- AMD Ryzen 5 Zen 4 prices rose from $200 to $400 without notice
- Average price chart shows sharp and sustained spike from February 2026
- Inventory changes and supply constraints could explain the increase
Anyone tracking PCPartPicker‘AMD price charts may have noticed a sudden spike in the average price of AMD’s Ryzen 5 series.
For more than a year, the selling price of models like the Ryzen 5 7600X and 9600X remained between $170 and $220. That changed in early February 2026, when the average price suddenly shot up to $400 and stayed there.
The chart does not show a gradual upward trend but rather a sudden jump. One week the chip was a reliable mid-range option and the next it cost almost twice as much.
Memory crisis is inevitably a factor
There has been no public statement from AMD outlining a formal price change, so it is likely due to a combination of supply pressure and shifting priorities across the semiconductor market.
One factor, to no one’s absolute surprise, is memory. Large manufacturers, including Samsung and Micron, have shifted production capacity toward HBM and enterprise DDR5 to service AI data centers.
This has caused consumer DRAM prices to increase enormously year after year. As memory costs have risen, distributors and retailers appear to have adjusted CPU prices to protect margins across all system versions.
Production capacity is another piece of the puzzle. Ryzen 5 chips share advanced process nodes at TSMC with high-margin AI accelerators.
When wafer supply dwindles, higher-priced silicon tends to take priority. Retail stock at major online stores is dwindling, leaving more listings in the hands of third-party sellers, where prices are rising rapidly.
Even older AM4 Ryzen 5 parts have seen pricing pressures. With DDR5 kits reaching around $350 in some cases, some builders have returned to DDR4 platforms, depleting the remaining AM4 inventory.
It is impossible to ignore the magnitude of the price increase. Ten or twenty percent swings are common in the DIY market, but sustained doubling for a conventional CPU is more than a little unusual.
For now, the price chart shows an unbalanced market. A processor that long defined the $200 sweet spot now sits at around $400, leaving buyers weighing their options.
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