The pricing on AMD's Ryzen 5000 processors has started to fall dramatically in the wake of Intel's Alder Lake 12th generation CPU release. Starting with the mid-range, harder-to-justify Ryzen 5800X, you can now pick up the chip for just $300 at Micro Center. That's 1/3 off its $450 price tag from just a few days ago. That matches the price of the value king in Intel's 12-gen, the 12600K, and offers some real performance and price competition at the new mid-range sweet spot.
Intel's new 12th generation Alder Lake CPUs have proved to be surprisingly capable. The 12600K, a six + four core CPU smashed the 5600X in most benchmarks, and more hotly competed with AMD's 5800X -- even trading blows with the 5900X in some games and applications. The 5950X even struggled to keep off the 12700K and 12900K at the top end.
Clearly AMD and retailers are now reacting to this in the only way they can until AMD has something else to release in the new year: price drops. The first of those is the 5800X being slashed to two thirds its usual price, at just $300. That matches the 12600K, and previous 5600X pricing. That six core CPU has had its price cut to $280 at Microcenter, but it's not been reflected elsewhere just yet.
We'd expect that price to continue to fall in the weeks to come, on all Ryzen 5000 CPUs, save for the top end options. With a rumored 12400F pricing of just $240, however, AMD may need to do something drastic to its pricing to remain competitive while we await its 3D Vcache CPUs set to debut in 2022.