
  • rahvin - Monday, September 23, 2019 - link

    I would wager TSMC prioritizes AMD wafers because they are a new client that has more wafer starts than any of their other clients.
  • imaheadcase - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link

    Rather have a small delay than no stock. Current high end Intel and AMD cpus are MIA most places. The only real way to get them is to buy combos from newegg...which to be honest most people hate using newegg anymore.
  • Korguz - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link

    heh.. i can go to one of my local comp stores right now, and get the ryzen cpus. keep in mind.. there are other stores besides amazon or new egg...
  • imaheadcase - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link

    Sure if you live in some big area. Meanwhile in the USA most people only have a walmart nearby. I'm not driving for 45min to the city and 45min back for something that may or may not be in stock.
  • Korguz - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link

    you could always phone to see if they have it in stock, or, if possible order it online through them, and pick it up. the store i would go to, one location is about that for me as well, 45 mins, their other location, is about 30 mins
  • Trikkiedikkie - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link

    Do let people know where they can get the 3900
  • Korguz - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link

    the store i go to, currently has 20 3900X @ $700 cdn each in stock according to their website
  • rahvin - Monday, September 23, 2019 - link

    Amazon's been in stock for everything but the 3900 pretty much constantly for the last two weeks. And you can get the 3900 if you put it on notice and hop on as soon as you get the notice. They get shipments every so often but they sell out almost immediately on the 3900.

    My bet is AMD decided to hold back on the release until they can saturate the market on the 3900 and stockpile enough chips to meet the initial demand. They've struggled to meet the retail demand because demands been so high and rather than disappoint people they probably decided it would be better to stockpile the chips for a month and a half so there was a solid initial supply on 3950 and TR3. I believe this is a reaction to the negative press they've had because they can't meet demand on the 3900 and initially even on the 3700 and 3800.
  • Noodle-Naut - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link

    Consensus is that this is a supply issue...and there may be some of that. However, there is another possibility. They may just want Intel to show all its cards first either to move clocks slightly higher to insure they win the benchmarks or just to insure that their pricing makes them more attractive without giving too good of a bargain, so they can get some reasonable profit. I think there is reason to think this. They bragged that they got Nvidia to present their prices first. Just a couple months ago.

    There is a 3rd possibility also. They could be continuing to refine BIOS stuff to insure they get the absolute best performance at release, when all the benchmarks are published. It is even a remote possibility that they are working with games companies to make patches that take better advantage of all those threads and the Zen 2 architecture, and they want those in place for the release to insure it overtakes Intel on games.
    And even if these things are not motivating this delay. The delay empowers them to do all these things.
    Good time to own AMD like me. I think they could easily be at $38 by the end of the year. 10,000 employees laying waste to 100,000. That is a story. And they are combating Nvidia too. They have yet to land a heavy blow...but I think that is inevitable. There was a bit of a coup recently where Windows directX 12 is going to handle ray-tracing regardless of CPU...if I understood that correctly.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now