Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today’s Dealmaster is headlined by a nice price on AMD’s Ryzen 9 3900X desktop CPU, which is currently down to $410 at various retailers. This processor originally retailed for $499, but its price has steadily fallen since its release last year and has averaged around the $435 range in recent months. AMD currently sells the CPU direct for $449. Regardless, while there’s been a few lower in-store only deals at Micro Center, this is the lowest price we’ve seen for the Ryzen 9 3900X online since launch.

If the price didn’t give it away, the Ryzen 9 3900X is a decidedly high-end CPU. The Zen 2-based processor has 12 cores split into 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.8GHz and a boost clock up to 4.6GHz. Compatibility with AMD’s AM4 socket means it should have no problem fitting into most Ryzen motherboards on the market (albeit with a BIOS upgrade flashing in many cases). Since it supports the new high-bandwidth PCIe 4.0 standard, it also has a reassuring level of future-proofing for upcoming graphics cards and SSDs. The CPU comes bundled with AMD’s solid Wraith Prism cooler, too, which furthers the value.

That’s a lot of terms, but the short version is that the Ryzen 9 3900X is a very powerful processor, especially for consumers who plan to take on video editing, 3D rendering, and other multi-threaded workloads. It is a slight step behind comparable Intel CPUs when it comes to gaming and single-core performance, though, and if you’re building an AMD-based PC and are mainly focused on higher-end gaming, AMD’s Ryzen 7 3700X would be the better value for now. That CPU also consumes much less power, with a TDP of 65W versus the Ryzen 9 3900X’s 105W.