AMD Ryzen CPUs are crushing Intel’s processors going by Amazon sales

(Image credit: Future)

AMD’s Ryzen processors are totally dominating Intel chips in consumer desktop sales, at least by Amazon’s reckoning.

If you look at Amazon.com’s (US) bestseller list of CPUs, no less than eight out of the top ten processors listed are AMD, with only a pair of Intel offerings present. And as Wccftech, which spotted this, notes, this has been the case for quite some time. The top dog chip is AMD’s Ryzen 7 2700X, in case you’re wondering (more on that later).

The retail giant’s bestseller list is updated hourly, and at the time of writing, stands pretty much exactly the same as Wccftech observed earlier (and as remarked, has apparently been much like this for some time now).

This isn’t really any shock, however, because since the launch of Ryzen 3000, various sources have made AMD’s increasing dominance in the CPU world clear, and you’d struggle to find anyone who’d argue with you on this score.

Although remember that looking at the broader processor arena, outside of desktop CPUs – so including OEM PCs and laptops, and business machines – Intel is still powering the majority of computers (although even here, AMD is starting to gain serious ground – and in server CPUs as well, for that matter).

Rock and a hard place

All of which adds up to make a worrying picture for Intel, and to compound matters, supply issues are still plaguing the chip giant. Meaning Intel is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place at the moment – being pulled one way by the need to cut prices (which it’s already doing with some processors) to stay competitive with AMD’s technology, and being pulled another way by supply issues which would normally dictate that prices go up.

As mentioned, the top-selling CPU is AMD’s Ryzen 7 2700X, which is somewhat surprising in that other sources we’ve seen have indicated the most popular chip is the Ryzen 5 3600.

In Amazon’s rankings, the Ryzen 5 3600 is in third, behind its predecessor the Ryzen 5 2600 – so yes, Ryzen 2nd-gen processors hold the top two spots here. That’s doubtless due to the knock-on effect of price-cutting which Ryzen 3000’s release has caused for these older CPUs. For example, currently the 2600 is 40% cheaper than the 3600 – and the former is still a great processor (Black Friday could well usher in some even more tempting discounts, too).

Where does Intel come in the top 10? Well, it actually holds fourth position after those three AMD chips, with the most popular Intel model being the Core i5-9600K. The Core i9-9900K is in sixth place, and sandwiched between those two Intel chips is AMD’s Ryzen 7 3700X.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).