AMD CEO talks sacrificing budget-friendly CPUs in favor of making high-end chips

AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • AMD CEO Lisu Su recently discussed how the global chip shortage affected lower-end CPUs.
  • Su says that AMD has prioritized high-end CPUs during the shortage.
  • Prioritizing high-end chips left some segments "under serviced," according to Su.

AMD CEO Lisu SU recently discussed the global chip shortage and decisions that the company made to try to meet the demands of customers. During the shortage, Su admitted that AMD has prioritized high-end SKUs, such as the Ryzen 5000 series at the expense of lower end tech. Su's comments came at a JPMorgan conference yesterday (via Seeking Alpha).

"When we think about prioritization, it's around ensuring that we are giving our customers sort of what they need to advance their product lines and their product objectives," explained Su when asked about the high demand for computing tech.

Su continued, "Here is some compute that we're leaving under serviced ... if you look at some of the segments in the PC market, sort of the lower end of the PC market, we have prioritized some of the higher-end commercial SKUs and gaming SKUS and those kinds of things."

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AMD prioritized higher-end CPUs to meet the demands of customers. Su explained that at the moment, supply chains focus on delivering what end customers want, not filling up shelves.

The global chip shortage has made it difficult to purchase both CPUs and GPUs from both the high-end and low-end. As a result, anyone that wants to build their own PC struggles to do so at a budget.

Several companies and governments, including the U.S., China, and South Korea, have laid out plans to address the global chip shortage, but it will take time for those efforts to yield fruit.

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Sean Endicott
News Writer

Sean Endicott is a News Writer at Windows Central, where he covers Windows 11, Surface hardware, Microsoft 365, AI, apps, and the broader PC ecosystem. Since joining the site in 2017, he has written well over a thousand articles across the Microsoft landscape, covering breaking news, analysis, and feature reporting.

He writes Windows Wrap, a weekly column covering the biggest stories in Windows and the PC industry, and what they mean for the platform going forward.

Before joining Windows Central full-time, Sean worked in journalism and media production after earning a First Class degree in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University. Outside of tech, he is an award-winning American football coach based in Nottingham, England, and was named BAFCA Youth Coach of the Year in 2024.