I am genuinely intrigued. I've been going to my local Microcenters in the DC VA area for weeks now and they said they have gotten ZERO shipments in since release day of the 3900X and have a couple 3700X maybe on shelves.
This doesn't necessarily completely invalidate my point though - distribution by AMD is clearly needing some work when one region is drowning in 3900X processors and a very wealthy metro area has none in retail channels.
Or may be ( cough ) someone in your local Microcenters hasn't been ordering to fulfil those stocks.
This strategy is quite widely used in many other industry as well.
Although given it has only been launched for less than a month and demand is actually through the roof ( I have been seen reviews being so Pro AMD, even in the AMD Athon 64 days ). So I think it is simply supply is a little tight while TSMC are working hard.
Consumer doesn’t really matter. Pretty much any IT admin I know is ordering one directly through wholesalers. I’m actually surprised people physically go to stores anymore.
Odd. I was in Microcenter on Tuesday and they had a few 3900X's in the case. When I was there closer to launch, there weren't any and they told me that people would come in and ask for them before they even hit the shelf.
Which Microcenter location though? The Fairfax one the employee in the section on Sunday said the two boxes in the floor cases were 3700X and not 3900X because the boxes for the 3900X are larger.
This doesn't necessarily completely invalidate my point though - distribution by AMD is clearly needing some work when one region is drowning in 3900X processors and a very wealthy metro area has none in retail channels.