AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is sitting in Amazon's top 10 best-selling CPUs despite failing to impress reviewers

AMD's first-ever dual 3D V-Cache CPU, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, went on sale earlier this week. However, the chip landed in controversy almost immediately. AMD deliberately withheld review samples from several notable publications, including Gamers Nexus, TechPowerUp, and Linus Tech Tips, and the reviews that did make it out weren't particularly flattering.

The consensus was that the 9950X3D2 offers only marginal performance gains over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, even less than the limited improvements seen when comparing the Ryzen 7 9850X3D to the 9800X3D. Despite featuring dual 3D V-Cache on both sides of the chip, many reviewers struggled to find compelling reasons to recommend the 9950X3D2 at its high $899 price point, particularly for gamers seeking strong value for money.

Yet somehow, despite all the criticism, the chip is outselling every Intel CPU currently listed on Amazon. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 currently sits at 8th spot on Amazon's best-selling CPU list, pulling ahead of most of AMD's own mid-range and budget Ryzen 9000 and 7000 processors.

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While the 9950X3D offers some advantages over its non-X3D sibling in professional workloads, the productivity gains are relatively modest, at 5-7%. That makes it difficult to justify the roughly 29% price premium over its counterpart.

The 9950X3D2 is still a long way behind AMD's chart-topper, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which sits comfortably in second place. The 9950X3D2 may climb a few positions over the coming weeks, but overtaking the gaming king anytime soon seems unlikely. The rest of the top 10 is largely an X3D party anyway, with the 9800X3D, 9850X3D, 9950X3D, and 7800X3D all featuring prominently.

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That said, there will always be enthusiasts who want the latest flagship, regardless of its value, much like the GeForce RTX 5090, which continues to sell well at more than double its launch price. Intel, unfortunately, has no such pull in the CPU market right now. Robert Hallock has acknowledged that the Core Ultra 270K Plus can't beat the 9950X3D2 at the moment, though he believes the gap can be narrowed with proper software optimization.

The 270K Plus currently ranks 17th on Amazon, offering the same 24-core configuration as the Ultra 9 285K, with stronger gaming performance at a far better price-to-performance ratio. Hopefully, we could see some change for the blue team with its Nova Lake series CPUs, which are scheduled to arrive before 2026 ends.