They sell everything they put into laptops, in that market they can't keep up with demand. Similar story for enterprise.
In the DIY desktop market, which this article is about, It's been instilled into everyone to wait for the X3D chips, by basically every reviewer. And for good reason.
Certainly doesn't help that:
a Windows 11 bug made performance look over 10% worse than it actually was on release, which is when all benchmarks are done and opinions are set (E: btw this has been fixed, and the fix also helped older CPUs too)
AMD decided to massively lower energy usage at the expense of out-of-box performance (I actually love this decision, I'm sick of components getting more and more power-hungry, and I'm sick of a hot stuffy room. Most gaming-focussed reviewers hated it though, which bugged me tbh because they also moan when power usage is high. I think they just like being negative because it drives engagement). At previous-gen TDPs, Zen 5 gains a lot of performance, but that's not how they are benchmarked.
the price of Zen 4 has dropped, and the 7800X3D in particular looks compelling to those who might've wanted Zen 5.
most DIY PC builders are PC gamers, and what do we need new CPUs for? Most gamers are more GPU bottlenecked right now, especially as people are moving to 1440p, 1440p ultrawide, or 4K. Add to that the fact that there have been very few good PC game releases this year and of course we're in a slump.
the only people who can buy a Zen5 CPU and drop it in their machine easily are Zen4 users, who won't see a large uplift and likely won't bother. People with earlier systems are looking at a significant investment - new motherboard and DDR5 RAM, why bother with that when the 5700X3D is such an insanely good value proposition that still won't be bottlenecked unless you're running an insanely good GPU?
Everything is expensive and everyone's underemployed thanks to all the damage large corporations have done to the job market and the economy as a whole.
I just want to make almost as much money as I made as a shift manager in fast food 10 years ago, which is a job I ironically walked away from to get educated. I just hope the democrats win so they can maybe reverse some of that anti homelessness stuff because we're all going to need it.
Collectively: "why would we upgrade just one generation?"
Like, sure, I have a Threadripper 1st and 2nd gen. I'm weird like that. I have a VII and a 7900 XTX. But the 7xxx is fine. I went from TR 2950X to the 7800X3D. Do I want more cores? Fuck yeah. Am I going to pay thousands of dollars for a modern high-core TR? Lmfao no.
If I was building a new machine for someone, sure, 9xxx. But shit, even a 3xxx in my network is still kicking ass. Why the hell would I upgrade when I don't want to? And the 7xxx is cheaper and - mostly - offers the same performance.
Drop the price if they want to sell more, simple as that. And don't expect upgrades every release family.
I thought about an upgrade for a minute from my 3700X, but I realized none of the games I play or programs I use are demanding on CPU enough that it would make any real difference in my experience.
Games have kind of stalled out for me too, I haven't played a AAA game in years it feels like, and the other games I do play are not that demanding on modern hardware.
I would also need to upgrade to DDR5 RAM which is just more cost for a marginal upgrade.
I got an 5800x3d and 64gb of ddr4. I see no need to jump up to a new CPU and invest in ddr5 memory yet. The performance benefit is only a few percent just isn't worth the upgrade in my opinion
Would have to buy new board and RAM, not really worth it performance-wise, at least not for me. Some day, yes, but that day hasn't come and will definitely be after a GPU upgrade.
I think I am going to be one of the people buying into Zen 5 but mainly for the longevity of the platform aspect. I'm in the preplanning stage of my next ProxMox server that will be my NAS (unRAID VM), local infrastructure (Samba AD, Adguard, etc.) & Gaming PC via Parsec/Moonlight or plugged directly into the PC with GPU/NVME passthrough to a VM for gaming.
Firewall is on a separate ProxMox host so if the ProxMox host needs a reboot internet will be fine.
Bit of speculation here with no real sources ;
There was a boom in late 2022 through 2023 when people could finally reliably get parts again. I'm guessing many who wanted to upgrade already did in the past 2 years. Anyone who got a new computer in 2020 onward should be fine for at least a few more years. I think the average is around 7 years.
The market will probably see a surge between 2027-2030 as people begin replacing their "covid era" computers.The market right now is mainly seeing anyone with a pre-covid computer who bought a nice top of line machine for about 1k. They're looking at current pricing and choosing to go with today's mid-low teir, which will outclass their old 201x top of the line computer.
Another factor could be AAA gaming hasn't exactly been pumping out hit new tiles the last 5 years. People who wanted to play cyberpunk or Eldon ring already upgraded by the time Wukon came out.
With less new games requirng the latest and greatest means the need to upgrade is going drop too.
I'm currently in the market for a new CPU for my PC, so I did my research and I'm not going to buy a Zen 5 CPU either. The reason is simple: The Zen 4 X3D CPUs are faster. Because of that, everyone who wants a new CPU now is getting the Zen 4 X3Ds and everyone who can wait, is waiting for the Zen 5 X3Ds. There's no point in getting the Zen 5 CPUs that are currently out.
Edit: Actually, after reading the top reply, I'm not sure anymore if the Zen 5s aren't the better choice after all
I have a 5950X and it seems pointless to upgrade from there. Sure the new stuff is faster, but disproportionately so for the price. I would need to replace a bunch of components.
I recently upgraded to 128GB RAM, and it was cheaper to do that with DDR4
I've had 2 faulty Ryzen processors (1700X, then my first 5950X), and I've learned to wait until the kinks are ironed out.
I just built a computer, and honestly I didn't need much more CPU than the Ryzen 3600 from my old one. CPUs don't go obsolete the way they used to.
I went with a 7000 series pretty much entirely because my new motherboard said "Compatible with 7000 series. Compatible with 9000 series with a BIOS update." And I didn't want to bother with having to get a loaner 7000 series to do a BIOS update, then swap CPUs.
I am still running an FX-8320 and it’s fast enough for everything that I need it for. It baffles me to see people arguing about the differences between different Ryzen CPUs.