TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 2,013
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
That's the memory crisis for you…
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
It looks like Amazon US is struggling to sell CPUs, as sales this February fall far under this same time last year. With 25,700 unit sales last month, that's a decline of 23,400 units.
This is according to market analyst and creator TechEpiphany, who rounds up sales every month (via 3DCenter). According to their figures, AMD account for 23,000 units sold in February, and Intel account for 2,700 units sold. The two most popular CPUs, around 4,000 sales each, are the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. In February 2025, the most popular CPU by far was the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with over 6,000 sales at an average of $510.
February isn't the only recent month that saw a decline from the previous year. Amazon sold an estimated 26,100 units in January, 2026, which is a dip of almost 40,000 from a year ago It sold around 44,000 in December, 2025, almost 40,000 lower than December, 2024. Amazon is said to have sold 47% less inventory between December to February than a year prior.
There are multiple factors that could explain this decline. For one, Zen 5 X3D currently takes 21% of the market share (with Zen 5 grabbing 13.1%). The rather brilliant AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D launched in the latter half of 2024, with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D launching in March last year. Extra sales from the excitement of new chips could be a factor in previous sales, but not so much today, as Zen 6 is just around the corner.
Zen 3 was the most popular chip architecture in February (at 37.1% market share), suggesting more users are creating budget builds. But, with reports that a CPU shortage could be on the way, one might assume panic buying would bring up sales stats somewhat.
Month
Estimated sales
February, 2026
25,700
January, 2026
26,100
December, 2025
44,000
November, 2025
72,650
October, 2025
63,000
July, 2025
77,600
June, 2025
118,929
April, 2025
62,700
March, 2025
39,100
February, 2025
59,100
January, 2025
63,840
December, 2024
82,400
However, there's one AI-based elephant in the room.
The memory crisis has sent the price of memory skyrocketing, but it's also caused stock insecurity around storage and even GPUs. If I were thinking about upgrading or building a new PC right now, I'd likely hang on as long as I could, in the hopes that I could get a much bigger rig for much cheaper in the f...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
It looks like Amazon US is struggling to sell CPUs, as sales this February fall far under this same time last year. With 25,700 unit sales last month, that's a decline of 23,400 units.
This is according to market analyst and creator TechEpiphany, who rounds up sales every month (via 3DCenter). According to their figures, AMD account for 23,000 units sold in February, and Intel account for 2,700 units sold. The two most popular CPUs, around 4,000 sales each, are the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. In February 2025, the most popular CPU by far was the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with over 6,000 sales at an average of $510.
February isn't the only recent month that saw a decline from the previous year. Amazon sold an estimated 26,100 units in January, 2026, which is a dip of almost 40,000 from a year ago It sold around 44,000 in December, 2025, almost 40,000 lower than December, 2024. Amazon is said to have sold 47% less inventory between December to February than a year prior.
There are multiple factors that could explain this decline. For one, Zen 5 X3D currently takes 21% of the market share (with Zen 5 grabbing 13.1%). The rather brilliant AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D launched in the latter half of 2024, with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D launching in March last year. Extra sales from the excitement of new chips could be a factor in previous sales, but not so much today, as Zen 6 is just around the corner.
Zen 3 was the most popular chip architecture in February (at 37.1% market share), suggesting more users are creating budget builds. But, with reports that a CPU shortage could be on the way, one might assume panic buying would bring up sales stats somewhat.
Month
Estimated sales
February, 2026
25,700
January, 2026
26,100
December, 2025
44,000
November, 2025
72,650
October, 2025
63,000
July, 2025
77,600
June, 2025
118,929
April, 2025
62,700
March, 2025
39,100
February, 2025
59,100
January, 2025
63,840
December, 2024
82,400
However, there's one AI-based elephant in the room.
The memory crisis has sent the price of memory skyrocketing, but it's also caused stock insecurity around storage and even GPUs. If I were thinking about upgrading or building a new PC right now, I'd likely hang on as long as I could, in the hopes that I could get a much bigger rig for much cheaper in the f...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?