Are CPU Prices Going Up in 2026? What Rose and What Didn't

Yes for new Intel server processors and for desktop chips that can use DDR4 memory. No for current AM5 Ryzen and for most used Xeons we sell. Three different prices moved in different directions: the maker’s list price, the street price in US stores, and the used price.

Each row is sourced in the sections below. Percentages are our arithmetic on the sources’ figures.

The list price is Intel’s Recommended Customer Price, which Intel calls pricing guidance, not a formal offer. The street price is what US stores charge for a new boxed chip. The used price is set by resellers like us and by how many servers are retired, not by Intel.

Intel raised the list price of its 4th- and 5th-gen Xeon Scalable and Xeon 6 P-core processors by 12.0%, the same on all eight models we checked, first seen on its price pages in April 2026, and of two Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop chips by $30–50. The 3rd-gen Gold 6338 and the Raptor Lake Core i5-14600K kept theirs.

Intel ARK “Recommended Customer Price”, read through Internet Archive captures on the dates shown. ARK calls it “pricing guidance only for Intel products”, “subject to change without notice.”

Tom’s Hardware reported the increases on July 3, 2026 under a headline saying select Xeons were “now over $1,000 more expensive.” In dollars, yes; in percent, 12%, on processors that now list for $10,209 to $13,955. An Intel spokesperson cited “rising supply chain costs and strong demand for our Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus processors,” in line with increases “for other Intel product families”; the dollar figures are the site’s reading of Intel’s price pages.

Those pages date the Xeon change earlier: the Platinum 8480+ showed $10,710 on January 15 and $11,995 on April 3. July 3 is when Intel confirmed it, which is how our August server price increases report logged it.

The rise starts from a cut. Intel’s 2025 annual report, filed January 23, 2026, says its server average prices fell 4% in 2025, partly on “pricing actions taken primarily during the first half of 2025.” The Xeon 6980P launched at $17,800 and is still 22% below that. In August 2025 Tom’s Hardware found the 6980P at US retailers for $5,836 to $6,190; we found no dated 2026 street prices for new Xeon 6 or EPYC, so whether street followed list up is unknown.

What Intel’s filings say: average price is not list price

Intel’s quarterly reports give average selling prices, which blend price changes with the mix of products sold. Its server average price rose 27%, 48% and 54% year on year in the first three quarters of 2026 (Q1, Q2, Q3 reports). For the second and third quarters Intel says the majority came from “a higher mix of premium products,” with “demand-based pricing actions contributing to a lesser extent, in part to offset higher input costs.” So 54% is not a 54% price rise. On the client side the order flipped in the third quarter: average price +9%, “primarily resulting from pricing actions.”

Intel’s CFO, David Zinsner, put it plainly on the July 23 call: some of the client increase was “our own like-for-like changes in ASPs where we thought we had seen some inflation on our cost and needed to pass that on to the end customer.” The shortages Intel names are substrates, memory and other components; its own Intel 3 costs “improved approximately 15% from Q1 levels,” he said on the October 29 call.

AMD has announced no list-price increase on any processor in 2026 that we could find. It says it passes “some” higher costs to server customers, and its average client processor price was flat to down. The AM4 price increase is a street-price effect: buyers chased DDR4 chips, old stock ran out, and AMD re-issued one cheaper.

Intel quarterly reports filed April 24, July 24 and October 30, 2026 (linked above); AMD quarterly reports filed May 6, August 5 and November 4, 2026. AMD does not report a server average price. Averages mix price and product mix.

On the May 5 call CEO Lisa Su said: “costs have gone up a bit, and we are, you know, sharing some of that with our customers … the majority of the growth is unit driven.” On November 3 she described server revenue growth as “mostly in units and core counts, and less so in ASPs.” AMD’s November report says its client average price fell 2% over nine months, on a mix shift that included “lower AMD Ryzen desktop processors sales.”

