If you are one of those who closely scrutinize the prices at French resellers of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in the hope of finding it at its “official” price of €529.90 as Éric mentioned in his test on H&Co, this news may not please you because the prospects of such a situation have been receding since a few days already. The ridiculously low stocks of the processor among resellers has since the launch caused a rise in prices out of greed, we have all noticed it, but in the shadows another underlying cause accentuates the phenomenon: the euro in full swing. decline since November 6…
Some of you may already be starting to say to yourself “the euro has a good back”, but one detail must be taken into account: at AMD (and at other brands too, but it is not the topic of the day), there is not really an official French, nor German, nor Spanish, nor European price for that matter. The official rate, which is often called “MSRP” (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) or simply “recommended retail price” in French, only exists at AMD in US dollars. You will no doubt have already come across turns of phrase talking about “official price in France” , or even encountered in slides coming directly from AMD of prices in euros, but the “small” lines that we do not always think to read bring us back to the reality of these price announcements in euros: it is not it's just simple US MSRP conversions, only valid at the time they are made as in this slide for the Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT launch in September 2023:
This is the time AMD has been the most transparent recently about its announced prices for Europe, with these stars and the notation that accompanies them. We understand that our European prices are absolutely not fixed in time unlike the MSRP in dollars and depend, almost on a daily basis, on the evolution of the conversion rates of our euro, as well as obviously the VAT rate.
But then, what is actually happening in the case of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D? Well, unfortunately, its launch on November 7, 2024 therefore coincided with a sudden fall of the euro against the dollar. A trend which has still not been reversed on November 23. As you might expect, AMD did not decide on its French price on D-day, especially since the tests were released on November 6 at 3 p.m., the day before “availability” (we will put it in quotation marks). seen how tense the situation was and still is). AMD therefore communicated the price equivalences to all the testers by using the online currency converter then using a calculator to add the VAT a little before November 6, it was necessary to give the testers a little time to reflect on their conclusions once the price is known, so if we start for example on November 4, 2024, the euro would then be worth 1.0874 dollars. After converting the official price of $479 and applying our 20% VAT in France, this gives an equivalent for us of €528.60 including tax. We are not far at all from the €529.90 that AMD announced to French testers, which made sense.
Except that from the day of availability, Thursday November 7, the euro took on a shine, going to only 1.0795 dollars. Several potential buyers who were monitoring prices from FR resellers had the good idea to monitor AMD's official French store, where small quantities of CPUs, drop by drop, were offered on launch day. But these buyers did not fail to notice something: AMD was selling its processor for €535 and not €529.90. The reason, you will have understood: we update the conversion rate, a little touch of Casio College and presto: $479 has now become €532.47.
On November 12, AMD again increased the price of its Ryzen 7 9800X3D, now increasing it to €540 including tax. Yes, the euro had a difficult start to the week, now standing at a tiny $1.0616, which is the equivalent of €541.45 including tax for the king of gaming processors. We could have hoped that the routine would turn out, but it was not the case and this Thursday, November 21, the processor was even at €546, in response to the new fall in the euro that began the day before with 1.0546 dollars.
The very latest update of the “official” French price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is very fresh since it dates from yesterday, November 22, 2024. €552 including tax is its new price with us, after one euro which ends its working week at 1.0418 dollars, which gives €551.90 once conversion is made and tax applied. It stings!
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