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Amazon CPU sales have dropped 60% YoY

winjer

winjer

Member


Amazon sold 60% fewer CPUs than a year ago, pointing to a stalled PC refresh cycle


According to figures compiled by TechEpiphany, Amazon sold about 26,100 CPUs in the US in January 2026. AMD's X3D lineup continues to dominate, pushing the company's market share to an eye-popping 88 percent. But look closer and the story shifts from competitive wins to supply constraints: AI data centers are soaking up DRAM, and consumer hardware is paying the price.

A year-over-year comparison from German outlet 3DCenter underscores the slump. Combined AMD and Intel CPU sales on Amazon fell 59% from January 2025, when the two companies moved 63,840 units. December 2025 was little better, posting a 46% drop compared to December 2024. Market share hasn't changed much, but absolute sales have cratered.
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However, since AI data centers have consumed most DRAM and NAND manufacturing capacity, the prices of DDR5 RAM sticks have skyrocketed. Because Ryzen 9000 processors require DDR5, many builders are falling back to older Ryzen 5000 and even 3000-series chips, where DDR4 memory remains comparatively affordable.
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This is likely not just a problem with Amazon. As it's very likely that all hardware stores are seeing drops in hardware sales due to price increases in Ram, Nand Flash, HDDs, GPUs and even cooper for electronics and coolers.
 
I don't think this is due to shortages as that began relatively recently. Laptops have been growing in popularity and saw considerable increase in shipments (along mini-pcs too apparently), i think people are just prefering to get all-in-one, more portable devices instead of building PCs.
 
The only time I see my CPU maxed out while gaming is at the start during shader compilations. The rest of the time It seem a CPU from 20 years go could play the same game.
 
As someone that build his PC like 5 or 6 years ago and has a 5800X and a 4070 S, I just don't see any reason to upgrade.

DLSS keeps improving and giving my PC more life and "power" for free. New games aren't making any breakthroughs on the graphics department and when it comes to gameplay and innovation, modern AAA games just aren't giving me enough reasons to care about them so much to the point of considering getting a better PC.
 
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I was looking at buying a new gaming rig last week and for a 5080 with all the bells and whistles it was over 4 grand (Canada) with taxes. With the new consoles coming out in a year or two, this 5080 system will be no more powerfull, yet 4 times the price. It makes no sense to buy, I'll wait for the 6080 and see how much of a jump that is over the current gen at the time.
 
Guilty_AI said:
I don't think this is due to shortages as that began relatively recently. Laptops have been growing in popularity and saw considerable increase in shipments (along mini-pcs too apparently), i think people are just prefering to get all-in-one, more portable devices instead of building PCs.
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I think the diminishing returns will greatly favor more portable hardware.. the "need" to get the latest classic hardware will keep lessening as laptops and mini-pcs are closing the perfomance gap.
 
Complete layman here but aren't most games GPU bound anyway? Couple that with the advancements with framegen and all that I don't see why people would storm out and buy CPUs. It's one of those components that you buy once and really ride out for a long time before upgrading. My 12400F is still doing fine for me.
 
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I'm in the UK and NEVER purchase things like CPU, RAM or GPU from Amazon. The amount of horror stories where someone unboxes their 5080 and the box contains a brick are far too common.
Even if i have an Amazon giftcard, I steer well clear.
I go to sites like Scan or Overclockers.
 
tylrdiablos said:
I'm in the UK and NEVER purchase things like CPU, RAM or GPU from Amazon. The amount of horror stories where someone unboxes their 5080 and the box contains a brick are far too common.
Even if i have an Amazon giftcard, I steer well clear.
I go to sites like Scan or Overclockers.
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Thats a nice story but not relevant really, Amazon sales are being compared to previous Amazon sales so unless these so called horror stories have changed recently then this isn't the reason sales have dropped. Amazon has very good customer protection too so I doubt it even has any impact on its use year to year.
 
Imtjnotu said:
Just waiting for Zen 6 like the rest of us
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Actually true for me BUT I suspect the uptick in prices of components is having this effect. If the market is good and normal and not inflated, we would be seeing less dips.

I hope we get back to normal within a couple of years here to where you can buy all components for retail AND also more 3080 moments where we didn't get gigantic price upticks for generational performance leaps.
 
Well yeah nobody can afford to build.

I'm planning on replacing my 7600 soon with a 9800x3D, but I wouldn't even bother if I couldn't just drop it in as an upgrade. If I had to buy new memory and a new board I wouldn't even consider an upgrade right now.
 
winjer said:


Amazon sold 60% fewer CPUs than a year ago, pointing to a stalled PC refresh cycle


This is likely not just a problem with Amazon. As it's very likely that all hardware stores are seeing drops in hardware sales due to price increases in Ram, Nand Flash, HDDs, GPUs and even cooper for electronics and coolers.
Click to expand...


Every single company making products for the PC enthusiast/PC gamer market is going to be hit by falling sales. This is going to hit these companies extremely hard since this situation may last years. Many hardware companies that produce cases, coolers, etc will go under financially in 2026.

Same goes for physical/online stores that sell these products to PC builders/gamers. When RAM has become ridiculously expansive, people don't simply buy less RAM for their new PC, they'll postpone building the entire PC so sales of all PC components drop off at more or less the same rate. Not a single company can survive a situation when all of a sudden consumer sales drop by 60%. This is gonna be an absolute bloodbath.
 
