Everyone talks about how great AMD CPUs are, but according to the Steam Hardware Survey, Intel still holds the bulk of the market share in the CPU market. But if you talk to any enthusiast, they'll gush on and on about how much

they love AMD CPUs. So just what in the ever-loving world is everyone actually buying on Amazon right now? Oh, it is AMD! It's all AMD, with even two-generation-old Ryzen chips pitching in to kick Intel completely out of the top 10 list,

and 3D V-Cache taking every spot on the podium. Which, wait, speaking of two-generation-old chips, now AM4 is on top again with all the holiday sales going on right now. The only constant is Intel's complete absence at the top of the sales charts, with only their older

generation selling at all. Meaning that the Steam Hardware Survey is based on older sales, and things are shifting big time. Yikes! So let's break down the chips y'all are buying and talk about why, and talk about our sponsor MSI. Their newest addition to the Aegis RS2 AI series of

pre-built PCs is here and packed full of the latest and greatest for all your AAA gaming needs. Unpack your own ready-to-powerhouse by clicking our link today. [Music] When we first sat down to look at CPU sales trends, the Ryzen 9 7900X3D was

comfortably in first place thanks to the feeding frenzy that took place after what was arguably the most exciting gaming CPU launch in the last two and a half years. But now it's completely out of stock and it's being scalped hard, even

On non-auction sites like Amazon, making matters worse, the word on the street is that a significant restock of this isn't expected until January. So, for anyone who was hoping to put the Ryzen 7000 under the Christmas tree this

year, that ain't going to cut it. So, how's option two looking here? Actually, not too bad. After all, the 7800X3D was in first place for quite a while before the new hotness came along, and it's pretty similar to the new one. Both of them

feature eight full-fat cores and 16 threads, 96 MB of L3 cache. It's just that the newer 7800X3D runs faster in its base and boost clocks and has some generational IPC uplift thanks to Zen 5 processing. It is also

overclockable, but let's be real, it's not like the older chip was so slow that you needed to overclock it. Anyway, the 7800X3D is not just pretty fast, though; it is straight-up the best-rated item that we have ever featured in this series, with

an absolutely unbelievable 4.9 stars. Sure, that is based on fewer ratings than the beloved Ryzen 3600 non-X that we featured last time around, but it's also got a lot more competition from other gaming chips like the 5700X3D, which is here in third

spot. We'll talk about that later, though, because right now I want to know what a one-star review even looks like when it only makes up about 2% of the overall reviews. Let's see. Billy had memory controller issues; that's no good. Ben hated Amazon's customer service; a few

People had their chips die—pun intended—anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after purchase. There's the odd product-missing scam, and then multiple others were upset that they didn't get a Jedi Survivor or Avatar game code along with their product. So wow, even the

people who were pissed about this thing were mostly pretty happy with the actual processor. As for the overwhelmingly good reviews, it's basically an endlessly scrolling page of titles like "Amazing CPU," "Best gaming CPU on the market," and "Huge upgrade." Our own review, when it came out, boiled down to, "Yeah, it's the best

gaming CPU on the market; it's just that it's kind of expensive," and unfortunately, it still is, even though it's been replaced in AMD's product lineup. See, here's the thing: most of the time when the new generation comes out, the last generation goes on sale, but the 7800X3D

is still selling for $480—about $30 over MSRP—which has AMD kind of looking like that smug Facebook Marketplace seller saying, "No lowballs, I know what I've got." And the unfortunate part is AMD is not wrong. When we tested the 7800X3D more

recently, it clearly beat its predecessor, which has contributed to its gangbuster sales. But the thing is, it didn't beat it by as much as some people hoped, at least outside of extreme examples like Rocket League and Stellaris. And the reality is, unless you are competitively gaming at

1080p and you need a chip that does well in productivity, there are other cheaper options. Remember that 5700X3D that I mentioned earlier? It goes for as little as $200—that is less than half of what you'll pay for an AM5 X3D chip. I mean,

Sure, AM4 is a dead platform, but it's also a significantly cheaper platform, especially if you're willing to pick up some used parts like a motherboard and DDR4 memory. In fact, you could build most of your new-to-you PC for about the price of just one of our best-selling

chips, which frees up more of your budget for what really matters for a gaming PC: the GPU. As we saw during our review of the 9800 X3D, even with the fastest GPU on the market (for now, anyway), once you go past 1080p, the bottleneck swings hard

toward the GPU. The affordability of good 1440p gaming monitors and 4K 120Hz TVs has never been better. So, if you want a great gaming experience today without wasting a dollar, AM4 plus a better display is kind of still my

go-to. But if you want to be able to upgrade your system without doing a complete rebuild, entry-level AM5 has some standout deals right now as well, with a Ryzen 7 7700X going for just $267 at the time of filming. That's still

an 8-core, 16-thread processor, but at only a little over half the price of the 7800 X3D. You are going to give up some gaming performance, even at higher resolutions and settings. But assuming, let's say, a $1000 budget, that gives you

over $200 extra to throw at your GPU, or spend on a nicer monitor, or hey, maybe a desk upgrade like this Northern Lights desk pad from LTDstore.com. Now, so far, most of this wasn't much of a surprise; lots of people want the best of the best.

And for everyone else, bang-for-the-buck chips, well, those are a great choice too. But something that did surprise me was just how different the sales mix looks between AMD's X CPUs and their more budget-friendly non-X CPUs. As I mentioned before, the last time we did

this, the chip we featured was the Ryzen 5 3600. To date, that has over 43,000 ratings, while the 3600X has barely over 12,000. To be clear, 12,000 ratings is a lot; they were both

great chips, but AMD had a big problem when it came to selling the X. It was $50 more for a performance difference that ended up being mostly theoretical. Now, Intel solved this problem within their lineup by artificially limiting overclocking and boost speeds on their

non-K CPUs, but AMD, at least at the time, took a more consumer-friendly approach and left their entire lineup unlocked. Well, it seems like AMD may have learned a lesson from all of that because now, a few generations later, non-X versions just aren't available

alongside their X counterparts at launch. Instead, AMD launches the beefy version with full fanfare, then quietly releases the less-expensive variant later. How much later? Well, it seems like that depends. When AM5 debuted, eager customers were stuck waiting months if they wanted to save a

buck on a slightly slower 7000 series. And as for 9000, it'll be December by the time this video goes live, and we haven't seen so much as a rumored release date for non-X 9000 variants. I guess that's what happens

When the closest thing to a competing product from Intel is a CPU that used to be a lake before it took something to the knee... um, what was it? Something... it was our uh... arrangement... to give you this message from our sponsor, DeleteMe. Your online

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Why Is Everyone Buying This CPU?

Linus Tech Tips is a passionate team of "professionally curious" experts in consumer technology and video production who aim to educate and entertain.
