More bad news for PC gamers as AMD CPU prices could soon soar

We've recently been getting steadily and depressingly used to price increases across the PC hardware world. Even putting aside the now significantly higher prices we've been paying for GPUs in recent years, the last couple of months have seen big increases in RAM prices that have gone on to affect prices for other products, such as graphics cards, laptops, and desktop DRAM upgrades. Now adding to the mix is expected to be an AMD CPU price rise, although this time it reportedly has nothing to do with those memory costs.

AMD currently sits in a dominant position in the desktop CPU market, featuring multiple times on our list of the best gaming CPUs. That has already led to some of its most desirable offerings demanding quite high prices, such as is the case with the chart-topping AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. However, this price increase rumor suggests gamers will soon have to pay even more for these top chips.

According to a report by tech site Overclock3D, its industry sources have revealed that AMD has just increased the price of Ryzen CPUs (it states  the change was due to happen at midnight December 1, 2025, but the time zone isn't clear). Because the price increases are to its suppliers, this doesn't mean prices have immediately jumped up at retailers. In fact, the 9800X3D is still showing as being at or close to its lowest ever price right now on Amazon. However, the extra cost of new chips could soon be passed on to consumers if the rumor proves true.

The site speculates that AMD and its retail partners could use the timing to mask price increases as them simply "return[ing] to normal," following Black Friday weekend discounts. However, as mentioned above, this would require retailers to immediately reflect the price changes, which doesn't seem to have happened so far.

The site also reports that it's not known why the increases are happening, whether it be because of a shortage of chips, problems with production, production prices increasing, tariffs, inflation, or some other factor. However, it does clarify that both AMD Ryzen 9000 and some older AMD CPUs will be affected by the price rises, according to its sources. We've reached out to AMD for comment on the situation.

Regardless of the exact reasoning, this does seem to suggest that any deals you can still find on AMD CPUs are probably worth grabbing, as you might not see prices drop as low again for a while.