Two AMD figures circulate, both anonymous. Wccftech reported on April 22, 2026, relaying Taiwan’s Commercial Times and unnamed ODM sources, that AMD was rumored to raise server CPU prices twice this year, 16–17% in all. PC Games Hardware reported on September 17, via a chain starting at an anonymous WeChat channel, a roughly 10% increase from the fourth quarter on graphics chips, chipsets and accelerators, Ryzen desktop chips not named. AMD has confirmed neither.

The AM4 price increase

AM4 Ryzen chips got dearer in stores because DDR5 memory did: buyers moved to platforms that take DDR4, and old AM4 stock ran short. On Tom’s Hardware’s index the Ryzen 7 5800X went from $178 to $263 between October 6, 2025 and October 2, 2026, the 5700X from $169 to $194, and the 5700X3D and 5800X3D were out of stock on both dates. AMD went the other way: on June 1, 2026 it announced a re-release of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D for the following month at a recommended $349, $100 below its launch price, when, per Tom’s Hardware, resellers were asking as much as $800 for the original.

Headlines measured from record lows overstate it: Notebookcheck’s January 22, 2026 “72% higher” compared the 5700X’s May 2025 all-time low of $128 with about $220; the same index on two dates gives that chip +15%. One story did not happen: TechRadar Pro reported on February 26, 2026 that AM5 Ryzen 5 prices had doubled to about $400 on PCPartPicker. PCPartPicker’s own chart shows one listing at about $3,500 entering its average at that moment, while individual prices stayed at $150–250; the 7600X is $178 → $172 on Tom’s index.

Server processors cost more because AI data centers want more of them than Intel and AMD can build. Desktop chips moved for a different reason: DDR5 memory became so expensive that buyers fled to older DDR4 platforms. Tariffs are not part of it.

Supply. Intel’s 2025 annual report says supply limited its fourth-quarter server revenue, “primarily with respect to our Intel 7 and Intel 3 process nodes”; Intel 7 makes 3rd- to 5th-gen Xeon Scalable; on the January 22 call the CFO said Intel was “prioritizing our internal wafer supply to data center.” On October 29 CEO Lip-Bu Tan named three limits: Intel 3 yield, “an industry-wide shortage of advanced organic substrates” for packaging, and an October accident at Intel’s factory in Kiryat Gat, Israel, that halted production for about two weeks and “will impact our Q4 10-nanometer server shipments.” AMD says the same of its side: “the server CPU supply chain is tight right now” (August 4).

AI servers. TrendForce, an analyst firm, expects server CPU shipments to grow 31% in 2026 and more than 40% in 2027 (October 22), as AI agents shift the CPU-to-GPU ratio from the traditional 1:8 “toward 1:2—or even 1:1.” In January KeyBanc Capital Markets, an investment bank, said both makers had “largely sold out” of 2026 server CPU capacity and were “considering raising their prices by 10% to 15%,” as relayed by Investopedia on January 13. Intel’s 12% landed inside that range; AMD gave no number.

Memory. On the desktop, DDR5 prices are the cause (figures in our RAM prices report): Intel’s Robert Hallock told Tom’s Hardware on August 14 of “a sudden inrush of demand” for its DDR4-capable LGA1700 chips, “certainly not anticipated when you start your wafers.” Intel expects 2026 PC units to fall about 12%, which in our reading is why most desktop list prices stayed put.

Not tariffs. The January 2026 Section 232 chip tariff covers computers and parts in two narrow data-center bandwidth bands, and a boxed processor is classified under HTS 8542.31, which is not on that list and which the February Section 122 surcharge and the July 24 Section 301 duties exempt; our GPU prices report reads the same texts. The 178 China Section 301 product exclusions, due to expire on November 9, 2026, were extended through January 9, 2027 by a USTR notice filed that day; none we found covers a processor.

Tom’s Hardware’s CPU price index shows the split: from October 6, 2025 to October 2, 2026, Intel LGA1700 chips, which run with DDR4 or DDR5 depending on the board, and DDR4-only AMD AM4 chips rose 7% to 103% at the cheapest US store; current AM5 Ryzen moved −7% to +8%.