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Guilty_AI said:
I don't think this is due to shortages as that began relatively recently. Laptops have been growing in popularity and saw considerable increase in shipments (along mini-pcs too apparently), i think people are just prefering to get all-in-one, more portable devices instead of building PCs.
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Not to mention some of the igpus now are nuts
 
The crazy thing is that Zen 3 CPUs are making a huge comeback thanks to the crazy DDR5 prices

wccftech.com

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X/XT Outsells Nearly Every CPU, Becoming Even More Popular Than Ryzen 7 7800X3D

According to the latest sales data from Amazon and Mindfactory, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and 5800XT is topping the charts after 9800X3D.
wccftech.com wccftech.com

Heck I got a 5700X myself recently cause I wanted to upgrade my 9 year old 7700K but I wanted to keep using my DDR4 ram cause fuck those DDR5 prices. It's a shame AMD stopped making the 5750X3D and 5850X3D, otherwise I would've gotten one of them, but as it stands they're ridiculously overpriced when you can actually find one.
 
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Definitely the RAM prices/shortages have had some effect, along with CPUs just being kinda boring in the last few years, and many people bought computers early in the 2020s with the pandemic.

I also have regularly gotten better deals outside Amazon in the past when it comes to multiple computer components.
 
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kruis said:
Every single company making products for the PC enthusiast/PC gamer market is going to be hit by falling sales. This is going to hit these companies extremely hard since this situation may last years. Many hardware companies that produce cases, coolers, etc will go under financially in 2026.

Same goes for physical/online stores that sell these products to PC builders/gamers. When RAM has become ridiculously expansive, people don't simply buy less RAM for their new PC, they'll postpone building the entire PC so sales of all PC components drop off at more or less the same rate. Not a single company can survive a situation when all of a sudden consumer sales drop by 60%. This is gonna be an absolute bloodbath.
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I really hope Microcenter comes out alright through this. That's really the last true computer oriented chain.
 
onQ123 said:
This is the dumbest thinking, you really trying to point the finger at consoles when PC's have more functionalities than playing games
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People like me that only use those CPUs for gaming right now are not upgrading yet thanks to my 5800X being enough for the 99,99999999999999% of the games that are limited by the consoles CPUs. So yeah, my afirmation holds true for everyone in the same boat as me and I doubt I am the only one....
 
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StereoVsn said:
I really hope Microcenter comes out alright through this. That's really the last true computer oriented chain.
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Me too, those losers still gotta build a store in my state so I can shop there. Every photo I see of them online looks like a better Fry's staffed with people that actually know hardware.
 
Durin said:
Me too, those losers still gotta build a store in my state so I can shop there. Every photo I see of them online looks like a better Fry's staffed with people that actually know hardware.
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That's what it pretty much is and with better product selection.
 
In case anyone hasn't noticed, we've been in a CPU upgrade super cycle the last few years. Anyone with an X3D chip is staying put for a while, most people who had something older or cheaper have been upgrading to Zen 4 and 5, Intel is almost completely out of consideration. There are a few holdouts for Zen 6 but for a lot of people, they are seeing there is no need to upgrade their CPUs. Hell, my 4970k lasted until last summer's upgrade to 9800X3D which I'll be keeping long term too.

Cases, PSUs, motherboards, CPUs, and fans have been cheap while GPUs, RAM, and SSDs are going through the roof.
 
Boss Mog said:
The crazy thing is that Zen 3 CPUs are making a huge comeback thanks to the crazy DDR5 prices

wccftech.com

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X/XT Outsells Nearly Every CPU, Becoming Even More Popular Than Ryzen 7 7800X3D

According to the latest sales data from Amazon and Mindfactory, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and 5800XT is topping the charts after 9800X3D.
wccftech.com wccftech.com

Heck I got a 5700X myself recently cause I wanted to upgrade my 9 year old 7700K but I wanted to keep using my DDR4 ram cause fuck those DDR5 prices. It's a shame AMD stopped making the 5750X3D and 5850X3D, otherwise I would've gotten one of them, but as it stands they're ridiculously overpriced when you can actually find one.
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I recently ordered one too, honestly by the time DDR5 prices come down DDR6 will likely be out anyway lol.
DDR4 is totally fine.
CPU's are also not something you need to replace all that often either, only reason I am getting a new one is because I ran into issues with games recently but those are also games that are very poorly optimized.
Even most modern games that are well optimized run fine on very old CPU's.
 
onQ123 said:
This is the dumbest thinking, you really trying to point the finger at consoles when PC's have more functionalities than playing games
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No rodrigolfp is correct here. Consoles are holding back gaming.
I've been reading the thread on the new Magnus APU and it's smaller PS6 sibling and again it's weak sauce.
That APU will be holding back gaming till 2040.
 
rodrigolfp said:
People like me that only use those CPUs for gaming right now are not upgrading yet thanks to my 5800X being enough for the 99,99999999999999% of the games that are limited by the consoles CPUs. So yeah, my afirmation holds true for everyone in the
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So why isn't World of Warcraft pushing CPU's to their limits to give you a reason to upgrade?
 
Magic Carpet said:
No rodrigolfp is correct here. Consoles are holding back gaming.
I've been reading the thread on the new Magnus APU and it's smaller PS6 sibling and again it's weak sauce.
That APU will be holding back gaming till 2040.
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It doesn't matter because today's shitty devs hold back gaming way more than any hardware.
 
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