Intel's new Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" CPUs are a "horrible product" and that is causing shortages of AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D... says a leaker -- no, actually, this is from AMD executives themselves at CES 2025.
During a small roundtable discussion with AMD executives at CES 2025, Tom's Hardware asked some questions regarding shortages of its Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, and when we can expect that supply to improve. AMD said that it is experiencing unprecedented demand for the 9800X3D, and that it's Intel's new "horrible product" that is helping push that demand through the roof.
AMD executive Frank Azor said: "We knew we built a great part. We didn't know the competitor [Intel] had built a horrible one. So the demand has been a little higher than we forecasted".
AMD executive David McAfee added: "We have been ramping our manufacturing capacity, or the monthly, quarterly output of X3D parts, period, and that's 7000 [series] as well as 9000X3D. It's crazy how much we have increased 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".
He continued: "Building a traditional semiconductor, it's basically 12 to 13 weeks from when you start a wafer to when you get a product out the other end of the machine. The [3D V-Cache] stacking process adds time to that, and so it's longer than a quarter horizon [three months] to really ramp output of those products. And so we're working very, very hard to catch up with demand. I think as we go through the first half of this year, you'll see us continue to increase the output of X3D. There's no secret, X3D has become a far more important part of our CPU portfolio than I think any of us would have predicted a year ago. And I think that trend will continue in the future, and we are ramping capacity to ensure we catch up with that demand for as long as customers want those X3D parts".
