AMD blames Ryzen 9800X3D stock shortage on Intel’s ‘horrible’ Arrow Lake launch, rubbing salt in Team Blue’s CPU wounds

Is that entirely fair? Not really, but taking the opportunity to fire flak at a rival is hardly surprising

10 Jan 2025, 11:10 · TechRadar

News By Darren Allan published 10 January 2025

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD’s Frank Azor has fired shots at Intel’s Arrow Lake desktop CPUs
He called the Core Ultra 200S CPUs ‘horrible’ and said this increased demand for the Ryzen 9800X3D
That higher demand has led to stock woes, Azor claims, and inventory issues won’t likely ease anytime soon

An AMD executive fired flak at Intel, calling Team Blue’s latest Arrow Lake desktop chips ‘horrible’ no less.

The quote came from a roundtable with AMD execs at CES 2025, where our sibling site, Tom’s Hardware, asked about the ongoing shortage of Ryzen 7 9800X3D stock (regarded as the best CPU for gaming that you can buy since its launch, and a processor that we gave a glowing review).

AMD observed that demand has outstripped supply – clearly enough – and the full quote from Frank Azor, who heads up consumer and gaming marketing at AMD, will surely leave Intel bigwigs suitably unimpressed.

Azor told Tom’s Hardware: “We knew we built a great part [in the 9800X3D]. We didn’t know the competitor [Intel] had built a horrible one [Arrow Lake]. So the demand has been a little higher than we forecasted.”

Ouch. You’ve probably noticed that Intel’s latest Arrow Lake desktop chips, which arrived in October 2024, experienced a rocky launch, with various problems that Team Blue still hasn’t fully put to bed.

We’ll come back to Intel’s misfortunes later, but what about the Ryzen 9800X3D stock situation?

David McAfee, VP and GM of Ryzen channel business at AMD, explained: “It’s crazy how much we have increased [our monthly, quarterly output of X3D parts] over what we were planning. I would say the demand we’ve seen for the 9800X3D and the 7800X3D has been unprecedented. So the demand has been higher than ever.”

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