One of the big problems that have always plagued AMD is the issue of launch day stock. Past launches like Llano and even Polaris had big issues of having enough stock to keep up with demand. This hurt the company’s finances as it meant some customers couldn’t wait and went to their competitors instead. Despite some solid preparation, it seems like the same scenario is playing out again with the Ryzen launch.
Shortly after launching yesterday, Ryzen processors started to run out of stock at several retailers. Major ones included Amazon, Fry’s, Newegg and Best Buy all being unable to keep up with demand. In some cases, the entire Ryzen 7 lineup, the 1800X, 1700X and 1700 were all sold out completely. The lack of stock was already apparent with pre-orders but some of that could be explained by limited pre-order stock and not total stock. There is also the question of regional and retailer stock distribution as well.
Despite preparing 1 million Ryzen processors for launch, it looks like the demand has taken even AMD by surprise. This just goes to show how much pent-up demand there really is for reasonably priced high-performance processors. According to the source, more Ryzen processors are expected to arrive on March 10th so it will be interesting to see if this second batch also sells out as well.
