Blame Intel in your AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D inventory shortages. AMD executives attributed the surge in demand for their flagship CPU to “horrible” next-gen gaming CPU launch by Intel, during a roundtable interview at CES 2025’s commerce show this week, pointing fingers at their rival’s misstep as the primary cause.
While AMD has indeed consistently delivered top-notch gaming CPUs lately, it’s accurate to declare that the 9800X3D currently reigns supreme as the benchmark. Intel’s latest endeavour to shake up the status quo didn’t quite pan out as expected, with Arrow Lake CPUs such as the Intel Core i7-265K initially struggling to deliver satisfactory gaming performance upon release.
Frank Azor, AMD’s government, revealed to Tom’s Hardware that while they acknowledged having “built the perfect half” with the 9800X3D, they were unaware Intel had developed a subpar counterpart, which led to demand for their product exceeding initial forecasts by “a bit”.
The launch of the AMD chip promptly generated approximately 9,800X3D inventory points, with the company itself having announced in December that a significant increase in 9800X3D stock levels is expected to become available by early 2025.
Given that AMD’s previous-generation CPUs, such as the 7800X3D, outperformed Intel’s flagship Core i9-14900K, it would have been a logical expectation from AMD that Intel would respond to these better-performing Ryzen X3D chips with an even more aggressive product this time around. Despite this, Intel Core i9-13900 Extreme processors have failed to deliver, falling short of expectations even when compared to older Intel Raptor Lake CPUs.
Intel has dedicated significant efforts to enhancing gaming performance on its latest CPUs, citing the new Arrow Lake architecture as a major step forward in addressing several key issues, with further refinements still to come. AMD’s success is now a self-sustaining cycle, allowing it to reap the financial rewards.
As high-performance CPUs for gaming PCs remain scarce for now, consider our in-depth review of the AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D, where we share our thoughts on this flagship gaming processor and explain why we believe it’s the top choice for your next gaming build.
