There are two prices for the same exact item. What one is the correct price?

Hey, Bodasactra!

After some short digging, I think I've found the two SKUs you're referring to:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/647886/amd-ryzen-5-5600-vermeer-35ghz-6-core-am4-boxed-processor-wraith-stealth-cooler-included

https://www.microcenter.com/product/665979/amd-ryzen-5-5600-vermeer-35ghz-6-core-am4-oem-processor-heatsink-not-included

It looks to me that they're the exact same processor, the one that includes the cooler being priced at $129.99 and the one without the heatsink being $159.99. It looks to me that the one for $129.99 is marked on sale and the other one at $159.99 is at retail, which is why the price is lower. I would recommend just going for the first link, the less expensive one.

Hope this helps!

I do not have screenshots of the pricing before or after the sales (we might be able to use the Wayback Machine for archive data on that:https://archive.org/web/) however I do have access to the internal point of sales systems and I can see all previous prices. The 5600X3D had zero bearing on pricing across the product stack. If you have a sales ad or a picture of the CPU price on a specific date, I can investigate this for you (especially if it was a deal limited to your local store), but I've found nothing on my end that would suggest any price changes that correspond solely with the launch of the 5600X3D.

As for the 5600 OEM being a "chance of fate", I wouldn't give fate too much credit here. Sales end at midnight EST (9PM Pacific for our Tustin store), the same time product pages are updated on our website. New products appearing the same time as sales end is extremely common based on the update flow for our servers. As for MSRP vs sales pricing, it's always going to change based on the manufacturer (in this case, AMD) and our commitment to having the cheapest processor pricing will further reduce that price. This is why as of writing this, we still have the lowest processor prices on the market. If other retailers have a sale to beat our prices, we price match.

I don't believe I fully understand the benefits behind raising the prices of the 5000 series to sell more 5600X3Ds. There are several mitigating factors here that would prevent us from doing so.

1. Shelf space. Why would we want to raise the prices of an entire product series just to sell one very specific, niche processor if it is going to force us to hold on to older inventory? As a business, we want to sell our inventory, not hold on to it. The 5600X3D will sell itself to collectors and small form factor enthusiasts, it doesn't need market manipulation to aid in that endeavor.
2. Price to performance. We can't raise the prices of lower-end processors to sell a faster processor. If the price to performance is off, customers simply won't buy them. My previous chart already showed the 5600X to be a better price to performance value over the 5600X3D, the standard 5600 would be an even greater value. We are not hiding this, and our current pricing still reflects this.
3. Market. "In a free economy, the market regulates itself". This is a very true statement and by far the biggest reason why it would be impossible for us to manipulate the 5000 series pricing. If we raised the pricing of our 5000 series products to accommodate the 5600X3D launch, customers would shop elsewhere for cheaper processors. The market keeps itself in check by preventing any one retailer from going insane on pricing for the sake of profit. It's bad business in general and it's why you do not see it often. Sacrificing sales on an entire product lineup just to sell one SKU is just silly from a business perspective.

As for our competitors selling below MSRP, that is again true, and plays back to what I referenced in my previous point (#3). If our pricing keeps theirs low, it means the inverse is equally true, they keep our pricing low. I disagree that speaking in the context of MSRP is disingenuous simply because all "sales" are relative to MSRP, however I will concede that MSRP as a concept is meaningless. After all, it's Manufacturer Suggested Retail Pricing and a suggestion is not a requirement. This means retailers are free to price above and below MSRP based on the supply & demand of the market. You've likely seen the biggest example of this occur during the GPU shortages a few years back. Still, there are limits to how low we can go, and how long we are allowed to do so. I do not know if I am allowed to speak in great detail on this, but the short of it is that it prevents one retailer from pricing so extremely low that it impacts other businesses. Otherwise, all mom & pop stores would be destroyed in the market by massive retail chains. This is known as predatory pricing: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/predatory-or-below-cost-pricing.

As for our single day sales, they are often designed to get rid of what we call "non-stock" SKUs or SKUs that are being phased out entirely. They are often accompanied by a tag on our email blast in the title stating "24 hours only". I know this is an extreme bummer for customers that live a bit away from their local Micro Center stores, however we do have a reservation system and said system does hold pricing for up to 72 hours. This means if you reserve the item on the day the sale ends, you are still going to get the sale price as long as you show up within 72 hours.

As for the discussion on the GPU sales pricing, this is always going to be a point of contention. I personally didn't buy a GPU during that time (GPU pricing was insane across the entire market and we don't get discounts on GPUs as employees) and having a job made it impossible for me to stand in line for the unique deals/reservations without taking a vacation day and gambling on the chance to get one. Still, this plays back to my previous point #3. The market will ultimately dictate pricing based on supply & demand. As unbelievable as it sounds, we paid well above MSRP for those cards just to carry them in-store. I wager all retailers did. The only cards that were not sold above MSRP were the Founders Edition cards, but we simply couldn't get our hands on them, especially during that time. You may see it as scalping, but I can promise you nobody in the company wanted those cards priced that high. It ate into the rest of our component sales and caused a significant imbalance in our inventory. People having to pay 2x-3x the price for a GPU meant they couldn't afford a new processor or monitor to go with it. This is far from ideal as it leaves you holding the bag when new products come out and nobody no longer wants last-gen. Still, sorry to hear about your GPU, I was fortunate enough to have a faster last-gen GPU to hold me over during that time.

