AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Hits New All-Time Low with a $125 Discount

A flagship desktop processor is not usually considered a deal, as the expectation is that you'll pay a premium to play on the high ground. However, there are situations that can result in a flagship chip (or a former flagship chip) being a good deal. Such is the case right now with Amazon offering a deep discount on AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

For a limited time, you can snag AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D for $573.99 at Amazon (18% off, save $125.01). That's a new all-time low price for the former flagship, which only recently ceded its position atop the Ryzen totem pole with the introduction of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D Dual Edition, which sells for $899 at Amazon.

Despite the price gap (even before the sale), the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition has attracted its fair share of buyers, having already cracked Amazon's list of best-selling CPUs. However, if you're looking to combine value and top-end performance, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is where it's at right now.

Based on Zen 5, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core/32-thread chip with a 4.3GHz base clock, up to a 5.7GHz boost clock, 16MB of L2 cache and 128MB of L3 cache for 144MB of total cache, and a default 170W TDP.

It's the same core and thread configuration as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D also has a 100MHz faster max boost clock than its Dual Edition sibling, but less L3 cache (144MB versus 192MB). That's because the Dual Edition model is the first chip to place 3D V-Cache on both core complex dies (CCDs).

Is that worth paying an extra $325.01 for? You'll have to decide that for yourself, but make no mistake, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is one heck of a chip and it's never been cheaper than it is right now.

If you're looking for a good value on the Intel side of the tracks (or just a good CPU value in general), have a look at the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus—it's marked down to $328.34 at Amazon (8% off, save $28.78).

Let's address a couple of things right off the bat. For one, that's not a huge discount, and two, it's not a flagship processor. However, the value proposition is already high before any sale, and the overall performance is really good for the money (see our review). While not tuned for gaming like AMD's 3D V-Cache models, the Core Ultra 7 270K is one of the fastest desktop processors currently available for productivity and creator workloads, and its multi-threaded performance per dollar is very strong.

In terms of specs, this Arrow Lake Refresh chip features 24 cores, including eight performance cores clocked at 3.7GHz to 5.5GHz and 16 efficient cores clocked at 3.2GHz to 4.7GHz. It also has 40MB of L2 cache and 36MB of L3 cache.

The main caveat is that Intel's LGA 1851 socket doesn't provide much headroom for future upgrades, as Intel will be switching to a new socket with Nova Lake-S. That's something to keep in mind, depending on whether you're prone to upgrading just your CPU, or both your CPU and motherboard at the same time.