AMD’s most powerful processor to date, EPYC 9965, is offered on eBay and other online retailers, at the time of writing, with discounts of up to 47%.
Compared to other similar cases, I traced before, the big difference is that there are far more EPYC 9965 for sale in the US than before, and all CPUs are brand new.
The EPYC 9965 was launched in October 2024 and is AMD’s most expensive CPU with a specified retail price of $ 14,813 and its most powerful also with 192 Zen 5C core and 384 threads. A search for eBay for 100-000000976, OEM SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) code to 9965, brings 10 results, all US-based and brand new.
This is the first of several articles based on data I have collected on 41 AMD ZEN 4 and ZEN 5 CPUs (Socketed, OEM). In the rest of the series I will look at the cost per. Core, Performance per Core, AMD CPUs that are getting more expensive, all this with the new Ryzen 9 9900/9950 x3D CPUs in the background.
Some sellers offered 9965 for as little as $ 8,250 when they bought a couple; Individual prices started from $ 8,369. Oddly enough, search for EPYC 9965 brought several items from the Chinese mainland. I estimate to 100 the total number of EPYC 9965, currently for sale on eBay.
On the open web, Wiredzone, a popular online US-based retailer, EPYC 9965 for just over $ 10,000, a little more expensive than eBay, but it’s a recognized business. It has been at this award for more than three months now. Around a dozen other retailers around the world, AMD’s flagship server processor sells for less than $ 11,000, a clear sign that the supply is relatively abundant.
The EPYC 9965 requires a special motherboard if you plan to run a few of them (because why not). Experiencing 768 threads on a motherboard like Gigabyte MZ73-LM2 with up to 24 DIMM slots is something we ever need, especially when such a double-stakes motherboard can be purchased for about $ 2500 and requires a special house. But if you want the best workstation out there, it’s a very good place to start.
So why such a drop?
Demand for this particular type of processor, one that focuses on hyperscalers such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, has been one of the drivers for AMD’s success in the server market. AMD’s market share rose from almost zero a decade ago to approx. 25% in 2024.
So what to make of the myriad of suppliers selling this flagship, advanced server processor for thousands of dollars less than the sticker? Could excess inventory be a reason why prices have gone so quickly on such a recent CPU?
But here is the thing, during my research I was shocked to see that 9965 was not the only one who had such a large discount: 9655p (up to 47%), EPYC 9655 (up to 57%) and so on, and so on experienced all major price falls.
In fact, my Snapshot study of AMDs 5th Gen -Stick Contact CPUs (with a Sprinkle thread dripper) reveals, 41 CPUs in total that most of the models have a discount of 20% or more when hit the retail sector.
History repeats itself
I started tracking this weird scenario back two years ago when I noticed that US retailers were selling the then three-month-old EPYC 9954 processor with a massive 30% discount. A month later, in March 2023, I found that hundreds of used 64-core 3. Gen EPYC CPUs stayed when Chinese Hyperscalers rushed to upgrade their servers.
It looked like someone in the supply chain was trying to get a quick money from the ‘outdated’ hardware with prices tumbling down to just over $ 1000 in June 2023.
