The gamers have spoken: AMD obliterates Intel in CPU sales

AMD’s 3D V-Cache processors are some of the best CPUs, and they’re certainly a hit among gamers. The sales figures speak for themselves: According to the latest numbers from Mindfactory, a German retailer, consumers are continuously picking AMD over Intel — and the gap is huge. What’s perhaps more interesting is that AMD’s last-gen platform continues to dominate sales charts despite the lack of an upgrade path from the AM4 socket.

Shared by TechEpiphany on Twitter, these numbers spell great news for AMD. Of the top 10 processors sold in the last week on Mindfactory, nine are AMD chips. The Core i5-13600KF is the only Intel CPU to make it into the top 10, and it’s coming in last at a shared number 10 spot with the Ryzen 5 5600. Each sold just 150 units.

The top of the chart looks more impressive, with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D claiming the top spot with 550 units sold, followed by the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 480 units sold. The fact that the 7800X3D rules the lineup is not quite as surprising as the fact that it just barely outpaces its last-gen counterpart.

The 5800X3D is a fantastic CPU, and even by current-gen standards, it offers great performance in gaming. Its main downside is the fact that it belongs to a dead platform. AMD is shifting focus to the AM5 socket, meaning that users who build a PC with the 5800X3D are locking themselves to AM4 motherboards and DDR4 RAM. There will be no way to upgrade the CPU in the future without swapping the motherboard, and possibly other components, too.

While that’s a negative for the 5800X3D, the sales figures show that many consumers aren’t dissuaded by this, and a good CPU that’s likely to keep up for a few years is sufficient for now. It doesn’t hurt that the chip is affordable, priced at around $320, with cheaper motherboards and RAM than the 7800X3D.

When it comes to obtaining accurate sales figures for PC hardware, most retailers and manufacturers tend to keep things quiet. As such, these numbers from Mindfactory are among the only reliable glimpses into such charts. Because of that, it’s not necessarily a full picture of what gamers are choosing to buy. If you look at the latest Steam hardware survey, for example, you can see Intel still makes up about two-thirds of all CPUs sampled by Steam.

Based on this data, though, it appears a group of gamers who are looking to build a new PC right now are more likely to turn to AMD than Intel, largely thanks to the powerful 3D V-Cache, but also due to the way the prices are set. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D outpaces Intel’s Core i9-13900K in gaming scenarios, and it costs around $440, whereas the Intel chip sells for $570. Of course, the lower core count on the AMD part makes it less suitable for productivity, but a computer built for gaming will benefit from the cheaper and faster AMD chip.

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Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…