On the subject of anti-competitive or anti-consumer behavior, it's difficult for me to speak given my position as I will always be perceived as biased. That said, I am a Micro Center customer as well (I shopped at the store long before working here) and I respectfully disagree on the anti-competitive/anti-consumer views. I just haven't seen any evidence of this occurring. Even if we use the insane GPU prices during the 2019-2020 shortages, the entire market was in chaos. I've touched upon it back then and I still firmly stand behind what I said back then too:

Had we sold cards at their original MSRP despite paying significantly more for them, we probably wouldn't be here having this conversation. Using the Wayback machine provided earlier, we can see what manufacturer pricing looked like during that shortage: https://web.archive.org/web/20220130221949/https://www.zotacstore.com/us/graphics-cards/geforce-rtx-30-series. Again, nobody wanted those prices. Not the retailers, not the customers.

At the end of the day, I have genuine faith in the practices of this company. If I didn't, I wouldn't be working here. I also believe in speaking with people directly on these subjects rather than ignore them or delete the threads. Genuine concerns must be met with genuine discussion, period. There is a fourth mitigating factor that keeps a business honest that I didn't elude to earlier and that is the customer. We take no offense when customers point out the mistakes we make. In fact, we actively encourage it. Some of the best product improvements we've made to our PowerSpec systems came directly from customer feedback. The same goes for some of our in-store practices. If we ignore the customer, they will go elsewhere and we will ultimately fail. This is why I stand by my offer to look into this issue further because if something did occur, it means there is an opportunity to improve.

Apologies for the massive wall of text. There was a lot to discuss here. Still, thank you for taking the time to share your concerns and to have a conversation. We need more of this around here.

I can guarantee you COVID had a significant impact on all GPU pricing. Not just for our company, across the entire industry. It doesn't help that there was a silica shortage that coincided with the pandemic. Material shortage coupled with shutdowns across shipping logistic centers are a recipe for disaster no matter how you slice it. You don't need to take my word for it either, this is all documented across various news sources: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-out-of-sand (November of 2019), https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/05/sand-shortage-the-world-is-running-out-of-a-crucial-commodity.html (March of 2021)

A GPU being in-stock before COVID does not mean it did not sell and was replaced by a card that was marked up by the vendor. There are threads all over the internet showing bare shelves at our stores, GPUs sold very quickly. Keep in mind, this was with a 1 per household limit in-place that was enforced within the POS system and it still wasn't enough to stave off demand to keep enough supply.

I can also assure you that Microcenter did not scalp customers. By definition alone (as defined by Oxford):

We can ignore the historical definition entirely. If we look at the second definition and replace shares/tickets with products, it would only be true if they were sold for either a large or quick profit. Even with the markup, we sold these GPUs near cost. As I demonstrated in my previous post, vendors marked their cards up not just for customers, but for retailers as well to stave off demand because they simply couldn't produce enough cards to keep up with demand. It certainly didn't help that cryptomining was big at the time too.

I said it before and I will say it again, nobody wanted those GPU prices to be that high. Even if you ignore our altruistic endeavors entirely and look at it from a business perspective, it makes zero sense to intentionally scalp GPU prices just so the rest of our inventory can rot and eventually get marked down below cost because new hardware is released. You don't find it odd that every single retailer had similar pricing during the shortages and pandemic? Do you think every single retailer across the entire world got on a conference call and agreed to raise prices worldwide? If so, why would we stop at GPUs? We just don't have that kind of power. When a vendor tells us "This is what you are paying and this is the pricing window you must abide by", we have to listen, period.

The truth is, we didn't scalp anyone. As unfortunate as it was, we were at the mercy of the market, just like every other retailer. I don't like defending our competition (they are big companies, they can handle themselves) but it's the simple truth.

As always, I welcome open discussions on any subject here. I also appreciate you remaining professional throughout the conversation, it means a lot.

We will likely need to move beyond the GPU issue as I doubt either of us are going to concede this point. I've provided significant evidence for the silica shortages, pandemic issues as well as proof of vendor pricing. There isn't much more I can do beyond this so we can leave it at that.

As for the product descriptions being x16 vs x8, this is something I can personally take responsibility for as I made the decision to keep them listed as x16. In fact, I was the same person that had this conversation with you back then as well. https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/10200/rx6600-and-6600xt-are-limited-to-8-pcie-lanes-not-16-should-specs-description-show-this-fixed. I still stand behind this decision for the points outlined in that thread. If you have suggestions on how to better convey the physical interface vs electrical wiring, I am willing to bring this to the web team and better clarify the product selection going forward.

I get your frustrations, I genuinely do, I just do not share your belief that there is malice or intentional deceit behind these decisions. I do however share your belief that there is always room to improve. It's exactly why I am willing to have these discussions and to take the feedback we are given. I want people to feel like they can bring any question or concern here, no matter what they are, and that they will walk away with an honest answer. Granted, I might not have all of the answers myself, but in those situations I'll find the ones that do and circle back when necessary.

Not entirely sure I understand the question regarding the biggest room at Micro Center, but I do appreciate your kind words.