Tom’s describes its method: “Each week, we check the major U.S. online stores and update the tables below with the lowest price for each CPU, whether it’s on sale today or not.” That is one price per model, the cheapest new chip found. The weekly part did not hold: Internet Archive captures from November 2025 to June 2026 show the same table, dated October 6, 2025, so we compare it with the live version of October 2, 2026.

Tom’s Hardware CPU price index, “Best US Price” column: version dated October 6, 2025 (Internet Archive capture of November 4, 2025) and version dated October 2, 2026 (live page, read November 8, 2026). New boxed chips. The Ryzen 5 5600X ($159 in 2025), 5700X3D and 5800X3D were out of stock on the 2026 date.

The chips that rose most are the ones that can run on DDR4 memory; DDR5-only AM5 Ryzen parts held. Source: Tom’s Hardware CPU price index, lowest US price, versions dated October 6, 2025 and October 2, 2026.

A second tracker with a different method agrees. PCPartPicker’s price trends average a chip family across the retailers it tracks, Amazon excluded, so they shift with the model mix and stock-outs; we read the charts by eye on November 8, 2026. AM4 Ryzen 7 is up about 40% on November 2025 (a step in July coincides with the $349 5800X3D joining the family), Raptor Lake Core i5 about 20% above mid-2025, AM4 Ryzen 5 and AM5 Ryzen 5 (Zen 5) flat, and Core Ultra 7 about 10% higher since June.

The same or less than in September. Of the seven processors our Xeon generations guide priced on September 8 that are still on sale, two cost less as of November 8, 2026, five cost the same and none costs more. A 14-core Gold 6132 is $12.74.

PCSP catalog, single processors. September 8 as printed in our Xeon generations guide; November 8, 2026 live. The Gold 6132 was already $12.74 on October 12, when our price history starts.

Six of the seven comparable processors from the table above; none got dearer. Source: PCSP catalog, September 8 prices as printed in our Xeon generations article, November 8 live.

Our price history from October 12 to November 7, 2026 says the same: across more than 1,800 priced CPU listings and configurator CPU options, we cut 73 prices, raised 9 and left the rest unchanged. The 9 increases are four models in single and multi-pack form, all 2nd- and 3rd-gen parts we hold in small numbers: Silver 4215R ($99.99 → $174.99), Gold 6246R ($349.99 → $379.99), Gold 6246 ($74.99 → $89.99, then sold out) and Silver 4309Y ($369.00 → $379.99). These are our own pricing decisions, not a market index. The systems that carry these processors rose with memory: we raised 30 of our 94 DDR4 memory listings by 14–30% on October 20.

Another dealer’s asks mostly point the same way. Of 23 single CPUs that TechMikeNY, a refurbished-server reseller, listed on both September 4 and November 8, 2026, 10 were cheaper, 6 unchanged and 7 dearer, the larger rises on 2nd-gen Cascade Lake parts. One seller is not a market average.

The CPU is the cheap line in a used build

In a used server the processors are the small line. In our Dell PowerEdge R640 configurator as of November 8, 2026, two 18-core Gold 6140s add $19.78, while 64 GB of DDR4-2666 registered memory in two modules adds $511.98, 25.9 times as much, on a $487.68 chassis base.

PCSP Dell PowerEdge R640 10-bay build-your-own configurator, option prices as of November 8, 2026. Option price is what the configurator adds; the base covers the chassis.

Two 18-core processors cost less than a twentieth of 64 GB of memory at the speed grade they run. Source: PCSP R640 configurator, live prices November 8, 2026.

The same processor pairs, at the same prices, are options in our HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 configurator, and most of them in our Dell Precision T7820; in the R640 and DL380, 42 of 98 choices were in stock on November 8, from $15.98 to $2,339.98 a pair. The Precision T5820 and Lenovo P520 configurators offer a single Xeon W-2100, from the 4-core W-2123 at $14.99; the 8-core W-2145 is $131.99.

Nobody who would know gives a date. Intel expects the industry to stay supply-constrained “throughout 2027 and into 2028”; AMD expects 2027 server supply to be “better than 2026”; no maker or analyst we read forecasts lower CPU prices.

Intel and AMD call transcripts, Tom’s Hardware and TrendForce as linked in this article. Quotes are verbatim.

Launches and new capacity, with dates

On October 29 Intel said Clearwater Forest, its first 18A server chip, is “shipping for revenue” and Diamond Rapids is “sampling and on track to ramp in 2027”; its Intel 3 line in Oregon starts production in the second half of 2027, when its added substrate capacity also arrives. AMD began revenue shipments of EPYC Venice in the third quarter, with the first OEM systems due this quarter. A new generation usually pushes the previous one down; in 2026 memory decided which desktop chips buyers wanted, so that rule failed for DDR4 platforms.

What nobody knows

• When server supply catches up. Intel says into 2028, AMD says 2027 gets better.
• Whether Intel raises list prices again. DigiTimes says yes; Intel has not said.
• When DDR4-capable desktop chips come back down. Intel says they will “smooth out over time,” but the i5-13400F was still $234 on October 2, against $115 a year earlier.
• Where used Xeon prices go. That depends on how many servers are retired, which nobody publishes.

When the work needs fast single cores, current security updates from Intel, Windows 11 on an E5 machine, or DDR5-era features. Then a new desktop chip or a current-generation server is the right buy, even at 2026 prices.

PassMark CPU pages, read November 8, 2026; Intel “Support and Servicing for Processors”, re-read November 8, 2026; Microsoft’s list, re-read November 8, 2026.

Where a used Xeon is the right buy: many cores for little money, registered ECC memory, two sockets and plenty of PCIe lanes. At $12.74 a Gold 6132 costs $0.57 per 1,000 PassMark multithread points; a $172 Ryzen 5 7600X costs $6.09, before the board and memory. Per-core numbers by generation are in our Xeon generations guide; why single-thread speed decides modelling, in our CAD workstation guide. And the DDR4 advantage has narrowed, because used DDR4 server modules rose in 2026 too.

How much does a CPU cost in 2026?

It depends on the class. New desktop chips on Tom’s Hardware’s index on October 2, 2026: Ryzen 5 7600X $172, Core i5-14600K $239, Ryzen 7 9800X3D $444. New server processors list in the thousands: $2,990 for a 32-core Gold 6338, $13,955 for a Xeon 6980P. Used Xeons on our shelf start at $12.74 (November 8).

Is an Intel Xeon good for gaming?

Usually not. Most games lean on a few fast cores, and used Xeons are slow per core: on PassMark single-thread a Gold 6148 scores 2,068 against 4,127 for a Ryzen 5 7600X. Used Xeons in this price range score about 1,700 to 2,600, current desktop chips 4,100 to 4,900. Xeons are built for many parallel tasks and ECC memory.

Where can I buy a used CPU?

From a seller that names the exact model and its code (SR3J3 for a Gold 6132), gives a warranty and takes returns, whether a refurbished-parts reseller or a marketplace seller. Check the socket and the motherboard’s supported processor list first. We sell used Xeon processors with a 90-day warranty and 90-day returns with an RMA.

Does Intel still make Xeon processors?

Yes. Intel’s current server line is Xeon 6, and on its October 29, 2026 call it said Clearwater Forest, its first 18A server chip, is shipping for revenue and Diamond Rapids is sampling for a 2027 ramp. The 4th- and 5th-gen Xeon Scalable chips are still on Intel’s price list, 12% dearer than in 2025.

Did tariffs raise CPU prices in 2026?

No, by the texts. The January 2026 Section 232 chip tariff covers computers and parts in two narrow data-center bandwidth bands, and a boxed processor is classified under HTS 8542.31, which is not on that list and which the February 2026 Section 122 surcharge and the July 24, 2026 Section 301 duties exempt. Intel and AMD name demand, supply, and memory and substrate costs instead.