Thats nonesense. Noone is dictating margins to retailers, they choose theirself. Our cpu margin is usually 11-12% for lowend skus, 9% for mid cpus and goes as low as 7% for gigher end cpus. Synced data (price/stock) daily from distributors, margin % is fixed once put in shop catalog.
PS: We do 40% only on cables, real hardwave 16% max on psus, to thats another nonesense
As along time AMD user AMD and more AMD MB makers, have priced themselves out of competition IMO. Zen 4 needs much better coolers, MB's even B650(E) are ridiculously overpriced, DDR5 is still too dear and AMD has no low end parts. I think they'll get crushed in sales. At least Intel users can use Raptor Lake in current Alder Lake MB's. AMD will have no choice but the cut pricing IMO and I'll bet they were shocked at the Raptor Lake prices given all the constant media headlines they were going up 15-20%. It may be enough for me to go Intel this time.
Well, it's hard to comment on Raptor Lake's prices, but there's some limited evidence on Zen 4 coming from Mindfactory, sales for the 7600X are particularly poor at 70 with the CPU still in stock. Mind you, here in Europe the Zen 4 CPUs have become even more expensive because of the falling Euro exchange rate, so it's hard to say whether sales are similar in the US.
Intel launched the 13th gen Raptor Lake chips recently at prices that compete very favorably with the AMD Zen 4 CPUs. Serial leaker Tom from the Moore's Law is Dead YouTube channel alleges that the Raptor Lake CPUs have significantly reduced profit margins for the retailers than the Zen 4 chips, allowing Intel to price the processors as it did.