One of AMD's most powerful CPUs gets a 60% price cut — 192-core EPYC 9965 CPU costs less than $6000 new and I can't explain why it's so cheap | Tech Radar
Overview
News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
Details
Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.
Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
One of AMD's most powerful CPUs gets a 60% price cut — 192-core EPYC 9965 CPU costs less than $6000 new and I can't explain why it's so cheap
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
AMD Zen 5-based EPYC 9965 is on sale on e Bay for just under $6,000
With 192 cores and 384 threads in tow, AMD's offering can handle as much as 6TB of RAM per processor for AI-centric workloads
The CPU not only offers the highest core count in all x 86 CPUs to date, but also holds its own against the competition
When AMD unveiled its new EPYC CPUs in June 2024, one particular chip caught everyone's eye, given how outrageously powerful it was compared to the competition.
The AMD EPYC 9965 CPU was also the company's most ambitious server-grade offering to date, and one that has held its own against the competition with relative ease thanks to its yet-unmatched 192-core, 384-thread x 86 configuration.
At a suggested MSRP of
Why the e Bay listings are somewhat hard to digest
Despite being unveiled over two years ago, the EPYC 9965 CPU remains largely unchallenged by the competition, thrashing most benchmarks with relative ease. It remains the flagship server chip for AMD-based systems worldwide, with Team Red shipping it globally, including China.
The chip itself is a genuine monster. The EPYC 9965 packs 192 Zen 5c cores and 384 threads onto a single SP5 package, with a 2.25 GHz base, a 3.35 GHz all-core, and a 3.7 GHz maximum boost, 384 MB of L3 cache, twelve channels of DDR5, 128 lanes of PCIe 5.0, and a 500 W default TDP, AMD's highest yet. It is the densest part in AMD's 9005 stack, built for cloud providers aiming to cram the maximum number of virtual machines into a rack.
The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is still the high-performance CPU to beat — and right now it’s $60 off at Newegg with a free AIO Liquid Cooler
These three AMD Ryzen processors are heavily discounted on Amazon right now
AMD launches its slowest processor in years, because 'not all customers can afford a new PC'
All in all, it is designed primarily to serve hyperscalers and cloud providers, with a focus on low-power, efficient cores that dominate such setups.
Even at its reduced reference price of just under
This is even lower than the last time we tracked this CPU in 2025, but there might be an explanation of sorts for what would otherwise be seen as an anomaly. Most server-grade CPUs trade at prices below MSRP, with OEM and negotiated discounts that quickly add up to significant savings for large-scale deployments.
The other explanation that often applies to older server-grade CPUs that often get cycled out or decommissioned by data centers does not apply here, however; the EPYC 9965 does not have a successor yet, and it is hard to imagine a currently available CPU replacing AMD's most capable chip yet in a data center just yet
Other reasons prices are low could include excessive inventory, canceled orders, or simply someone liquidating hardware in an industry that is increasingly GPU- and memory-focused to meet its AI needs.
Most industry players prefer a direct OEM solution, especially given AMD's support for PSB-locking (secure boot) on their CPUs for certain vendors, which makes them unwilling to purchase from 3rd-party sellers. This also raises the risk profile for buyers, who could unwittingly end up purchasing a vendor-locked CPU, making for a rather annoying testing and return process.
With a shift in spending towards GPUs and memory becoming prohibitively expensive, hardly helping matters, while enterprise consumers are still buying up the EPYC 9965, prices might reflect a market reality: they are unlikely to be scouring e Bay for their next 192-core monster CPU purchase, even assuming they have a compatible motherboard and memory modules to match.
Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.
Having built hundreds of gaming PCs and being an avid gamer in his spare time, Rahim tends to have stronger opinions about hardware than most. This is particularly on display when he gets his way with powerful, but minimalistic RGB builds even as Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs come a close second.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
1 Want a cheap Yeti cooler for your 4th of July celebrations? I'm a deal-hunting outdoor expert, and I've tracked down the only holiday offers actually worth your money
2 Adobe and Disney are teaming up to design the next generation of theme park rides with Foundry AI
3IBM unveils new record-breaking chip with 100 billion transistors in less than 1 nanometer footprint — new Nano Stack design is like "a 100-storey skyscraper" packed with highly efficient processing power
4 Apple may have a plan to 'ease frustration over price hikes and longer delivery times' with its Macs — but I wouldn't count on it working
5 How to watch Netherlands vs Morocco: Free Streams, TV Channels & Kick-Off time for FIFA World Cup 2026 in a crunch last-32 encounter
Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.
Key Takeaways
- News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
- Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
- Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards
- Unlock instant access to exclusive member features
- Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards
