Amazon January CPU sales tank 51% year-over-year as high RAM and SSD prices kill budget desktop builds
TechEpiphany has released the January 2026 CPU sales data from Amazon US, showing that AMD remains undefeated in both total CPUs sold and the revenue generated. However, consumers seem to be holding off on upgrading, as there has been a massive 51% year-over-year decline in CPU sales. This signals that high RAM, SSD, and GPU prices, which have made budget gaming PC builds practically impossible, are taking their toll on the overall desktop market.
Looking at some numbers, AMD sold 23,050 Ryzen CPUs, accounting for 88.32% of total CPUs sold in January 2026 on Amazon. Intel reportedly only sold 3,050, a mere 11.68% share. Revenue was in line with units sold, as AMD earned $7,196,106.50 (88.57%), while Intel could only manage $929,583.00 (11.43%). The most popular CPUs were the AMD Zen 5 Ryzen 9000, followed by the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors, and the aging Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 chips.
High CPU, GPU, RAM, and SSD costs are driving consumers away
Based on TechEpiphany’s reporting, 3DCenter has put together a nice table showing the Amazon US CPU sales data from December 2024 to January 2026. There was an eye-opening 51% decline in CPU sales in January 2026 vs January 2025. In the same time period, Average Selling Price (ASP) jumped 34.4% from $227 in January 2025 to $305 in January 2026.
We also know that the price of consumer DDR5/DDR4 RAM has exploded over the past few months, and it is showing no signs of slowing down. Unfortunately, SSDs and GPUs have also followed suit. For instance, the 1 TB Kingston NV3 was retailing for just $53 back in May 2025 on Amazon, according to camelcamelcamel. The same SSD is now $170. Similarly, the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB has also seen a sharp price increase.
In other words, the 51% decline in CPU sales in January 2026 on Amazon can be directly linked to the rising prices of RAM, SSD, and GPUs. What use is a new, more powerful CPU when you can’t buy other critical components at reasonable prices?
We don’t know how much longer this dreadful market will continue. Intel is launching the next-gen Nova Lake CPUs, reportedly with absurd power limits, by the end of 2026. So, CPU sales could pick up, especially if memory, storage, and GPUs also get cheaper.
Source(s)
TechEpiphany on X, 3DCenter on X, camelcamel, Teaser image source: Intel, AMD, PabitraKaity on Pixabay, edited
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